The Compost Diaries

I am a big fan of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Farm. I’ll be taking a tour there this spring. It’s the only working farm in the city of Vancouver, located on a 24 hectare expanse of land on the campus grounds, with 10 hectares actually farmable. With that kind of “undeveloped” land one can imagine that the farm is under constant threat of development, in fact it was designated as “Future Housing Reserve” in the university’s 1997 Official Community Plan. But the farm will not go down without a fight and not just from the students who get their hands dirty there; the surrounding well-heeled communities shop at its popular farmers’ market. Up to 500 people line up each summer Saturday for the abundant vegetables, herbs, flowers and small fruits, over 200 crop varieties grown organically in their market garden. And they almost always run out of the organic eggs fresh from their flock of free-range chickens. The market garden produce is also featured at many of the city’s nearby high-end restaurants.

The farm has a rich offering of hands-on educational programs, both for UBC students as well as the community at large. There’s a children’s teaching garden with a beautiful little cob archway and garden shed. Children helped to build the natural structure by mixing clay, sand and straw together with their feet, molding the mud into balls, then stacking them to form the walls. The honeybees are popular with the kids too and they also help pollinate the gardens.

In the Mayan Garden, there are three sisters plantings (corn, beans and squash). Mayans “in exile” as they call themselves, have created this demonstration garden to educate students, faculty and visitors about their culture. Their produce is sold at the farmers’ market too.

I attended a beautiful fall celebration there one year. The Mayans were dressed in colourful native costume that day. There was a marimba band playing. Children ran about. The men walked through the dense cornfield cutting cobs of corn with their scythes. The women were bent over the traditional in-ground fire, standing the multi-coloured corn, still in husks, on their ends in a circle round the fire. Other women served up thick, sweet corn drinks and handed out tantalizing traditional foods, some I recognized, like the tomales wrapped in corn husks, but others, like the delicious white jelly-like squares, dotted with black beans I had never seen before. Standing in the field that day, encircled by a forest, Mayans and music, with no landmarks to orient us, I said to my friend, “Where are we?” We could have been in Guatemala. This was truly a gathering place. And it may have been on that day that I decided I must see Guatemala myself.

The Aboriginal Garden is tended by the Vancouver Native Health Society’s Urban Aboriginal Community Kitchen in partnership with the Musqueam First Nation. The garden takes up about one acre of land at UBC Farm. Land that is on Musqueam traditional territory. Urban aboriginals are bussed from the downtown eastside (DTES) to the site to work and learn in the garden. The garden helps to stock their community kitchen with fresh produce, including some traditional foods like salal and salmon berries. They have recently added a smoke house too so they can smoke their own fish. There is a very large aboriginal population on the DTES, many suffer from malnutrition. The group also hosts cultural workshops and events that celebrate aboriginal traditions around food, the harvest and the seasons.

The farm’s medicinal garden features a lovely interpretative trail through the native second growth forest where students and visitors can learn about native plants and ecology. Guided foraging walks are led by elders and other community leaders.

In their research plots, students are investigating new techniques in sustainable agriculture. The departments of botany, forest sciences and the faculty of land and food systems all use the site for field research. When I visited once, I asked Mark Bomford, the Farm coordinator to hurry up and come up with something for sowbugs before they took over the world. He said they already had and took me over to see the chickens.

Excerpt from Something’s Rotten in Compost City, The Plot to Take Over the Food You Eat.

I have joined a food co-op. I stumbled on it quite by accident one day. There was a sign posted in a front yard a half block from my place: Kitsilano Organic Co-op it said. I noted the email address and sent a note to find out more. Here’s how it works, local chef and co-op coordinator Darren Clay, puts in an order with a whole sale buyer every two weeks. He sends a notice out on Thursday with a list of the produce he’s selected, like this:

Apples – pink lady

Oranges – tangelo

Bananas – the yellow ones

Broccolini – if you have never seen this stuff before, it’s a mini-version of broccoli. Good stuff.

Cauliflower – the white kind

Leeks

Parsnips

Potato – Yukon Gold

If I’m in, I let him know. Then on Tuesday, he tells us when the bounty has arrived. At that point, I can barely contain my excitement. I grab my cloth bags and run the half block and up his steps to the porch. And that’s when the party begins. Or would begin if I wasn’t always the first to arrive and in such a hurry to leave with my treasure!

The produce is set out in boxes on the porch. There is a list of how many of each item we are to take. There’s always an extras box too. So we fill our bags, cross our names off the list and put our cheques in the mailbox.

I filled two bags to overflowing and paid $30 that first time. It ranges from $25 to $30 depending on the time of year, what the weather’s been like and if the produce is local or not. It’s mostly not right now.  I was so impressed with the produce the first time, I wrote Darren and told him so.

