ASK Salt Spring – ALL ABOUT FOOD
March 2024

With over 20 participants, the ASK Salt Spring meeting on “All About Food” got underway at 11:00 AM at the SIMs Board Room. This week’s moderator was Sheila Dobie, Co-Chair of the Salt Spring Island’s Farmland Trust.

Guest speakers included Jon Cooksey, a Board member of the SSI Farmland Trust, Pam Tarr, Advocacy Lead with Transition Salt Spring (TSS), and Jason Roy Allen, Co-owner of the Hen and Hound Brasserie and incoming President of the Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to local producers, food security advocates and interested citizens, in attendance were CRD Director Gary Holman, Local Community Commission (LCC) member Brian Webster, Island Community Services Executive Director Rob Grant, Damian Inwood with CHiR FM, and Natasha Kong, TSS Communications Lead.

After the introductions, Sheila gave the territorial acknowledgement based on a poem written by Victoria, BC, poet Zoe Dickinson.

Jon Cooksey spoke about the Salt Spring Island Food Summit held in November 2023. Highlights of the Food Summit were; the attendance of 6 First Nations representatives, including keynote speaker Maiya Modeste, great food, and small group discussions that connected people from many different food-related sectors, including housing, water, energy, governance.The event gave rise to several working groups, including the 50 Farms project – a farm/ food security and emergency preparatory initiative – along with broader support for the Grow Local initiative, indigenous collaboration on food security and sovereignty, and links to small businesses/ restaurants and farmers. In addition, an ad hoc regional group formed after the Summit, which has been discussing a range of food security topics.

Pam Tarr noted she’s part of the Business of Food group that came out of the Summit, and is connecting that to her work with TSS, which has a deep focus on food and food security. Pam noted that that SSI was a major food producer/exporter in the past and can be so again, though many issues will need to be addressed to get us there.

Jason Roy-Allen, who leads the Business of Food group, came out of the Summit aiming to better connect farms to local businesses, particularly restaurants. This led to working with a local farmer with a hydroponic greenhouse who’s growing 500-700 heads of lettuce weekly, all of which are now going to local restaurants and grocery stores. Jason is continuing this work with Grow Local to connect more of our farmers to the restaurant market, because there is not enough supply to meet the $2 million purchasing potential. His aim is to use this demand to build up Salt Spring’s year-round food production.

Sheila Dobie then described the 50 Farms project, which envisions creating a cooperative network of farms
strategically located so that every Salt Springer has a food source within walking distance, with CSA programs that could each feed 50 families. This would be based on the Emergency POD system map, with the goal of making sure everyone is fed (year-round) in an emergency situation. The project has received a major grant from Investment Agriculture Foundation, for 2 years of staff to identify 10 farms for a pilot project, and determine exactly what we need to do to realise this vision for the whole island. The work will be done in partnership with the CRD’s Emergency Preparedness program.

Sheila noted that the Echo Valley project on Beaver Point Road is an Emergency POD that has taken on this kind of model successfully.

Rob Grant was then invited to speak about the Programs offered by Island Community Services (ICS). Through its food bank and other programs, ICS works to get food to the tables of those that need it, distribution being the main bottleneck. Locally-grown produce is preferred, but affordability is an issue, so they still need source food off island, in addition to food recovered from local grocers. ICS also runs its own Harvest Farm, at the Burgoyne Valley Community Farm (BVCF, held by the SSI Farmland Trust), and has purchased 11 acres by Brinkworthy with the intention of having 5 acres devoted to food production.

Next we moved on to questions!

Eco Drum composter update?
The work permit and structure for the eco drum has been secured; the composter will be dealing with abattoir and grocery store waste. The Abattoir Society – who will be operating the facility - hope to have the unit operational by June, when it will begin to test the ratio of material for the best results. This project has been supported by the CRD Clean BC grant. It is located at the BVCF.

The Root food hub update?
The Root (the Island’s food hub); stewarded by the SSI Farmland Trust (FLT), is almost at full capacity with 4 rental tenants; but still has space still available in the week for kitchen rentals. Water at this facility is still being trucked in while the FLT negotiates easements and logistics for a water line. Supporters of the Root have included the Salt Spring Island Foundation, CRD, many private donors from the community, Victoria Foundation and Provincial and Federal Grants.

Questions and discussion about the high cost of local food:
SSI is lucky to have farm stands and farmer’s markets for direct purchase of local food, but the cost of local produce is too high for low income people. Why is this?

Discussion:
Prices for local food are dictated by the cost of labour, diesel fuel, and land. Many large farms on the island are selling their produce at cost, which is not sustainable unless they’re subsidized by other parts of their business. SSI farms aren’t suited for the large mechanical systems used elsewhere in the world to keep costs artificially low. In contrast, our imported food is being mass produced around the world using heavy chemical inputs with near or full-fledged slave labour and subsidized costs.

The reality is that a century ago people spent twice the percentage of their income on food than they do today, at the same time that most of us stopped growing some of our own food. We’re now accustomed to paying a dollar for romaine lettuce with the invisible environmental and social costs, but if we don’t invest in local food, it won’t be there when imported food becomes less available, or rises in cost because of the global crop failures already in progress.

So … How do we help people feel okay about the real costs of food and support our local growers?
We discussed the importance of developing relationships with our local growers, which increases our awareness of the higher nutritional value of local food – reducing other expenses for health care – and building community. That said, we do need programs (like the coupon program at farmer’s markets - more information on this at the end) that support low income folks, who tend to eat less nutritious food because it’s cheaper. As a result, ICS has set a benchmark that 30% of the food in this program be grown or packaged in BC. It’s a start, but still expensive for these programs.

