Supply & Demand (island-style)

The big question, of course, is who started the chicken and egg business? So it is with supply and demand in rural communities -- both are in trouble, both have to be built up together at the same time.

BUILDING DEMAND

Here on Salt Spring, we're very lucky to have organizations like the Salt Spring Farmland Trust (which runs a local food hub called The Root), Grow Local (providing a variety of ground-level agricultural outreach and engagement) and Community Services (which provides a variety of social services to the island. Through their collective efforts, progress is already being made on creating a market for local produce in our schools, students are growing food, seniors are getting locally-based food prepared and delivered, and locally-grown food is also reaching working-poor and marginalized community members through our food bank. This is the low-hanging fruit, where demand is consistent, consumer choice is not a factor and a budget exists to purchase the food, usually from government sources.

We want to build on this success in a variety of ways to rapidly boost island-wide demand for locally grown food at every level. A marketing/communications campaign with a very broad reach will be part of this, modeled on the way our Climate Action Plan recently sought input while also educating Salt Springers about the problem and the potential solutions.

But we have to do more than raise awareness. We also have to use this campaign to create and reinforce personal relationships – friendships – with the island’s current and future food producers, because we’re talking about long-term behaviour change in getting people to buy primarily local food, and helping our friends (especially friends in need) is a powerful motivator to taking action. And of course the best way to have affection for a farmer is to become one, so building demand overlaps with building supply.

Personal change is, of course, never a sufficient answer to systemic problems, so we’ll also explore how the island’s infrastructure, including its institutions, grocery stores and restaurants – which already meet most of the island’s existing food demand -- can transition to sourcing the majority of their food from the island in a way that economically sustains both their own operations and the increased (and in some cases very different) farm production that will be needed to meet consumer demand.

Price will, of course, be an issue. But as global food chains destabilize, price rises will continue to be a fact of life, and we may even find that local is cheaper than global at some point.

BUILDING SUPPLY

The supply-side is where many past efforts have focused, meeting with some success but also hitting various obstacles that slowed or stopped progress. It will take a multi-pronged approach to build a supply that will largely meet demand for what we actually eat on the island, and we suggest that will include 5 key components that deserve special focus for this system-wide and accelerated shift:

Increase the amount of land devoted to food production, including reviving unused farmland and putting new farmland into production.
Step up land-matching efforts to bring in a new generation of young(er) farmers and solve the systemic problems of how to house them, pay them, and facilitate long-term leases on the farmed land for stability and the possibility of ownership. This is critical to solving the North American problem of generational transition on farms, as older farmers age out but don't have children interested in taking over challenging farm operations.
Better integrate wild harvesting, food forestry, aquaculture, and water-based sources of food (fish, shellfish, kelp, etc.) into the “menu” of locally-grown foods, and support it with skilled workers, housing & infrastructure just as we do for agriculture. Achieving this goal will necessitate reconnecting with and working alongside local First Nations, who have millennia of experience in these areas, both logistically and spiritually. If we feed the land and waters, they will feed us.
Shift scale production of food on Salt Spring farms from fruits and vegetables to staples like grain, dairy and meat – all foods that benefit from being produced at scale, while still maintaining the distributed production best suited to Salt Spring's smaller farm plots and also avoiding monoculture disasters (pests, fungi, etc.) This will also involve exploring the use of grains being developed that are perennial grasses but with grain big enough to eat, and used to be grown that way on the island.
Shift production of fruits and vegetables to “urban agriculture,” i.e., in-fill housing-adjacent arable land with micro-local production, reinforcing local relationships and creating new income streams for homeowners and renters.

The overarching directive is that we have to make this new system commercially viable for food producers, value-added processors and retailers.