YYCCC has known about the economic/job creation potential of Urban Agriculture ever since I made a point to present to as many alderpeople as possible in the fall of 2008 & spring/summer of 2009. Joe Ceci & Bob Hawkesworth both cosponsored a notice of motion based on the work of the Calgary Food Policy Council to highlight the ROI of using unused city land.
Here is the 16Dec10 Metro (Thanks, Darren Krause!) article about the 10,000+ acres just laying there doing Sweet FA.
2011 can be a huge year for Cowtown Urban Agriculture. YYCCC will need to show some leadership and political will to initiate the development of a resilient local food system.
While Chair of the Calgary Food Policy Council, Bronco steadfastly turned down 15 requests over a 2 year period to meet. Most infamous the request denials were Bronco's Chief of Staff, Mark Henry's bubbleheaded quips: "What's Food Security?" & "Why can't you go to Safeway like everyone else, Hughes?"
Mayor Nenshi & Chief of Staff, Chima Nkemdirim, have a superior understanding of the Urban Ag potential. It is quite simple to connect the dots of 1,000,000 mouths and 10,000 empty acres.
Planting the seeds of the Calgary Local Food Production System has never been easier.
We cannot develop a local food system without local agricultural land, only limited food can be grown within the city urban spaces, as seen globally. The Food Council should have a strategic priority to stop the suburban development of lands, like the farm that was the Hawkwood dairy farm. Less politics please and more action to save ag land surrounding Calgary. - Should see what Greater Edmonton Alliance did to save ag lands around Edmonton. They were very effective.
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