Participant comments: The value of local food production goes beyond the food itself as well; allows people to get to know each other, whereas globalization of food production has disconnected people from how (and by whom) their food is produced. Cheap chocolate, for instance, is produced by child slave labour in Africa but people don’t know that. We discussed – related to the cost of food – the moral decisions we make in our food choices and the power of boycotts. Another participant reminded us about the cycle of eating seasonal food, and the anticipation that came with that.

We also looked at not only the cost of food but the need to get the food out fast when two parents are working. Some amazing chefs on the SSI have initiatives that are inspiring young families to use local produce in dishes that can be put together quickly. The We Are What We Eat (WAWWE) project also aims to feed 1,500 families with healthy vegan food, delivered to homes, starting in 2025.

Noted that the “Extremely Local” on foods at Country Grocer means it was grown on SSI, where “Local” just means grown in BC.

Questions about waste recovery of food:
The SSI Farmland Trust will be implementing a gleaning program for the 2024 season – this is food recovery from existing orchards and other food sources, as requested by landowners, with support for harvesting and processing of unwanted food. The gleaned food is sold or given away to support the community. This is a fun volunteer opportunity with possible benefits of recovered food in exchange for the work! Contact Shannon for a connection to the program.

In addition, our local grocers (Thrifty’s and Country Grocer) have arrangements with Harvest Farm and ICS do recover food that would ordinarily be thrown out, but the process is labour intensive and time sensitive, so not all the food can be recovered. ICS could use volunteers in this area! Additionally, some farmers collect food waste from the grocers for worm composting and animal feed.

Questions and discussion about Food and Housing
What can we do about the high cost of housing – and the lack of housing – when we need to house our farmers and farm workers?

SSI has a complicated system with the CRD, Islands Trust and the Agricultural Land Commision (ALC, for ALR land) all having overlapping jurisdiction. In cases where there’s a lack of clarity or coordination, or outright conflict between regulations and enforcement levels, farmers can and do get caught in the middle. The “Rooster Wars” are an example of a situation where our complaint-driven enforcement system militates against supporting food producers and achieving food security. We are a rural island community and our supply lines are increasingly shaky – we need to increase our food production, not suppress it.

Gary Holman responded that ALR land has greater flexibility than normal residence lots with respect to secondary residential structures that is of some benefit to farmers. The Housing Now program funded by the tourism sector produces a 2% tax paid by visitors which the LCC has committed to allocating 50% to housing. This program is in early days on Salt Spring – the
Southern Gulf Islands have got a head start – see this link for the Pender Island model.

Brian Webster ( LCC Commissioner and farmer) added that with land in the ALR, worker housing can be approved, mainly dormitory style – this is already in the rules. There are some additional options that haven’t been pursued a lot on SSI that could be looked at.

Questions about “land-matching” - matching new farmers with land:
Also known as “Land Linking” - this program involves getting more land into production by matching prospective farmers with landowners who can’t or don’t want to farm their own land. The SSI Farmland Trust is working with Young Agrarians to build on this program here on SSI, and the 50 Farms project also has elements, of it, such as identifying available unused farmland that could be linked to an available farmer.

As is true all over North America, our farmers ageing out, their own children often aren’t interested in farming, and there’s a scarcity of young people who have the skills and capital to start their own farms. Land-matching is one way to solve this problem, thought there are very human obstacles to forming and maintaining those kinds of relationships. Young Agrarians can assist with these relationships. Contact the Farmland Trust if you’re interested!

Final comments:

Gary Holman reiterated CRD’s support for food security. CRD has supported the SSI Farmland Trust extensively, including the Grow Local project. CRD has started using gas tax to help with farm infrastructure (e.g. $100K to composter at Burgoyne); and aims to directly fund projects (affordable housing, food security) through the lens of economic development services. The emergency POD program is also CRD funded.

Thanks to all for this rich and valuable conversation – and thanks to those that attended. A recap of some of the highlights can be heard in the podcast interview with Jon Cooksey of the Farmland Trust on the CHIR.FM website.

There will not be an ASK SS on March 29th as it is Good Friday and the SIMS building will not be open.

Information on Salt Spring’s coupon program
Per Rob Grant, this is a program that Island Community Services (ICS) administers; the Farmers Market Coupon program is supported by the provincial government and linked to specific farmers markets. SSI got involved in this and is one of the few communities in the province to raise other funds to augment the government allotment; more than doubling what is received from the province. There are 50-60 people on the programme and it has a waiting list. Coupon allocation is handled by the coordinator of the food bank; People apply to the program with income assessments for the demonstration of need.It is non-stigmatizing as recipients can determine how, when and where ( farmers markets only) they want to use the coupons.

Ideas emerged on how this program could be expanded to allow purchasing in places other than farmers markets, i.e., could these be used in food shops and farmstands open year round? A farmers’ co-op network could also be built from this; where everyone could use the coupons, not just low-income folks, to strengthen the demand for local food. But the BC Association of Farmers Market administers the coupon program, and it would be administratively complicated with some stores that are selling non-local foods.

Noted by a farmer - there are people who would not come to the Tuesday farmer market if the coupon program did not exist. The coupons can only be used at the market and only for SSI grown produce. This is a win-win program so let’s all lobby our province to increase the funding for this program.