Sept. 27: Good Food in the City: How Cultural Ideas About Food Shape Street Vending Regulation
September 27, 2017, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. MacMillan Building, Room 342.
About the talk:
Dr. Amy Hanser’s talk will focus on her most recent research project, looking comparatively at the regulation of street commerce in China and North America. In particular, the project looks at the way Chinese cities are attempting to eliminate street vending, whereas some North American cities are embracing “street food” and food carts as emblems of cosmopolitan urbanity.
About Dr.Amy Hanser:
Dr. Amy Hanser is an associate professor at UBC’s Faculty of Sociology. Her research centers on topics such as work, gender, and the cultural aspects of markets, and most of her research has focused on contemporary China. Past research includes a study of service work and class inequality in urban China, published by Stanford University Press as Service Encounters: Class, Gender and the Market for Social Distinction in Urban China (2008). More recent projects examine Chinese consumer goods in North America and food safety and imported milk in China. In a current research project, funded by a SSHRC research grant, she is looking comparatively at the regulation of street commerce in China and North America, and in particular at the way Chinese cities manage and in many cases are attempting to eliminate street vending, whereas (some) North American cities are embracing “street food” and food carts as emblems of cosmopolitan urbanity.
The Future of Food Global Dialogue Series talks are free, with no RSVP required.
Decolonizing Research Methods Workshop, presented by the Future of Food Global Dialogue Series and the Food Systems Network
Decolonizing Research Methods Workshop, presented by the Future of Food Global Dialogue Series and the Food Systems Network
Sept. 6: Seed Saving, Participatory Plant Breeding, and Community Supported Agriculture: multi-actor innovation platforms to support small scale farming in Southwest China with Dr. Yiching Song
Sept. 6: Seed Saving, Participatory Plant Breeding, and Community Supported Agriculture: multi-actor innovation platforms to support small scale farming in Southwest China with Dr. Yiching Song
September 6, 2017 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. MacMillan Building, Room 258
About Dr. Yiching Song:
Dr. Yiching Song obtained her Ph.D in rural sociology and rural development in Wageningen University, in the Netherlands in 1998. Since 2000, she has been a senior research fellow in the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), Chinese Academy of Science. She is also a lecture professor of the College of Humanity and Development of China Agricultural University and also hold the same position in Jilin Agricultural University. She has been appointed as a visiting senior research fellow in the China Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (CCIPA), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science. Her research focuses on sustainable agricultural and rural development policies in China covering a range of several related areas like agricultural research and extension, biodiversity and related IPR and ABS issues, rural community based development and farmer organization, and gender and related social issues, etc. Her main research methodology is participatory action research and she is leading a participatory action research program under the CCAP. For details please visit www.parinchina.org.
About Dr. Song’s Talk:
This paper presents the author and her team’s 15 year Participatory Plant Breeding （PPB） program in SW China, which has linked poor ethnic mountain farmers with crop scientists at national and provincial level. Through community based PPB, working with farmers, maize and rice varieties have been conserved, improved and developed with both higher yields and improved resilience to drought and pests, resulting in greatly improved variety adoption rates, and many resilient local landraces have been improved and conserved. PPB has also enhanced awareness of the value of traditional knowledge and local landraces amongst farmers and agricultural scientists.
Based on these initial achievements, PPB farmers and communities have gained more interest in value adding to their own local quality biocultural products and seeds. This has led to further institutional and technological innovations for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), which are built up from traditional farming knowledge to meet consumers’ increasing needs for safe and quality food. By linking PPB communities to a series of ecological/organic restaurants in urban areas, CSA has spurred a revival of agroecological practices such as duck-in-rice pest control; reversed biodiversity loss by reviving several heritage varieties; and significantly enhanced household incomes.
Yet, the CSA system mainly relies on individual trust, rather than on any formal or organic certification, and lacks institutions to provide guarantees of origin and quality as well as fair and equal benefit for both consumers and producers, especially for small farmers,. This is a challenge not only for the PPB communities in SW China but also for the whole country. There is a big increase in quality, local biocultural products due to environmental concerns and food safety issues as well as income increase in China, leading to growing consumer demand. Yet, certification and guarantee and fair benefit sharing institutions are insufficient or missing, especially for local and biocultural products by small farmers in remote rural communities. At same time, national wide, crop biodiversity and farmers’ seeds are losing at an alarming speed due to industry agriculture.
