Flip of the Coyne

Save Bill C-474 on April 14! Your new action can stop the biotech industry from defeating this Bill!

Dear Spencer,

Your actions are making a huge difference. The biotech industry has launched a heavy lobbying campaign to stop Bill C-474. Despite this industry pressure, the Liberals spoke in favour of Bill C-474 tonight – but their voice was not strong enough to drown out Conservative opposition, yet. The Conservatives voted against the Bill, but Bill C-474 is not dead yet. The official vote on Bill C-474 will happen on April 14!

Bill C-474 would require that “an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.” The Bill could stop GE alfalfa and GE wheat.

The industry association CropLife is so worried about the influence of your letters that they have copied CBAN’s campaign, asking their own public to write to MPs as well. (You can have a peek at the copy-cat campaign here: http://www.croplife.ca/web/english/biotechnology/Bill_C-474). We also know that key Liberal MPs have been under a lot of pressure from the biotech industry, including a steady stream of calls to their offices. But your voices are still being heard!

Here are some ways you can make a difference, today:

1. We have set up a new action. You can write an instant letter to Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party leader from CBAN’s website http://cban.ca/liberalact474 Ask him to make sure all Liberal MPs are present on April 14 to vote in favour of Bill C-474. Tonight, the Liberal Party spoke in favour of a transparent debate on the Bill in the Agriculture Committee but will they vote for the Bill on April 14? (The NDP and Bloc support the Bill.)

2. You can also send your MP another letter from http://cban.ca/474action – Your continued pressure is important.

3. Below is an action alert that you can send around to your family, friends, and around your community. For more information and other action see http://cban.ca/474

4. Please consider supporting CBAN’s work with a financial contribution so we can continue this strong campaigning. CBAN is a small organization that is entirely funded by charitable donations and small project grants. CBAN has limited resources but is up against well-financed corporate giants like Monsanto. Donate online to keep this work going and to help us start our new campaign to stop the GE “Enviropig™” at http://cban.ca/donate

Please join us to stop GE crops from causing untold harm to Canadian farmers.

Thank you for your continued action and support, Best regards

Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network

P.S. Contact me any time at 613 241 2267 ext.6 or coordinator@cban.ca

I was able to plant my tote garden on Friday the 19th after leaving the bin in front of the fire for a while.  I wanted to let the soil warm

up before planting my seeds in it.

Shortly before noon on Friday I planted my seeds.  Carrots, spinach, lettuce mix, swiss chard, green onions, basil and parsley and a few radishes mixed in for good measure.

Planting my little inside garden was a greater experience that I had originally thought it would be but not for the reasons I originally thought.  My 6 month old son got to sit beside me in his excuser-saucer and watch me.  I was a great moment we got to plant our first seeds together.

I have been keeping the tote as warm as I can.  I placed it where it gets a good amount of sun light but not so that it takes up the entire window.  I did this on purpose.  I wanted to provide the amount of sunlight that someone in an apartment may have.  So I have just pushed over the kitchen table a bit giving the tote half the window.  At night I close the blind to keep some of the draft off and I have a small lamp that I turn on to provide some light and some heat.

Sunday I came in the house around 3pm and was surprised to see that sometime in the past 24 hours the radishes, lettuce and 1 swiss chard were already coming up.  I couldn’t believe it, I know that it doesn’t take long but with the cool nights you never know if the seeds will sprout fast or take their time.

Monday (Today), even more lettuce, radishes and swiss chard is up. I am excited that things are coming around so fast.  To be honest I almost thought that I may have to start over I have used some seeds that are not exactly new, some may even be a few years old.

More updates in the days to come as I am sure that even more activity is coming soon.

Tonight I watched part one of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution USA.  Jamie has a big task ahead of him by the looks of things the people of Huntington W. Va do not seem to receptive to the British Chef and Food Activist.

Both my wife and I watched in horror as Jamie walked into the schools lunch room where they were serving the children pizza for breakfast then for lunch they had chicken nuggets and flavoured milk.  I was personally outraged when Jamie makes his first fresh lunch and the principal tells him he needs 2 breads with the meal even though he has brown rice.  It really is scary that grains has been turned into breads.  White bread should not count as a grain it should count as a sugar!