He’d obviously checked out my blog, in particular the Stew post. He wrote back:

Funny enough I did my apprenticeship at the Waterfront under chef Nagato. I also worked with Zarko. Chef Nagato was the first one to introduce me to organic produce as he used to order trucks of it in the summer well before it hit the mainstream. I will always remember tasting my first heirloom tomato and thinking it was the first real tomato I had. It’s a small town but I like it that way.

Me too. Darren’s blog has more pictures than mine. Great pictures. Food pictures.

I love this porch party thing. Love that I get produce that I wouldn’t normally buy. Like parsnips. Don’t like them much. But when I got seven of them last order, I decided to make soup and wow was it good! Can’t wait for the next order.

Will try to hang around the porch longer next time to party with my fellow co-op members.

I had the privilege of hearing Percy Schmeiser speak recently. Monsanto sued this prairie farmer for growing Round-up Ready Canola when in fact he hadn’t planted it (see previous post: the Persecution of Percy). When the vigorous 79 year old farmer took the stage, he got a standing ovation. He looked the most unlikely hero, but when he began to speak, I could hear why he was such a powerful spokesperson for farmers rights and how passionate he was about his cause.

He gave a brilliant summary of the biotech industry, from its North American introduction of soy, cotton, corn and canola in 1996 up to today.

“We now have 14 full crop years of GMOs [genetically modified organisms],” he said. “It’s no longer what can or may happen, but what does happen.”

There is indeed ample proof that the many claims the industry made weren’t true. Schmeiser mentions a report called Failure to Yield, released in March 2009 by Doug Gurian-Sherman, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Yields have gone down drastically; three times the chemicals are being used, 15 times more for cotton; the nutritional value is 50% of conventional or organic; and there is even more starvation in the world,” said Schmeiser.

The report concludes that in terms of increasing yields, traditional breeding outperformed genetic engineering by a long shot.

“The purpose of the GMO industry was to control the seed supply and then the food supply and take the rights of farmers away,” Schmeiser said. “There is no such thing as co-existence with GMOs. You can’t have organic farms if there are GMOs. They will kill the organic farmer. There is no more pure canola on the prairies anymore. All of it is contaminated.”

What I didn’t realize, is because canola is a member of the brassica family, it means that every member (broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, etc.) can become contaminated. GMO alfalfa has just been introduced, it is part of the pea family. GMO wheat was stopped three years ago, but it may already be too late for the wheat grass family. So it’s not just the farmers’ fields that are at risk, but our backyard garden crops too. As for the food on our plates, we can be pretty sure that every cob of corn we’re eating now has the Bt toxin (Bacillus thuringiensis is a soil bacterium that is toxic to some insects), especially if it comes from the U.S. Organic farmers have long used this natural insecticide and worry that its widespread use will decrease its efficacy. GMO sugar beets are used to make sugar so most sweet treats are full of foreign genes too.

The latest shock is that Canadian flax is contaminated with Triffid even though the genetically modified seed was deregistered and ordered destroyed 10 years ago because of a wary European market. Triffid had a weed gene added to it that allowed it to grow in herbicide-drenched soil. Developed at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1990’s, it was aptly named after the flesh eating plants in the 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Another case of contaminated funding at a university. The “accident” has been blamed on a disgruntled U. of Sask professor who has since been fired. All Canadian shipments to Europe are now stopped. The Europeans buy 70% of our flax – a $320 million industry is potentially destroyed.

Crop contamination isn’t the only damage. There is now proof that GMOs can have detrimental effects on our health. In Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Jeffrey Smith lists 65 health risks of GM foods. Pregnant women and children are advised to stop eating them because they can lower the immune system. GMOs are also linked to declining fertility; male sperm rates have dropped by 50 percent.

The majority of the public are dead against GMOs and wouldn’t eat any food that contained them if they knew they were eating them. Currently Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan all have mandatory labeling laws for genetically engineered (GE) foods, in fact 40 countries worldwide have them. Yet in spite of overwhelming support for a similar law in Canada (a decade of polling compiled by Greenpeace shows an average of 88%), Health Canada with the support of the food industry has opted for a voluntary program only. Even though pasteurized and irradiated foods must be labeled, GE foods were deemed “safe”. Greenpeace has not yet been able to turn up one GE label here in their on-going search through grocery store shelves.

In spite of setbacks and lack of public support, the industry continues to make advances. Schmeiser warned of the antibiotic resistant marker genes in canola. And the new “stacker gene” technology that allows them to layer in the viruses and bacteria. Other “innovations” include using plants to produce prescription drugs – currently industrial enzymes, growth hormones, contraceptives, blood thinners and clotters are being “grown” this way. Molecular farming, as it is called, is cheaper – which of course trumps safety.

If you want to avoid GMO’s, check out the Greenpeace handy little shoppers’ guide, How to Avoid Genetically Engineered Food. Other great GMO resources can be found at ETC Group and GRAIN.

