Ronin the cat likes the delicata squash shoop. Or at least he's interested in sniffing it. The squash are from the UBC farm, a wicked outdoor classroom for growing food in an urban setting. There's an aboriginal garden, an heritage orchard, chickens, kids gardens and experiential learning opportunities galore! The farm is under threat of development, sadly, shrouded with flashy logic about sustainability - the planners advocate they doing the best thing by reducing the farm to make way for condos. "It's more sustainable for the students to live on site" Bollux I say! Profits drive the bulldozers of development. The benefits of the farm are less measurable in an economic language. The eagles, and western red cedar forest buffer for animal habitat and soil restoration and water cleansing, and, and, and, are not on the money-makers priority list. David Suzuki says
"…today more than ever, society needs visible examples of productive food systems that retain habitat, biodiversity, steward the ecosystems in a responsible way, and do not impose a toxic burden on our air, waterways, and soils”.
UBC farm has all of these things and more, so not supporting it would be irresponsible, yes? There's gotta be another way to house students on land that is already developed.
Anyways, I have been bussing to UBC to load squash into my backpack to sell at the SFU market on Wednesdays. Their presence opens up a dialogue with SFU students about the importance of partnerships across institutions when it comes to mobilizing for things relevant to us all! local food and places to teach about it! Despite being rejected by the SFU newspaper, The Peak, with an article about the farm for the reason that "SFU students don't care about UBC" - I continue to move beyond the statement by spreading the word and making soup. What else can one do?