The show premiered on ABC tonight at 10 pacific time but you can watch it on A Channel and Access in Canada if you do not want to watch it on the American network.  Check out http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution for more information about the show or to see clips from the show.  You may be surprised.

www.FeedtheValley.ca

Valley First Credit Union has teamed up with local food banks/cupboards to help keep the shelves full.

Feed the Valley has 3 goals:

1. Food
2. Funds
3. Awareness

Feed the Valley is a great program where you can donate food or money to your local food bank but the best part of this program would have to be that when you make a donation the donation stays within your community.  Many times large organizations will take your donations and bring them to where their head office is.  Not this time.  Feed the Valley has teamed up with food banks across in Kamloops, the North, Central, South Okanagan and the Similkameen to keep the food and money donations at home where they are needed.

Another great thing about this program is that they will be setting up a way for you to make a regular donation.  So if you wanted to donate every payday or once a month you can have it automatically debited or you can make a one time donation.

Visit the website http://www.FeedtheValley.ca for more information the site has information on how to get involved, facts, and more so visit today and find out how you can help out.  I will be following this program as it develops and grows.

I have been talking the talk for a long time but I have not really been a container gardener. I thought that today I would change that not only to show that it can be done but it can be done cheaply too.

Fresh Food From Small Spaces

Rather than reinvent the wheel I dug out my book Fresh Food From Small Spaces by R.J. Ruppenthal to find a design for a container garden that uses a tote.  So off town to find an affordable tote that I can cut up for my project.  I found myself in the local Fields store where I found exactly what I was looking for a tote for $12.00 but thanks to a 10% off sale I got the bin for $12.10 with taxes.

The next thing I would be a colander and some sort of cloth to cover the water feed tube.  I ended up at Princeton’s Loonie Bin (don’t worry it is just the local dollar store) where I found a plastic colander for $2.00 and a package of cheese cloth for $1.00.  Things were looking up.  The next thing I would need would be some soil but it is the middle of March where would I find a bag of potting mix this time of year.  I decided to check out the local Home Hardware which was the right choice.  Home Hardware had bags of soil for just $3.69 each so I picked up 2 sacks for a total of $7.75.

Soil

I was surprised that my total so far is as low as it is at $23.21.  Now I have not bought seeds yet, to be honest I am not going to I have a big box of seeds sitting in my living room and I really don’t want to buy any more.

I have bought all the parts to this project that I needed and then I looked around my place for the rest.

What I was missing was a couple of pieces of 2×4 roughly 10 inches long and a piece of pipe or a tube 18 inches or longer for the watering tube.  Of course I will need something to hold the tube in place and some tools.

The tools I will need are a jig saw, hack saw, electric drill, marker and tape measure.

mark out where you need to cut

Step 1 to my container garden.

Put your 2×4′s in the bottom of your tote standing on their side.  Measure the dimensions of the inside of the tote from where the 2×4′s sit.

Step 2

Take your maker and mark on the lid of the tote the dimensions that you just measured.  Place the colander in the centre of your lid and trace around with your marker.

Step 3

With your lid on the tote cut the centre out where you traced for the colander cut a little inside the mark so that it will not fall all the way through.  Then cut the rest so you get the bottom of your inside.

Floor to your container garden

Once you have cut your lid to the right size then you need to attach the 2×4′s on their side on the bottom of the new floor.  There is a reason to do this.

Step 4

Take the pipe that you have and put it in one corner of the tote.  This will be for future watering.  On the bottom end of the pipe take some of the cheese cloth or you can use burlap if you have any and cover the end.  Attach it with something that will keep it there, a rubber band, wire, string what ever you have.  You will need to make one last cut to your lid where in the corner where the pipe will go.

When you secure the pipe in it’s corner make sure it is not directly on the bottom of the tote you want to have some room so water can still drain out.

Step 5

Put the floor in place.  Once you have the floor in it’s place put the colander in the hole you cut out.  You may have to cut the handle off it is has one if not carry on.

just before the soil is added

Now that everything is in place dump 1 bag of soil into the tote.  Depending on what you are going to try and grow in your new tote garden will determine how much soil you will need to add.  The bags I used the first one gave me 6 inches of soil I then added another inch from the other bag.  6 inches should be enough but I wanted to make sure since I am going to try carrots in my tote garden.