Percy Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer from small town Saskatchewan. He has been farming for more than 50 years, saving his own seed, developing some of his own, minding his own business. His wife Louise is a full partner in the farm operation and managed most of the seed saving and breeding. Then one day, Monsanto, a multi-national seed and chemical company called up to say they were suing him. Monsanto’s “private investigators” had found their patented Round Up Ready Canola in his field. Schmeiser had never talked to Monsanto, never gone to any of their meetings, never wanted their seed. He figures they got a tip on one of their “snitch lines”. Clearly this former town reeve, municipal councillor and Provincial Liberal MLA (in the late 1960’s) was a lowlife who had stolen their property.

“You might as well sue the birds and the bees and the wind then,” said Schmeiser.

He claims the seed drifted onto his field. Monsanto said he had to pay their technology fee whether he knew their canola was there or not. Some believe Monsanto is purposely seeding the fields, a plot by the chemical cartel to contaminate the fields and then extort money from farmers for patent infringement. But could they be this sinister?

When farmers enter into the contract with Monsanto they agree to buy their seed along with their fertilizers and pesticides that they also produce and pay a royalty on top. They must allow Monsanto’s “cops” to inspect their fields. The company calls them “audits”.

Monsanto’s investigators, former RCMP officers, regularly patrol rural roads and take crop samples from non-customers. This is trespassing according to Schmeiser.

“What would happen if I went onto their fields and took some of their seed?” he asks. Other Saskatchewan farmers report planes and copters buzzing their fields.

Schmeiser launched a 10 million dollar countersuit and garnered world-wide support for his action. It took two years to go to court. The battle went all the way to the Supreme Court. Schmeiser ultimately lost the case and appeals. The judges ruled that it doesn’t matter how a farm is contaminated, if the patented seed is found in the field, the farmer no longer owns it. So all 50 years of the research he and Louise had done on their own seeds was now owned by Monsanto.

The up side is that Schmeiser did not have to pay them a cent because, the court ruled, he hadn’t profited from the technology. Not only had he not profited, but he’d used up all his savings. He had to pay all his own legal bills – about half a million for his one lawyer. Monsanto had to pay their own too: two million for their 15 lawyers. Schmeisers’ fields were also contaminated, needed massive clean-up and may never be restored to non-GMO (genetically modified organism) status .

Monsanto may have won but they lost the public relations battle. Schmeiser now speaks all over the world and is a hero for farmers fighting to retain ownership of their seeds.

I heard Schmeiser speak recently in Vancouver and learned more details about the five years he was engaged in the lawsuits. Monsanto sued him and his wife personally, calling them stubborn and arrogant. They put a lien against their home, farm and equipment. Monsanto representatives would sit in their driveway and watch them. They’d make menacing phone calls. Schmeiser wanted to quit many times, but Louise wouldn’t let him. He says he couldn’t have carried on without her support. He never left his wife home alone during that time. They both feared for their lives.

But it was the fear Monsanto stirred up among their neighbours that caused the most damage. He spoke of the “extortion” letters sent to friends. He read aloud from one of them, “We have reason to believe you might be growing our crop and it is not licensed. To avoid going to court, please send us $50,000 [sometimes more] within two weeks.” The company created a culture of fear: neighbours snitching on neighbours, afraid to talk to each other, afraid of losing their farms.

“It was the break down of the social fabric,” said Schmeiser.

Monsanto is not just guilty of bullying farmers with dictator-like flourish, they have been convicted of landfilling some of their monstrous inventions: canola with a rogue gene, other grains gone awry with toxic pesticides built right in. And yet, this ordinary farmer who was just going along minding his own business, trying to make a living, is the one who is called criminal.

I am reminded of the 20 premises at the beginning of Derrick Jensen’s book Endgame (Seven Stories Press, 2006); the deeply embedded beliefs we buy into to make industrial civilization work. These beliefs are often not conscious, at least not by the masses. Premise number five pretty well sums up how the persecutors justify the persecution of the small:

The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control – in everyday language, to make money – by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.

Percy’s problems with Monsanto did not end with the final appeal. Some volunteer GM canola plants popped up in a field that had lain fallow for eight years. They called Monsanto to let them know and asked them to remove their plants. Monsanto agreed to remove the plants by hand as the Schmeisers requested. But for a price. The Schmeisers would have to agree to never take them to court no matter how much contamination might occur in the future. And they were never to speak of it to anyone.

Schmeiser refused to give up his freedom of speech. Instead they had their neighbours help them remove the plants. And they took Monsanto to small claims court to recoup the $640 it cost them to do the clean up. The multibillion dollar corporation arrived in court with a $640 cheque in hand and settled. A precedent has been set. Schmeiser believes this will help farmers in the future to get reimbursed when their fields become contaminated.

Let us all savour this moment of victory by the small.

