Food security for Canterbury
From:
Matt Morris
Date:
Jun 08 23:07 UTC
Short link
Hi Andrew
from a Community Board perspective I can say that I couldn't agree more.
We can do a lot better than we are doing in terms of enhancing our food
security. Community gardens and school gardens are obviously part of the
solution.
But there are even simpler options we could look at that would at least help.
One, planting fruit and nut trees in streets and/or parks is, you'd think, a
complete no brainer, a very easy means of future-proofing. However, when I
asked the question recently council staff informed me that there is actually a
policy stating that such trees mustn't be planted!
On the up-side, the Shirley-Papanui community board has formally endorsed the
Transition Communities model as it applies to our ward, and we are now
exploring how this appalling policy about fruit trees can be ammended. We have
also built supporting community gardens into our board objectives... a small
step but hopefully a meaningful one.
A joint discussion between the agencies you mentioned seems like a great idea
to me.
Matt Morris
Chair, Greenspace and Traffic Works Committee
Shirley Papanui Community Board
andrew <<email obscured>> wrote:
On Sun, 2008-06-08 at 13:36 +1200, Brian Sandle wrote:
> I feel the Canterbury Plains with the proposed irrigation scheme may be
> a target for GMO biofuels and feed crops, with disaster in store for
> us.
I agree, Brian, it would be a disaster. We're now well into the period
that James Kunstler has dubbed the "Long Emergency" [1]. It's not your
classic civil defence emergency that triggers our fight or flight
response, and it's not business as usual which triggers our "sit on your
backside and do nothing" response :-) - it's a whole new animal to deal
with but deal with it we must.
I think it's time for ECan, CCC and other groups to get together to do
some strategic planning around medium-to-long term food security for the
region. I know this is not within the normal scope of either agency, but
these are not normal times ...
Are there any politicians in the group (who are still listening)
prepared to comment on this ?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency
Andrew Groom
Bryndwr, Christchurch
Info about Andrew Groom: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/andrewgroom
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