Now that you have read my really bad directions I bet some of you are still trying to figure out why the false floor, the pipe and the colander.  Well it is really simple and actually pretty ingenious.  The colander is to put dirt all the way into the bottom of the tote.  The false floor provides a reservoir for water and that is why you have the pipe.  The pipe will provide water directly to the reservoir and with the soil being in the water it will allow the soil to draw from the water source as needed so on those hot days when you put your tote garden in the sun you shouldn’t have to worry about it drying out too fast.  The colander should also act as a drain when you are watering from the top down allowing the water to drip out and into the reservoir below.

Well that is part one of this little experiment I will update as progress is made and I will take more time to ensure that it is up to snuff I know this entry is a little poor.

If you want to know more about container gardening or you want a better set of plans than the ones I provided I strongly suggest you get the book Fresh Food From Small Spaces by R.J. Ruppenthal it is packed full of information.

Did my major seed ordering this morning.  I am looking forward to the garden this year I have some things coming that I truly am looking forward to growing including peanuts.  In our quest for 100 mile sustainability it is hard to imagine not eating the things that we have taken for granted like peanut butter.

Even though I am not a big peanut butter eater the idea that I cannot have toast with peanut butter and honey is a bit of a downer but if my peanuts are successful then I will have enough peanuts that we can have peanut butter for a year.  When I first started to look for peanuts I thought I might be able to make some sort of makeshift lean-too to grow them in but then found not only one but two varieties that should grow in my limited growing season I was ecstatic, well almost.  The first ones I found were in the US and since I cannot make heads or tails out of the import regulations I started to lose hope until I found that Dominion Seed House had a variety developed for a Canadian growing season.

I have actually found a couple of great things over the past few weeks that excite me about 2010.  I got the Zero Mile Diet Seed Kit for Christmas from my wonderful wife, you can get yours at www.saltspringseeds.com, this kit will give me enough seeds combined with the Ref Fife we obtained last summer that we should be able to grow enough grains to keep bread on the table for a long time.  I also found Maple Syrup right here in BC and within 100 miles of home too!  I was amazed to find that BC has a budding maple syrup industry with a festival to boot!

Then there is Naramustard from Naramata, I have yet to confirm if their mustard seed is from local sources or from the prairies.  It may be the closest thing to local mustard I can find since I have come up empty on mustard seeds to grow.  I would like to know if I could make something from the wild mustard that grows everywhere.

I am still looking for a Canadian source of sorghum both for the sugar and for the grain so I can make gluten free flour for my dad.  There are suppliers all over the US but I have not found any here yet, well other than broom sorghum.  I did order an Aztec corn that I will try to dry and make flour out of I just hope mother nature cooperates this year.

Sometime today when I wake up since it is 4am I will make my sweet potato order.  This may be the funnest order the idea of having a winter supply of sweet potatoes is exciting.

I am pretty lucky that we have the space to experiment with all these varieties of plants.  If I am successful then in a few years we shouldn’t have to go off our farm to by much of anything.  Once we have our garden all established we have talked about putting in a small orchard, the challenge there is our growing zone is 3.  There are some older varieties that once grew on farms all around the area but as new people have moved in they quickly cut down the old fruit trees as the fruit is bitter from the lack of water or care or they simply don’t want to look after the tree or have no use for it.  It is a shame there used to be a bunch of apricot trees that grew what would now be a heritage apricot but they are mostly gone as are the cherry trees and even the apples.  It is too bad since these older trees were not always grafted onto another species.  We have a plum tree that my great grandpa planted the original tree is gone now but 4 of its suckers have grown into very productive replacements that give us the best plums ever.

Its late and my son will be up in a few hours so I need to sign off.  If you are going to be doing any gardening this summer I would love to hear about it.

g’nite.

Published Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Vol. 61 Issue 6 Page A4

Since I have started writing about food security people have been coming up to me on the streets in shops and even at work and have asked me, “What can I do?”

This week I am going to focus on what we can do.  Although there will be a role for local government I believe that most of our local food economy needs to be driven by we the people.  Food security needs to be a grassroots movement.  Food has become part of the global economy and when this happened government stopped concerning itself with feeding the local population and became more concerned about imports and exports and how it affects GDP.  We all need to eat; without food you die.  For this reason food is something that we need to take ownership in and work together to secure.