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, I share this poem with you. My favourite love poem. It is by Pablo Neruda, Nobel laureate who arose to great popularity in North America during the 60’s. While he was more widely known for his political poetry here, at home in Chile, he was also equally loved for his earthy, sensual poems. His Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, One Hundred Love Sonnets was a collection written to his beloved wife, Matilde Urrutia de Neruda. I dedicate this poem to Nodar Kumaritashvili, the fallen luge athlete from the Republic of Georgia and to all of the peaceful protesters and activists who are here during the Olympics, pouring their heart, soul and passion into making our world a more loving place. Y un beso con suerte (kiss for luck) to all the athletes!

Love Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

–Pablo Neruda

Global Exchange is doing amazing work. I used their web site and various reports and resources a lot when I was working on the chocolate chapter in my latest book. Here’s something you can do for Valentine’s Day, that will not increase your calorie intake nor keep children enslaved. Feel free to copy and email the post as they suggest. If you do indulge on the 14th, make it fair trade chocolate.

Will you be my Fair Trade Valentine today?  Win prizes!

Participate in Global Exchange’s “National Valentine’s Day of Action”!

How? Please forward this email to ALL your contacts TODAY!

By doing so, you’ll be spreading the love to low-income farmers around the world who make cocoa for the chocolate you love, and helping to end poverty and abusive child labor in cocoa-farming communities.

AND you may win a prize drawing for $40 in fabulous Global Exchange Fair Trade gifts, including CHOCOLATE!

What is the National Valentine’s Day of Action? Global Exchange has developed a fabulous, free Fair Trade cocoa curriculum, including 9 ready-to-use lesson plans. Educators nationwide (including teachers, youth group leaders, Sunday/religious school teachers, etc, etc) are acting in solidarity to present our innovative, teaching standards-friendly cocoa curriculum, to educate students about Fair Trade on or before Valentine’s Day.

Why email ALL your contacts? Because your other friends, family and colleagues also know educators who may be interested.

Educators receiving this email: Will you join teachers nationwide and help reach our goal of educating at least 3,500 students this Valentine’s Day? Educators who teach the curriculum will be entered into a prize drawing for $75 in Fair Trade gifts from Global Exchange’s Fair Trade online store.

REGISTER TODAY!  The first five new participants in the National Valentine’s Day of Action to download the curriculum AND email us to register will receive Fair Trade cocoa beans to use with their lessons.

To participate as an educator, enable us to track whether we have reached our goal of 3,500 students, and get entered into the prize drawing, please take ALL THREE of these steps:

1. Download the curriculum at www.globalexchange.org/cocoa
2. No later than February 13, email fairtrade@globalexchange.org with “National Valentine’s Day of Action Participant” in the subject line and the following information in the body of the email:

Your name:

Your school:

City and state where your school is located:

Your mailing address:

Your phone number:

Number of children in your classroom:

Date you plan to teach the curriculum: E-mail or postmark your curriculum evaluation by February 21^st.

How to win if you refer an educator: When downloading the curriculum, educators enter the name of the individual who referred them to the curriculum.

While we encourage participation around the globe, please note that only individuals with US addresses are eligible for the prize drawing.

Want to increase your chances of winning?? Do these three things:

1. 1 minute: Forward this e-mail to everyone you know, especially educators! Hurry, they start planning their curriculum now!
2. 10 minutes: Make an announcement at your local PTA or teacher staff meeting.
3. 20 minutes: Go to www.globalexchange.org/cocoa/vdaycurricula.html and download the National Valentine’s Day flyer and pass it out at your local schools, put them in teacher’s mailboxes, etc.

However you choose to do it, just remember that YOU’RE making a DIFFERENCE. And that cocoa farming parents and their children will appreciate every effort you make to help better their lives.

PS:  Have you made your Fair Trade New Year’s Resolution yet?  It’s not too late!  Visit www.globalexchange.org/cocoa and follow the links to the New Year’s Resolution page.

Honeybees are dropping like flies. Around the world beekeepers are reporting massive die-offs of these essential pollinators. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) as it is called has been blamed on cell phones, genetics, mites, pathogens, gmos, nutrient-deficiency and pesticides. In British Columbia, bee experts say it is a parasitic mite that is attacking the bees, along with the chemical treadmill (including antibiotics) designed to treat the mites and subsequent diseases. Crops like blueberries can’t rely on the wind; they need the honeybees to help transport the heavy pollen grains. Farmers pay beekeepers to bring hives into their fields when they are in bloom, but beekeepers can no longer keep up on the demand because of the declining bee population. Losing honeybees directly affects our food supply.

Although it may be a combination of factors, many feel a family of pesticides is chiefly to blame. Neonicotinoids are neurotoxins that affect the central nervous system of insects. Bayer CropScience coats many of their corn and canola seeds in these pesticides to protect them from pests, who also become coated with the stuff. France banned the products in 1999 and in 2008 Germany, Slovenia and Italy suspended sales too. The Co-op, Britain’s largest supermarket with its own farm, banned eight pesticides in January last year. As with humans, the link between disease and pesticide may be indirect. In other words, they might affect your liver which can’t then properly filter the toxins. Some feel that the pesticides could cause a viral infection in the bees, weakening their natural defenses.