To address these challenges at both action and policy levels, CCAP teamed up with the Liang Shuming Rural Reconstruction Centre and the Third World Network has been working together with 32 PPB communities, scientific institutes, NGOs and policy makers, had established a national “Farmer Seed Network” in China in December 2013. The Network has started exploring guarantee institutions for biocultural products and other community-based products like PPB seed. More important, The Farmer Seed Network (FSN) works as a multi-actor innovation platform linking farmers and scientists and policy makers through PPB, CSA and participatory guarantee system (PGS) institutions for direct interaction, collaboration and dialogue.
Robert and Stacey Spring
Robert and Stacey Spring
Robert and Stacey Spring – 2015 Graduates of the UBC Farm Practicum
Since completing the Practicum, Robert and Stacey spent a couple years pursuing other educational opportunities before beginning their dream family farm in earnest. Stacey attended KPU in a Sustainable Agriculture program and Robert at BCIT and Groundswell. This summer, they couldn’t wait any longer and started ‘UpBeet Farm’: a small-scale, organic and beyond, vegetable farm located at Stump Lake, BC.
“We wanted to make sure we had as much education as we could get before moving out of the lower mainland to our new rural farm for good. We are currently growing a variety of vegetables, flowers, garlic and our little toddler.” Say Robert and Stacey. “We still keep in touch and are constantly inspired by our many farming friends from UBC Farm.”
Dave Semmelink
Dave Semmelink
Dave Semmelink – 2014 Graduate of the UBC Farm Practicum
Dave established Lentelus Farms about half way through UBC Farm’s Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture. The Practicum helped him build many strong connections including with Professor Emeritus and mentor Dr. Art Bomke. “Art sent me off to the Comox Valley to look at renting a farm during the August of my year completing the practicum.” Says Dave. “I still had a year and a half left of my UBC degree in Conservation, but thanks to the practicum coordinators I knew that small scale farming was a viable career path for me, so I signed a lease on a little picturesque farm in the Comox Valley.”
Dave now rents three farms in the Comox Valley. On one of the farms, he grow grains with which he will start feeding the heritage pastured hogs that he breeds during summer. The home-base farm is the original farm he started leasing, where he grows certified organic garlic (seed originated from the UBC Farm) for the wholesale market. This year, Dave needed to start leasing a third farm, thanks to an expanding business and a need for more pasture for his lambs and hogs.
“I’m continuing to expand and to learn,” adds Dave. “Eventually I hope to be doing my own butchering to complete the circle of hog production. The UBC Farm Practicum showed me that small to medium scaled farming has a strong future in British Columbia and that those who are willing to work hard can make a career out of farming.”
Katie Selbee
Katie Selbee
Katie Selbee – 2013 Graduate of the UBC Farm Practicum
After completing the practicum in 2013, Katie went on to do a year of mixed-vegetable CSA farming at Farmers on 57th, as well as an orchard internship at UBC Farm.
Katie has since moved to Pender Island, where she started Twin Island Cider, a farm-based cidery, with a fellow farm worker she met during her time at the UBC Farm.
“I juggle many roles on an everyday basis from organic orchard management to cider making, communications to retail sales.” Says Katie. “The skills and knowledge I learned through the practicum (and the community I found there!) are definitely a part of my day to day.”
Samantha Gambling
Samantha Gambling
Samantha Gambling – 2013 Graduate of the UBC Farm Practicum
Samantha became a member of the UBC Farm family in the 2013 growing season. She transitioned straight from the UBC Farm Practicum to a Master’s degree program in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, where she studied agricultural policy and food sovereignty in the BC dairy industry.
Samantha graduated in the Spring of 2016 and by the end of summer, she had secured a job as Community Animator for Farm to School’s Vancouver Area Regional Hub. Farm to School BC (F2S BC) is an umbrella organization that advocates for healthy, local, sustainable school food systems. Her role as Community Animator is literally to “animate” (ie. support/facilitate/coordinate) F2S programs, activities and networks in the Vancouver Area.
“I regularly find myself drawing upon the knowledge and skills I gained from the Practicum, and even more so, upon the incredible network of farmers, activists, experts, and educators — including former Practicum alumni and UBC Farm crew — who have become friends, mentors, and colleagues over the past 4 years,” says Samantha. “It’s been a gift to work alongside this passionate and inspiring community towards the development of sustainable, just and healthy regional food systems!”