I have talked to many local residents who all say they would shop at a local farmers’ market.  I love this idea but saying you would shop there is one thing.  If there is to be a farmers’ market there needs to be two things: a group of residents who are willing to organize it, and farmers who will supply the market.  Before farmers will grow produce for a market they need a market for which to grow, so if people in Princeton really want a farmers’ market they need to get one organized.  It’s that old saying; if you build it they will come.

Plant a garden this spring.  People think that gardening is hard.  Growing is easy.  Some of the preparation is hard.  With the economic climate everyone should be thinking about planting a small garden even if it is just some lettuce and tomatoes you can offset some of the hard times with only a few dollars in initial expenses.

A program I have been reading about lately is called “Grow a Row, Share a Row”.  This program helps those who might not have the ability to help themselves.  If you have a garden, you grow an extra row and it goes to a local food bank or other local social program.  This could be taken a step farther if you have a neighbour who cannot garden due to health, age or living condition.  You could grow a garden with them in mind.  I am starting to really love this idea as it is not about me but about helping my community.

Lastly we come to a community garden project.  I have stayed off this topic for a reason. I was once an elected official and when I look at projects now I have to admit I look at them and ask how much will this cost the taxpayers?  For this reason I have been looking at how can we do a local community garden plan that costs taxpayers little to nothing at all.  I have come up with two ideas: firstly, Town Council grants use of some public land to a community garden society to develop.  I am not sure if this would work.  My second idea costs taxpayers upfront but would see the costs recovered over a period of time.  Town Council would need to see if there is really a need first then depending on demand council would develop a percent of a park or parks with a deer fence and plots and water.  Water is already accessible in the parks so there would only be a need for some hydrants.  The costs would then be recovered with a plot rental or lease.  The recovery cost would be spread across the plots and time to make it affordable to those who need the plots.

Published Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Vol. 61 Issue 6 Page A4

Inspect yourself. The Federal government has proposed that poultry processing plant employees would be responsible for policing themselves under the proposed “poultry rejection program.” The program would make processing plants responsible for monitoring the birds as they pass down the line, and according to veterinarians who monitor food safety, the plants would no longer have to publicize the reasons that the birds were rejected.

This is mind-boggling to me. We have an avian flu outbreak in the Fraser Valley, an ever growing peanut recall, and recalls on some products for listeria and our government has turned over the safety of our food system to someone who may have just started working in a processing plant making less than 12 dollars an hour. I just cannot wrap my head around it.

I have been talking about food security and the need for local, sustainable and safe food systems. I have begun to pay more attention to what is happening with our food systems and it is not good. All you need to do is turn on the evening news and you will hear of more health risks due to our factory farm system. Take the peanut recall; it now seems that the peanuts that contaminated the products being recalled were actually turned away at the Canadian border for being dirty and then taken to a plant in the US where they were processed and sent around North America. A handful of dirty peanuts have contaminated millions of dollars worth of products.

Food is a commodity because we trade it, but food is not like other commodities; we cannot live without food. We have allowed our governments to dismantle our agriculture in return for agribusiness. Agribusiness has centralized the means of production and has over processed our food stuffs to the point that when we have a small outbreak or contamination we end up with a large percentage of our system being compromised. Be it lack inspection or new unproven science or genetically modified seeds our food system is under attack twenty four hours a day seven days a week. Small family farms are swallowed up by larger ones that need to produce more to stay competitive and keep costs down so food processors can bring us the newest, cheapest and fastest way to make dinner.

Take a look at the products on the shelves at your local grocery store. How much of it is raw natural food? A bit of produce, some meat, and a bit of dairy and in some places there is natural flour. You can now buy a roast that you take out of your ice cream tub looking container put it in your slow cooker, add water and you’re done. It might have taken a couple extra minutes to add a couple spices and a potato, but a roast is a roast. The difference is the frozen one you buy has preservatives and has been prepared and frozen for you before packaging. I would wager the one you bought from the local rancher and some fresh vegetables would taste better and would only add five minutes to your cooking time. If we have fewer controls in these massive processing plants the chances of things going wrong shoot up drastically. So at a time when our food system is under siege our government has decided to take a page from Wall Street and let the processors police themselves.