And of course the bees are also exposed to all the crop chemicals. A recent study out of Pennsylvania State University found pesticides in pollen, honey and the wax comb in hives. And still the worker bee deniers deny the link between disappearing bees and pesticides.

A crowd has gathered on Granville Street at Helmcken in front of a vacant store. There is a shopping cart there with large buckets in it. A serving cart holds paper cups, bowls and plastic spoons. There’s juice and water too. Boxes of buns and apples sit on the sidewalk. Once a month, the day before the welfare cheques are handed out, the hungry from all over Vancouver come to feast on a now famous stew lovingly made by the cooks at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel.

There’s a story behind this stew of course. And it started eight years ago with a woman named Clemencia Gomez. Clemencia worked with Neighbourhood Helpers, a non-profit group that reaches out to seniors and others living in single room occupancy hotels (SRO’s) in the downtown core. Part of her job was to make sure people were eating well. She even started a little rooftop garden so residents could grow some of their own food. While working in the downtown area hotels like the Old Continental, the Vogue and the Gresham, she noticed that there were a lot of other hungry people in the area too.

“That was the biggest shock to me,” said this native of Columbia, “that people could be going hungry in a rich country like Canada.” She decided to do something about it.

She went to see the chef at the Fairmont Waterfront to see if she could get left over produce to put in a monthly soup. Daryl Nagato, the executive chef at the time, well known for his hotel rooftop garden said, “I can do more than that, I’ll make it for you.” And so began the monthly ritual that continues today. The giant pot of stew – much heartier than soup – is so large it is hooked up to its own heating system and has to be tipped into the waiting buckets with an electronic device. And the standard set by Nagato remains high.

“It doesn’t matter who my customer is,” says Zarko Torbica, the banquet sous chef and official “taster” at the Fairmont Waterfront, “if it doesn’t taste good, it doesn’t go out.”

“It tastes just like the stew my mother used to make,” says one happy recipient. “You don’t have to ask where’s the beef in this stew – there’s big chunks of meat in it,” says another. They go back for seconds and thirds. After all, they won’t taste this stew again for another month. Young, old, homeless or sheltered, the people gathered here once a month, rain or shine, have one thing in common – hunger.

Who knew that there were hunger problems outside of the downtown eastside? In fact the FORC Report, an assessment of Vancouver’s food system compiled by a group of researchers from the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University found that food “insecurity” or not having regular access to healthy, nutritious food is prevalent to varying degrees in neighbourhoods throughout Vancouver. Some barriers to access are income, housing costs, age, disability, ethnicity, grocery store locations, or lack of cooking facilities.

Most people are unaware of the SRO’s on the Granville Strip, including Rose Mancini who replaced Clemencia last November.

“I used to go to movies on Granville Street and I had no idea there were even single room occupancy hotels there,” says Rose.

Under Rose’s guidance, the garden program is expanding. Raised beds have been put in the parking lot behind the Old Continental. Residents grow tomatoes, lettuces, herbs and flowers for their own use.

“We have a big barbeque at the end of the summer,” says Rose. “The hotel managers are great. They put out a huge spread for the residents.” Only a few blocks away and yet worlds apart from the landlords we hear about on the downtown eastside.

Rose is concerned about providing healthy food to the hotel residents. In addition to weekly soups at the SRO’s, they host coffee hours to get to know the residents The food for these sessions comes from the food bank and is not always what she would call healthy: candy, cookies, donuts. But she’s working on that too. COBS Bread has been supplying scones for the coffee hours – and not left overs – they are fresh baked. Organics at Home on the North Shore also provides organic produce weekly.

“Food always brings people together,” says Rose. “That’s how we build relationships.”

Yes, feeding people does sound like the neighbourly thing to do.

Remember your neighbours in need as we move into the Olympics lock down period when it will be even more difficult for them to access fresh, healthy food. This article first appeared in Shared Vision magazine, April 2007.

I was having dinner with André. Andre LaRivière. Former CBC Radio producer. Chef and local food writer. Member of the Vancouver Food Policy Council. And now the executive director of Green Table Network, a non-profit that helps restaurants go green and then certifies them.

André is also father of Pascale, the four year old who gave us colour commentary throughout the meal. The delicate saffron rice was too yellow. The thick and satisfying corn and potato soup not yellow enough. The ratatouille, well that was just plain fun to say when you’re bilingue and you’ve just seen the animated film of the same name starring a French rat aspiring to be a chef.

In 1996, upon turning 40, André decided it was time for an adventure. He left CBC and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. After graduating, his instructors encouraged him to go to the South of France to hone his skills. He landed a job at a quaint bistro just north of Cannes on the Côte d’Azur.

“We used to get movie stars coming in all the time,” he said. “Gina Davis, Uma Thurman, Quentin Tarantino.”

“Papa used to cook for dogs,” Pascale cut in, bursting the bubble.