Simone McIsaac and Sarah Stewart
Simone McIsaac and Sarah Stewart
Simone McIsaac and Sarah Stewart (McMillan) – 2008 Graduates of the UBC Farm Practicum
Simone and Sarah met during their practicum at the UBC Farm in 2008, and are now co-owners of Rootdown Organic Farm, a mixed vegetable farm serving restaurants, grocery stores and CSA members in the Pemberton and Whistler area. After completing the practicum at the UBC Farm, Sarah started Rootdown in 2009 and Simone joined the following year, after working at another farm on Vancouver Island. Since 2010, the farm has developed into a multiple-acre project, serving 20 restaurants and grocery stores, and over 70 CSA members, as well as raising Heritage pigs. The practicum program served as a foundational stepping stone for both Sarah and Simone, providing a wide array of organic farming resources on a spectrum of topics that has allowed them to grow into the farm that they are today.
Work Learn Profile: Nikki Lax, Seed Trials Work Learn Student
Work Learn Profile: Nikki Lax, Seed Trials Work Learn Student
What do you study?
I am a 3rd year Plant and Soil Biology student in LFS. The idea of agroecology or having a farm in an ecosystem is exciting to me which is why I decided to be in this program. I come with some farming background and a great admiration for nature that inspires me to learn more about sustainable agriculture. I want to learn how it works and more importantly where I fit within it. Luckily, whilst interning here, I got to learn and then walk back outside and feel like I can see what can be done. Looking at trees, crops, soil, and plants, I feel like I can empathize with them more and appreciate them more because I know more. Studying plant and soil science is amazing to get to learn how plants work, learn how what makes them grow better, what affects their growth, how well they can grow. And then getting to apply that to the field and see it in action, understanding what’s going on. So, when you look at a plant, the more you know the greater appreciation you have for it. And I got see them in a new light as well, from a more research perspective.What was your internship?
My internship was with the BC Seed Trials which is part of a larger project that is throughout BC. The organization is a collaboration of FarmFolkCityFolk, Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security and UBC Farm. As it is largely based at the UBC Farm, I got to be part of the research and helped with the organization as well. Essentially, we were conducting kale and some spinach trials, with input from local farmers, to identify varieties which perform best in each region as well as those varieties which can be scaled up for bulk seed production. This meant a lot of harvesting, measuring, weighing and working with our collected data. But apart from field work, I got to meet incredible people involved in this discipline which includes farmers, advocates, and academics. I was fortunate enough to attend the BC EcoSeed Co-op Conference which was a great opportunity for us to show and summarize our findings of our research and see for this upcoming season of what the farmers wanted for their farms and how they wanted to collaborate. Generally, the internship was a way for me to reconnect with the Farm. Even though I had volunteered and visited for some of my classes before, I wanted to get a step closer to it and this internship allowed me to do that.What is one thing you found interesting during your internship?
The most interesting part of my internship was getting to go to the BC EcoSeed Coop Conference and talking directly to farmers. This meant hearing their perspectives on everything. The conference included many angles of farmers’ thoughts but the most important angle for our project was what crops we should trial this year. It was interesting what crops they were concerned about and to see which factors went into their decision making. As someone who foresees a future in farming, it was great to be exposed to what concerns the present BC agriculture of world. Very different concerns in California or other places. So, that was an awesome exposure to the real world of farming. Especially of organic sustainable farming.What intrigues you about the food system?
The food system is something we interact with every day. It is also a very complex system; there is so much to learn and so many components to it. You don’t always think what’s going on or what your impacts on the environment and I think food is so approachable and accomplishable to make better choices on and be friendlier to the environment. Food easily connects people which can lead to making more sustainable choices. I think my impact through agriculture had led me to the kind of field that I am in now. Being able to learn the signs behind what’s going on out there and then seeing how we can improve to be better on the environment gives me hope about the food system and pushes me to learn more.What is the UBC Farm to you?
UBC Farm is an example of what farming can be if people are invested in the sustainability of the food system. The integration of not just the local ecosystem but the local community helps it thrive more so than any other environmental initiatives. It has created a full circle food system for everyone to see or be involved with. The fact that UBC Farm is much larger scale than any small permaculture gardens or small little farms and people often question sustainable agriculture being a possibility to grow food and make things work. And I think UBC Farm serves as a good example that it can work. And we can also use it to teach people. I think the farm here is such a good ground for teaching, exposing people to this whole subject and a very inspiring place to be. It is so unique in a sense that it isn’t just a farm but a sustainable forward thinking farm that’s involved in lots of people in the community. People should know that the farm exists and has its gates open to everyone. UBC Farm can serve both as a production tool to provide sustainably grown food for people but also can serve as a huge educational tool and outreach tool just by being a farm.Work Learn Profile: Jaylin Melnichuk, Academic Assistant
Work Learn Profile: Jaylin Melnichuk, Academic Assistant
