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Jan 27

Food Advocate Profile: Arzeena Hamir @arzeena #foodadvocates

Our mission at Foodtree is to connect people with where their food comes from. With this in mind we’re highlighting individuals and organizations we think do a fantastic job of contributing, promoting, building, and transforming the food system. We call them Food Advocates. Would you like to participate? Fill out our interview here and we’ll follow up!

Today we’re featuring Arzeena Hamir, Coordinator of the Richmond Food Security Society.

Tell us about yourself:
I’m an Agrologist, which is a fancy term for someone who works in agriculture. My training is in Crop Science but I’ve worked in organic vegetable production for the last couple of decades. I was a CUSO volunteer in Thailand in the early ’90s and worked in Gujarat, India conducting research in indigenous agriculture. My husband (who is also an Agrologist) and I recently purchased a farm in Courteny where we’ll be moving in 2012. We have two children who are 6 and 9.

Tell us about your project/business:
I wear a number of hats in the community. The one I’m paid for is as the Coordinator of the Richmond Food Security Society. We work towards creating a more resilient food system by supporting everything from seed saving & gardening classes to hosting canning drop-in sessions to youth community kitchens. We manage an incubator farm project with 5 new farmers and also manage the City of Richmond’s Community Gardens.

Has your relationship with food evolved over time? How?
Food is the center of every culture. My grandmother was a fabulous cook and I have fond memories of our family eating together. I never, however, really learned how to cook for myself until I left for university. Although my formal degrees are in agriculture, it wasn’t until I started gardening in my mid-’20s that everything finally clicked. I love growing food and teaching others how to do it. In my ’30s, I finally learned how to can & preserve food. Now, I’m addicted to making apple sauce, pears in syrup & sun dried tomatoes. I’ve also learned how to forage for nettles & elder flower which I dry into teas for the winter.

What is your earliest memory about food?
Eating pillau, a mixture of rice, vegetables & meat, with my hands. Traditionally, it’s eaten with yoghurt and an onion/tomato/cucumber salad. You had the get the right combination of each to help it stick together and get into your mouth.

What’s most important to you when it comes to buying food – local, organic, fair trade, GMO-free, etc?
Organic & local are both equally important but so is knowing who grew my food. If I can’t grow it myself, I’d like to know who’s growing the food for my family.

What is the one thing you’d like to see change about the food system?
I think if people understood that they ARE what they eat, they wouldn’t put half the crap they do into their bodies. Then we’d see the reverberations throughout the food system. Also, if we all took ownership of our own food waste, we wouldn’t be throwing away so much food on a planet where 1 billion people go hungry every day.

What is special about food where you live? What’s one thing you would change?
Richmond is one of the few places in the Lower Mainland that is both city and country. You have the rich cultural diversity of a big city but there are still pockets of farmland and green space. So, you can go for sushi, butter chicken, pho, dim sum & shwarma but also buy blueberries, garlic, potatoes etc. direct off the farm. What would I change? We need more organic farmers!!! There is not one certified organic vegetable farm in Richmond.

What are your favorite ingredients to use when preparing a meal?
Sauteed onion. That’s the key to everything!! When in doubt, coconut milk fixes lots of mistakes.

What are your favorite foods?
Sorry, can’t pick just a few.

Other than food, what are you particularly excited about right now?
Very much into the Transition Town movement. Affordable housing and poverty are both big issues for me too.

Tell us about a food-related project that has inspired you:
I learned how to ferment food a couple of years ago. It’s extremely easy to learn and accessible (don’t need much special equipment and just some salt). Since then, I look at food as medicine, not just nourishment. I love making sauerkraut but I’ve also gotten hooked on kombucha, which I swear is the solution everything that ails us.

Where can people find you both online and offline?
At the Sharing Farm in Terra Nova or in a coffee shop with WiFi.

Facebook: facebook.com/arzeena
Twitter: @arzeena
Website: richmondfoodsecurity.org
Foodtree Profile: Richmond Sharing Farm

Jan 26

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Fruit trees lining the streets of Vancouver mapped thanks to open data

Fruit trees on the boulevards in the City of Vancouver.