André laughed. The rich and famous used to ask him to cook up “un plat pour FiFi, s’il vous plait.” So he often found himself frying up liver and other delicacies for les chiens.

After a year in France, he spent the next couple years in Toronto writing for various food industry magazines, building connections with chefs across the country. When he landed in Vancouver in 2000 he wrote about food issues for the Straight and City Food. He was covering the Bioneers Conference (a leading edge environmental forum) in San Francisco when he first encountered the idea of a green certification program for restaurants developed by Ritu Primlani of Thimmakka Resources for Environmental Education in Berkeley. On his return to Vancouver, he secured a license from Primlani and adapted the basics of Green Table Network from her program.

In the summer of 2006, André launched a pilot program with a dozen lower mainland restaurants including Raincity Grill, West and Vij’s. Each restaurant was assessed from top to bottom using a check list.

“We look at everything from the lights out front to the bins at the kitchen door,” says André.

After the assessment the team writes up a report that tells them how close the operation is to Green Table Network Certification – they must achieve a score of 25% in each of five categories to qualify; the areas are solid waste/recycling, energy and water conservation, pollution prevention and sustainable purchasing, which includes using local food. Then they come up with an implementation plan and help them achieve their goals.

“Within a week we had composting set up and we’d reduced our water use in the kitchen pit by three quarters,” said Suzanne Fielden of Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company. “What I like about Green Table is they put us in touch with the products and the experts we need to make it happen. And our customers love what we’re doing.”

“Margins are very tight in the food service industry,” says André. “We wanted to help businesses become greener and save money.” That appeals to Don Letendre, Executive Chef at Elixir in the Opus Hotel.

“It’s not about being more green than the guy down the street or just doing the right thing, it’s about measuring what you’re doing and seeing the cost savings as well.”

According to André, the pilot identified gaps in the supply chain and the food system. For example, larger scale restaurants can’t yet buy case lots of local organic food. And there are still some glitches with composting pick up services.

“We provide a service for corporate clients who are embracing green,” says André, “but we also want to help develop a more sustainable food system across the board. There is opportunity for us to help develop that system.”

In May 2007, Green Table Network was officially launched. They currently have over 40 members around the province including food caterers and a chain, the Cactus Club Cafés. There is a list on their web site.  Initial membership and assessment costs $595 – $300 a year after that which includes an annual reassessment. Green Table window stickers identify members.

So just how green was my dinner at André’s? Well, the produce was all bought at a local farmers’ market that morning. We sipped BC wine. We used cloth napkins. There was a composter in the back yard. Tomatoes, beans and basil were growing on the deck. And thanks to Pascale’s keen eye for colour during a trip to Ikea, we dined at a green patio table. Full marks.

This article first appeared in Shared Vision magazine in November 2007.

The Bike Tree grew out of an idea I had when I worked at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. We shared the building with an environmental group that felt we needed another bike rack. There was already one bike rack in one of only four parking spots and we didn’t want to take up another space. Not that I’m all about the car, I don’t even own one. But we did have people from all over the city attending wormshops and organic gardening courses and the parking around the building was for residents only. The environmental group wanted to put in a large, (hideous) covered bike rack in the lot. I think I might have said ever so sweetly, “Over my dead body.”

Initially, I proposed doing a kind of “bike mural” on the large, blank wall of the building leading up the driveway. The bikes could then be hung on the wall and become part of the mural. That way there would be no wasted space and the art would be functional. I envisioned bikes happily hanging within a colourful mural about growing food in the city perhaps with some living plants woven into the piece.

I received no support for that idea. They said there wasn’t enough clearance for cars and trucks and the bikes might be hit. But I felt sure there was plenty of room for two way traffic. I had the same experience when I came up with the idea to construct a garden gate made of recycled gardening tools that would lift straight up instead of slide up and in like a garage door. Five men told me it couldn’t be done, but finally my brother Todd figured out how to do it using a pulley system. He did a rough sketch with flowerpots suspended from chains. We found the right artist. Davide Pan, a local metal sculptor designed that gate using large boulders strapped in metal as the counterbalancers instead of flowerpots – for more uniform weight. He then designed a second smaller one, an echo of the first, for the other garden entrance.

After much discussion, I recommended a bike “tree” for a space out in front of the building in the waterwise garden. I initially called it the “Grow Natural” tree to promote our natural yard and garden care program. The bikes could be hung off and locked to the tree, and like the garden gate would again be functional art.

The bike tree never happened before I left the garden. But four years ago, on a whim, I decided to throw in a proposal to the City of Vancouver’s  public art program. Much to my surprise, I got the grant and thus began a very, very long ride.

Initially I pitched the project as akin to the BC Lion’s Society Whale Sculpture project where a bunch of artists are selected to paint a standard whale sculpture. The sculptures are displayed around the city and then auctioned off. The Lion’s Society has gone on to do bears and eagles and well some question whether or not a bear painted up as Darth Vader is really art. But that is not for me to say.

