Announcement: New Blog Name!

Since we’re 16 months into what I originally called the ‘Farm for a Year’ project, I figure it’s about time I graduate this blog (and project) to a new title: Farm For Life.

I chose this name for a few reasons:

It seems like a natural and easy transition to move from ‘Farm for a Year’ to ‘Farm for Life’.
The experiences of the past 16 months have made me realize that I (and I think the others on the farm feel the same for themselves too) want to continue incorporating the skills, values and ideologies learned and adopted here into my future, no matter where I live or how much land I have.
Farming for life doesn’t just represent a timeline – it represents the kind of farming that infuses LIFE into our environment, our bodies and our community. We are trying to farm in a way that puts life back into the soil that industrial farming has abused, that enhances ecosystems and sees the return of increased biodiversity, that grows healthy, organic, pesticide & GMO-free food to feed ourselves and our community members, that takes away food ownership from profit-driven corporations and puts it back into our own hands, and that renews our own spirits, connecting us spiritually with the earth and all living things on it.

I’ve registered a new domain name for this website. The new address is www.thefarmforlifeproject.com, but for the ease of regular visitors, the original www.farmforayear.com will continue to bring you here as well.

Get regular photos & updates at The Farm for Life Project Facebook page and follow farm and other food justice news on my twitter feed.

PS – I’m exploring ideas for a different website design that will be better suited to hold more of the information I want to make available here. Hope you’re not too attached to this look. Stay tuned!

Vancouver Urban Farming Forum resources

This weekend’s Vancouver Urban Farming Forum starts tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to attending it. Thoughtful discourse and solutions-based discussions on the topic of food security at a local level are SO important right now. The current industrial, global food system is completely unsustainable and unhealthy for the planet and all living things on it. It’s time for people to regain control of their food and find empowerment and fulfillment while doing so. The fact that urban farming discussions are taking place in cities around the world (in partnership between the grassroots and municiple levels) indicates an acknowledged need for change and a desire to explore new ideas (and return to some ideas of the past that were – and still are being – bulldozed over by the big business agriculture industry). This is an exciting thing!

In advance of this weekend’s forum, attendees have been receiving ‘homework’: background information about the topics to be covered as well as other interesting urban farming information. I thought I’d post the links here for others to find because it all looks really interesting. Enjoy!

Victoria:

City Council Urban Agriculture Motion – see pg. 5 (March 2007)
Committee of the Whole Report recommending Urban Farming as a Home-based business (September 2008)
Home-based business bylaw 80-159, Schedule D listing allowed home occupations
Times Colonist article, October 4, 2008

Lantzville (oh, where to start?!):

Lantzville shuts down Dirk Becker’s urban farm (November 1010)
Message from Mayor Haime re: Urban Agriculture (March 2011)
Group struggles to implement urban agriculture in Lantzville, BC. (April 2011)
Urban farmer digs in over Lantzville ban (July 2011)
Lantzville urban garden meeting features criticism (August 2011)
District of Lantzville Bylaw No. 60.23

Seattle:

2010: The Year of Urban Agriculture (February 2010)
Proposed Urban Agriculture Code Changes Released (April 2010)
Seattle Legalizes Urban Farms, Denies Roosters (August 2010)
Seattle City Council approves urban farm and community garden legislation improving access to locally grown food (Sept 2010)
Seattle Ordinance 123378
Paper: Urban Agriculture in Seattle: Policy & Barriers
https://www.urbanfarmhub.org/

San Francisco:

Urban Farming for Cash Gains a Toehold in San Francisco (August 2010)
Legalize Urban Produce, Says San Francisco Mayor (Dec 2010)
Urban Farming Gets Green Light in SF (April 2011)
Video: Mayor Edwin M. Lee Signs Landmark Urban Agriculture Legislation
San Francisco Ordinance No. 66-11

Vancouver:

Advancing Urban Farming in Vancouver (November 2011)
January 2011 Urban Farmer Brainstorm Meeting Summary
Greenest City in the World – Local Food Action Plan
The Dependent – Planting the Seeds of a Food Revolution (2011)
Urban Farming in Vancouver – Sharla Stolhandske (Spring 2011)
Foodshed Vancouver – envisioning a sustainable foodshed for Greater Vancouver – James Richardson (2010)
Growing Space: The potential for urban agriculture in the city of Vancouver – Terra Kaethler (2006)
Assessing the pocket market model for growing the local food movement: A case study of Metropolitan Vancouver (Terri Evans and Christiana Miewald (2011)
Some relevant Vancouver bylaws and stuff:

Provincial:

Other:

Farming Inside Cities: Entrepreneurial Urban Agriculture in the United Statesby Jerry Kaufman and Martin Bailkey (2000)

A small (but active) corner of the farm

We live on 2.5 acres of land. There is still a lot of it that we haven’t touched so it feels like we have a lot of space, especially since we’re doing a decent job of making the most of the space we use. This photo is a really good example of that. I think I took it in September and forgot about it until I came across it on my computer today.

I love this photo for a few reasons: 1) it’s a good reminder of what we’ve accomplished so far, 2) it’s a hopeful reminder of the growth that will return after this winter season passes, and 3) it captures an aspect of the kind of farming we’re pursuing.

As mentioned numerous time on this blog already, we’re trying to grow our own food in a way that works with nature and not against it. We’re trying to reuse the stuff we already have and incorporate our ‘waste’ by recycling it into our food system. We’re also trying to produce and grow things in a way that enhances our soil quality and the natural biodiversity on the farm.

This is an image of the north side of our barn. It includes our three-tiered composting system for our food scraps and natural compostable materials found on the farm. Above the composting system we house rabbits who provide meat to the meat eaters on the farm and whose manure falls through the bottom of their cages, enhancing our compost. Gutters between the barn and the rabbit hutch capture rain water and deliver it to a rain barrel (not pictured) and a small garden area grows food for us.

The garden shown in the photo began as a soggy, wet, shaded patch of earth when we first built the composting system. Using mulching techniques, we created a growing space, enhanced the soil with nitrogen fixing plants (comfrey) and grew jerusalem artichokes, beans, pumpkins and nasturtiums.

What was once an unused side of the barn has become a space teaming with life. A happy transformation!