Read more

Jan 25

Rooftops and Rhubarb – Innovative Urban Development Brings Local Farming One Step Closer To The Table

This is a post from Gideon Jones, a recent addition to the Foodtree team.

Here at Foodtree, we are always asking where our food has come from – if we were to ask Paul Healey that question, he’s hoping to be able to tell us ‘the roof’.

In the downtown East side Vancouver, a newly planned development at 138 East Hastings Street is ready to take the place of the old Pantages theatre which was recently condemned. At first glance the plans appear to be for standard entry-level housing, but land owner and developer Mark Williams has teamed up with former teacher turned farmer, Paul Healey, to add an agricultural twist to the project.

The rooftop of the new ‘Sequel 138’ building will feature eighty-eight 8’x10’ farming gardens. These will be equally split between residents, members of the local community and city chefs – seeking to establish a direct connection with the ingredients they are using in their restaurants.

Sprouts from Hannah Brook Farm

Some of the produce on offer from Paul at the farmers market

Mark Williams was especially keen to address the concerns of the local community who are wary of development projects. These gardens will go alongside art spaces within the building as community spaces. In addition Healey, who already runs successful local organic farms, plans bi-monthly workshops in agricultural and propagation techniques to teach those who’d like to learn how to use their land effectively to feed themselves, or create produce to sell.

Although plans are at an early stage, Paul explained that he hopes in time the local community could manage those gardens supplying local restaurants, on behalf of the chefs who have bought into the project; creating a productive relationship between the urban community and local eateries. With five commercial spaces available in the building beneath the mini-farms, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a café open up beneath the rooftop gardens, with some of the shortest farm-to-table distances around!

‘Sequel 138′ is due for completion around summer 2012, until then you can catch Paul Healey at Vancouver’s winter farmers market every weekend selling fresh vegetables from Hannah Brook Farm.

Jan 23

If you missed TEDxManhattan “Changing The Way We Eat”, here’s a visual summary. #tedxman

We spent part of this past Saturday watching the TEDxManhattan event from afar, thanks to the real-time feed that attendees provided to us on Twitter. Below is a collection of those tweets, using a story aggregation tool from our friends at Storify:

Jan 20

Nicli Pizzeria's Wild Boar Sausage Pizza

Why Vancouver Restaurant Owners Are Putting QR Codes On Their Menus (And You Should Too)

At Foodtree we’re always looking for creative ways to combine technology and food – and to use the power of the internet to promote a more transparent food system.

That’s why it makes us particularly excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with prominent Vancouver restaurants – like Bishop’s, Nicli Pizzeria, Refuel, Campagnolo Roma, Relish Gastropub and Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company – to offer instant access to food information via quick response (QR) codes on their menus.

Starting now, participating restaurants all over North America will be able to instantly communicate with their customers about where and how they source their ingredients and who grew the food – at no charge to them, or the user.

Restaurants are often proud of who they’re sourcing from, and this is a simple way to let their customers join them in celebrating the farms, wineries, breweries, and other artisans that put food on the best menus in town. Our Facebook and Twitter-integrated iPhone app makes it easy for diners to use pictures to quickly share their appreciation with all who were involved in producing the meal.

Here’s what you learn by scanning the QR code:

  • Where the restaurant sources their products
  • Where else to find the ingredients around town (and beyond!)
  • Where the farm/artisan is located
  • Farming practices and certifications
  • See pics of the raw ingredient, finished product, and maybe even the farm!

Nicli Antica Pizzeria owner Bill McCaig sums it up perfectly: “To learn about the farm that produced the hogs for our wild boar sausage with just one click is very powerful.” In the photo above you’re seeing Nicli Pizzeria’s wild boar sausage pizza with meat from Hog Wild Farms and Two Rivers – uploaded by Bill himself!

Next time you’re out to eat make sure to not only ask “where is this from” but also let them know what we’re up to at Foodtree!

If you do own a restaurant, drop by here to find out more and to get in touch.

Photo of pizza by BillMcCaig on Foodtree.

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