I didn’t necessarily want a uniform bike tree; I thought we could commission artists to design them for specific sites. A mural here, a clock tower there. Still this first one would be a prototype of sorts.

And so we began. My non-profit partner was Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST). They linked me up with the cycling community and served as “bankers” for the project. Science World was delighted to have the first bike tree at their site. And a very desirable location it was: close to the 2010 Olympics Athletes’ Village, and at the confluence of three major cycle paths, including the city’s premiere Central Valley Greenway. The Science World folks became ardent supporters and tireless cheerleaders as the project dragged on.

Initially Davide signed on to be the artist. During that first year, we paid a visit to Kent Webster at Webster Solar Energy. We were thinking of having a solar or wind-powered bike levitation system (similar to the garden gate). So the bikes would be lifted up out of harm’s way and locked in some clever fashion. In our research, we had found an elaborate, expensive modular Bike Tree system from Switzerland. The high-security bike storage unit mechanically lifted bikes four metres off the sidewalk. Problem was it looked more like an ATM than a sculpture. In fact, the system used a smart card. We also talked about a recharging mechanism for electric bikes.

There were other cool “bike trees” too, some bike racks, some art.  (Just google bike tree and look at “image results”.) We weren’t short of ideas;  but our loftier goals were downsized considerably over time. Through all its evolutions, Kent stuck with the project, volunteering most of his time as our solar consultant.

After a year of working on the project, Davide was unable to continue due to other commitments. And so, I went in search of another artist. There were a few false starts and then one night I saw an artist on TV who looked promising. She was talking about a sculpture her company had done in front of Ocean Cement. It was all gadgety and fun and in the same spirit as the bike tree. I called, and Mike Vandermeer and Cheryl Hamilton from ie Creative Artworks became the new project artists. I felt very lucky to have them on board.

Mike and Cheryl have created sculptures throughout the province and across the country, including one in Kelowna to celebrate the opening of the new WRB Bennett Bridge; one in front of the new Richmond Speed Skating Oval; and one at the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Park in Ottawa. They are currently working on a commission in Dallas.

We had to design the piece to prevent people from climbing the trunk and there were many compromises along the way. But Mike and Cheryl came up with a great design and made  a model to help me sell it to the various partners. The stylized tree would stand about 15 feet high, with three small and three large hoops that formed a kind of canopy; a trunk that bikes could hang from; and at its 14 foot diameter base, a root system where up to 12 bikes could be parked in more traditional fashion.

Ok, so you’d think with the design in place we should have just been able to get that thing made and in the ground. But little did I know that I would have to jump through more than six hoops before this baby was installed.

The decision on the location took probably a year. It was complicated because of all the parties involved. Science World owned some of the land in the area. The City another piece. The Park Board another. It was a long and bumpy road, but the Park Board finally found us a nice spot on their land, in front of Science World. It would replace a street lamp at the end of an arc of large trees in planters, becoming one of the “trees” in effect.

There were many meetings, people coming and going throughout the project, some slowing it down, some helping to advance it. The City Public Art Program staff were consistently wonderful to work with, patient and supportive. Two avid cyclists and active members of the cycling community consulted on the project from the start. Bonnie Fenton, with the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition (VACC) at the time (she has since moved to Germany!) and Richard Campbell (who was with BEST then, but has now moved on) made essential contributions. They helped us figure out tricky measurements and essential elements for a “best practices” bike rack.

One major glitch was when we discovered that the area in front of Science World was actually a deck, literally a “balcony” suspended over water (False Creek). The deck was built for Expo 86 and there didn’t seem to be many decipherable records left nor people who could tell you what the deck was made of, nor whether or not it was safe to anchor the bike tree to it. That probably cost us another year and we burned through one engineering firm there. The engineers were also challenged because they didn’t have experience with public art and so their version of the sculpture looked more like a tank.

In the meantime, I had noticed a solar street lamp when I was riding along the sea wall one day. The beautiful elegant lamp was located at Sunset Beach near the Vancouver Aquatic Centre. I did a little research and found out it was a pilot project with the City, BC Hydro and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. I got ahold of the City’s electrical engineer on the project and he became one of my guardian angels. Without his help, this project never would have been completed. He put me in touch with BC Hydro and they generously agreed to fund the solar component.

The solar complicated the piece beyond my wildest nightmares. Four solar panels would be set into the hoops. We would also tie into the city’s electrical grid as a back-up. Our grey, rainy climate is not optimum for solar systems. Motion activated solar lighting would provide an added security measure. All the electrical components would be housed in a battery box that sat in the crook of the tree. Sounds so simple. Another year.

Park Board engineers and electricians stepped in and went above and beyond the call of duty to get the bike tree wired up properly. They had to reroute, rewire and do a whole bunch of “re’s” to make the system work for us and to give them access to the electrical after it was installed.

