b Food milesb for thought by Alan Coxwell 01.06.05 b Food milesb was a term I had not encountered until the first week of 2005. What it refers to is how many miles that food on our tables has travelled in order for us to enjoy it and gain the nourishment it contains. Here in Canada, in what appears to be a global-warming-era January, we have no trouble enjoying South American bananas, Hawaiian pineapple and Florida oranges for breakfast; Pacific salmon with fresh California veggie salad for lunch; spuds from Prince Edward Island with our Alberta beef and Mexican pinto beans for dinner. Their miles in the back of a diesel-powered tractor trailer certainly do add up when one thinks about it b&. Please pass that bottle of fine French wine if you would be so kind. Thinking about b food miles,b along with indiscriminate use of pesticides and herbicides in the second half of the last century, coupled with the flat taste of highly fertilized foods, spawned an encouraging movement across Canada. Believe it or not, leaders in the community gardening movement reside in downtown Montreal. Because of the depressed economic situation in Montreal during the 1980s and 1990s plots of vacant land in the downtown area were claimed by gardeners. In fact, some of the early vacant lot reclamationists, who started out as b gardening guerrillasb in the 1970s, worked fallow land along railway tracks and under electric power lines. Most of these gardeners were Italian and Portuguese immigrants who brought their way of life with them to Canada. In 1974 Montrealbs mayor, Pierre Bourque, formerly a horticulturalist with the citybs parks department, was looking for ways to revitalize vacant city lots. He met with the gardening guerrillas. The first gardens were officially set up in low-income, highly urbanized areas. Today Montreal has 97 gardens with 8,200 individual allotments involving 14,000 citizens. Two-thirds of the gardens are now zoned as parks which protects them from being buried under building developments in the future. People involved in these gardens have found a new community within their city. They describe their gardens as green oasis of tranquility where they can go to relax. Stress peels away from gardeners as they dig in the soil, water and watch their plants grow from week to week. Perhaps more important than the produce is a new sharing with their neighbours. Food in some projects called Grow-a-Row is earmarked for donation to food banks. Meals together, sharing their home grown fruits and vegetables, is a highlight for many and a youth garden with 440 plots is used to teach gardening to nine- to 14-year-olds. Who can think of anything with more positive outcomes? So, as you settle into a comfy chair by the fire one winter night to sink your eyes into the new 2005 seed catalogues which have just arrived in the mail consider the above and make a retroactive resolution. b Fewer food milesb finer food.b
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