In the early summer of 2009, Fast+Epp came on board as our new structural engineers. And they lived up to their names, very fast, very ept. We had construction drawings in no time. Both engineers looked about 14, but they were creative, flexible and knew their stuff. They had worked on several art projects before which really helped. The firm recently won an award for its work on the Richmond Oval.

In December, we brought in Sea-Jay Contracting to do the concrete pour. Chris Gurden and his crew did an amazing job drilling into frozen ground and finally getting the concrete poured in very cold weather. The pipes were now at the pipe bender. Once they were bent, Mike and Cheryl would do the welding, drilling and grinding in their studio. Then it would go out for sandblasting, galvanizing and painting – we had selected a deep rainforest green shade. We had a fabrication schedule, but it was merely a suggestion as it turned out.

The first install date was set for Dec 18th. We missed it. The second was Jan. 6^th. We missed it. No need to go into the reasons. And now we were fighting with the impending Winter Olympics. They were to begin Feb. 12^th, but there were more and more road closures; the street in front of Science World would be closed as of January 15th and as of Jan 20^th, Science World would be turned over to the Russians. The city of Sochi was the chosen site for the 2014 Olympics and they were using the building for their pavilion.

I prayed the third try would be the charm. On Thurs. Jan. 14^th, after nine hours in the pouring rain, the Solar Bike Tree was finally installed. Mike was in western Mexico drinking Margarita’s. Kent was in eastern Mexico drinking Margarita’s. But Cheryl was there with me, intermittently drinking hot tea. And Chris Gurden stepped in again, not only as the crane truck operator, but to help Cheryl with the installation.

Kent sent one of his solar installers to us on very short notice. Pete from PJS Electric was an electrician and a godsend. The job was a lot more complicated than he’d expected. He had to run out during the day to get various parts including smaller batteries. They wouldn’t fit in the battery box or “nest” after all, even though we thought we had the measurements down.  He had to hook up all the many wires to the batteries, charger, etc. in the nest and thread them through the pipes and into the ground. In the end, we bought the nest from Lee Valley Tools and modified it a bit. It was a copper hose storage pot with a lid that had a little bird on top. The weather resistant padlocks were also purchased there and the bike hooks. Unfortunately with the hooks we used you could only use  a cable lock to secure your bike to the trunk; but U-locks could still be used at the base.

Science World staff made several appearances, keeping our spirits up and most importantly making sure the electricity was turned off so we wouldn’t all get electrocuted in the rain. The Park Board electricians and the City electrical engineer checked in with us during the day. Richard Campbell dropped by, as did staff from VACC and BC Hydro.

There were many glitches during the day, but the team just met each one as they arose and came up with a solution. We were all tired, soaked and chilled to the bone. But just after 4pm, Chris lifted the top section of the tree onto the trunk. It was already dusk and the tree hung off the crane in a wall of mist. It looked eerily beautiful. The crew bolted it down.

I had ridden over in the rain that morning; I hung my bike from one of the three hooks on the trunk . The lights came on. “They work,” said a happy Pete. It was quite a moment.

When my BC Hydro partner came by that day, he asked if I could do up a brief final report. I said no problem, I would be doing one for the City anyways.

“Put in a little about the potential for more bike trees,” he said. I looked at him like he was out of his mind.

“I’m in my NEVER AGAIN phase,” I said.

There had been a few inquiries – from a community centre, an environmental group and the BC Auto Association, a nice fit for their new roadside bike service assist program. But so far, no one had shown me the money. And the money would have to be double what we did this one for; I was no longer a willing volunteer.

All I hope for now is that cyclists will use the bike tree. And maybe more kids will want to ride their bikes to Science World so they can park at the bike tree. And maybe more businesses will want bike racks in front of their offices.

After everyone left, I stood there in the rain and the dark, looking at the tree. I wasn’t sure how I felt. Although I had lived with the idea of that tree for many years, it looked strange and unfamiliar. A friend said to me the next day that it was a birthing and the gestation period is a very different time than when the baby emerges, a living, breathing creature.

I knew this project was not really about making environmental art or creating a unique bike rack that would promote alternative transportation. It was an endurance test to be sure, a very long lesson on patience and tolerance. Over and over again, I had to let go of my schedule to allow things to unfold in their own time. Instead of being ambitiously goal oriented, the bike tree project taught me to be more perseveringly path oriented.

Before he left, Pete, wise man and electrician said to me, “It was torrential and you still rode your bike here. You stood in the rain all day. And you finished well.”

Finishing well was important to me. But I confess that my bike and I rode home in a cab that day.

Due to the Olympics, the official launch will be delayed until May 2010. We plan to have an event on May 31st in Creekside Park to kick off Bike Month with displays and programming from some of our partners. It is also the start of a month long event called Velolove modeled after Portland’s Pedalpalooza. There will likely be an unveiling of a plaque that acknowledges the team. We have invited our Mayor Gregor Robertson, a bike enthusiast, to do the honours.