Local food self-sufficiency

[Kaia Nightingale]

One of the goals of Transition Towns is to become more locally resilient. A large part of this resilience is about food sourcing and distribution. Our basic food needs could be sourced within a short distance of this city. Our food would be fresher and less oil dependent. We would have more connection with the farms that grow our food, create more local employment, and build more sense of community.

This paper is the draft of a paper created by TTO member Kaia for the Canadian Biodiversity Institute. This paper will eventually form part of a larger document called "A Citizen's Action Plan on Climate Change and Oil Uncertainty, and their effects on Food, Water and Energy Security for Ottawa."
 In addition is a paper written in the USA on the need for local food policy.

Please feel free to comment and add suggestions. In Spring we will have a forum focused on food to start moving local food resilience forward. We look forward to your input.

[Remi Charron]

Hi Kaia,

The document was interesting with lots of good facts and figures.
There was an interesting post yesterday on the Energy Bulletin on Food incubators that might be of interest (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-14/food-incubators-pr...). It presents an oportunity to bring higher incomes to farmers without necessarily increasing food prices.
There are many, many recommendations listing in the Redesigning Ottawa file. Some are very good, would make a big difference and are implementable. Others might be good but would not be implemented due to either WTO, Free Trade, or simple politics. Others are questionable such as the cold-air pipes for fridges. The energy used by fridges and freezers when it is cold outside, goes to heat the house. So if cold-air pipes would reduce the refrigeration costs, it would increase heating costs. Adding penetrations to the building envelope to bring in cold air inside the houses would likely result in some air leakage that would further increase space heating.

I would suggest reviewing the strategies to make sure the can and would be implemented, and possibly try to determine level of impact, level of effort, likelyhood of being implemented...
You have a number of good references, but the text could use some more references to support a number of the facts that were presented.

Good start on this draft.

Remi

[Kaia Nightingale]

Hi Remi,
Great reply!
If you feel to comment in more detail, I'll send you a word file of the document which you could liberally write over in red. Write to [e-mail] if so.
Fridges are one of the bigger energy consumers, so it would be worth finding a low-carbon solution. I was thinking the refrigerated space would be a sealed insulated cupboard that wouldn't cool the house, and figured since many homes have fans in kitchens and bathrooms, or for the electric clothes drier, that builders have already figured out how get sealed inlets. In addition to being energy guzzlers, they are often quite loud, filling the whole house with whirring. I would really welcome an alternative!
Do write more about your thoughts, alternative strategies, or anything else that comes to you. The food issue - from soil to dinner table - needs addressing.
Kaia



Remi Charron said:

Hi Kaia,

The document was interesting with lots of good facts and figures.
There was an interesting post yesterday on the Energy Bulletin on Food incubators that might be of interest (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-14/food-incubators-pr...). It presents an oportunity to bring higher incomes to farmers without necessarily increasing food prices.
There are many, many recommendations listing in the Redesigning Ottawa file. Some are very good, would make a big difference and are implementable. Others might be good but would not be implemented due to either WTO, Free Trade, or simple politics. Others are questionable such as the cold-air pipes for fridges. The energy used by fridges and freezers when it is cold outside, goes to heat the house. So if cold-air pipes would reduce the refrigeration costs, it would increase heating costs. Adding penetrations to the building envelope to bring in cold air inside the houses would likely result in some air leakage that would further increase space heating.

I would suggest reviewing the strategies to make sure the can and would be implemented, and possibly try to determine level of impact, level of effort, likelyhood of being implemented...
You have a number of good references, but the text could use some more references to support a number of the facts that were presented.

Good start on this draft.

Remi

[Kaia Nightingale]

Hi Remi,
TTO member Heather Hamilton just sent me this link. Cool - someone actually made a fridge like this. See this link, http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/blogs/diy-hacks/hack-energ...
Kaia


Remi Charron said:

Hi Kaia,

The document was interesting with lots of good facts and figures.
There was an interesting post yesterday on the Energy Bulletin on Food incubators that might be of interest (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-14/food-incubators-pr...). It presents an oportunity to bring higher incomes to farmers without necessarily increasing food prices.
There are many, many recommendations listing in the Redesigning Ottawa file. Some are very good, would make a big difference and are implementable. Others might be good but would not be implemented due to either WTO, Free Trade, or simple politics. Others are questionable such as the cold-air pipes for fridges. The energy used by fridges and freezers when it is cold outside, goes to heat the house. So if cold-air pipes would reduce the refrigeration costs, it would increase heating costs. Adding penetrations to the building envelope to bring in cold air inside the houses would likely result in some air leakage that would further increase space heating.

I would suggest reviewing the strategies to make sure the can and would be implemented, and possibly try to determine level of impact, level of effort, likelyhood of being implemented...
You have a number of good references, but the text could use some more references to support a number of the facts that were presented.

Good start on this draft.

Remi

[Carrie Charron]

Hi Kaia,

This looks like a cool little fridge that is sure to impress friends and family.  I would still advise against it however.  Except for the dryer that exhausts its heat outside, all of the electricity that you consume in the house ends up as heat.  So in essence, when your fridge is consuming electricity in the winter, it is reducing how much heat you need by the same amount.  The only difference is that you are consuming electricity as opposed to natural gas, wood...  Essentially, the frige takes heat from inside your fridge and dumps it into the house.  If you have a passive fridge like the one in the blog, you are essentially dumping that heat outside.  It is not that intuitive.  Does it make sense to you? 

One thing that interests me is to add a cold storage in the basement so that I can store fruits and vegetables for the winter.  It doesn't need to be as cold, and it would be bigger than a fridge so that you can store more food.  My colleagues at work don't really like the idea because they think it would be hard to prevent condensation on the walls, which could lead to mold growth. If the storage is in the house, and if there is mold, the spores would end up all over the house. To avoid this issue, you can build it outside underground.  However, I don't like the idea of having to go outside and losing all the heat in the house by opening and closing the door.

Remi

Kaia Nightingale said:

Hi Remi,
TTO member Heather Hamilton just sent me this link. Cool - someone actually made a fridge like this. See this link, http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/blogs/diy-hacks/hack-energ...
Kaia


Remi Charron said:

Hi Kaia,

The document was interesting with lots of good facts and figures.
There was an interesting post yesterday on the Energy Bulletin on Food incubators that might be of interest (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-14/food-incubators-pr...). It presents an oportunity to bring higher incomes to farmers without necessarily increasing food prices.
There are many, many recommendations listing in the Redesigning Ottawa file. Some are very good, would make a big difference and are implementable. Others might be good but would not be implemented due to either WTO, Free Trade, or simple politics. Others are questionable such as the cold-air pipes for fridges. The energy used by fridges and freezers when it is cold outside, goes to heat the house. So if cold-air pipes would reduce the refrigeration costs, it would increase heating costs. Adding penetrations to the building envelope to bring in cold air inside the houses would likely result in some air leakage that would further increase space heating.

I would suggest reviewing the strategies to make sure the can and would be implemented, and possibly try to determine level of impact, level of effort, likelyhood of being implemented...
You have a number of good references, but the text could use some more references to support a number of the facts that were presented.

Good start on this draft.

Remi

[elise dubois]

Hello.

 

Your paper mentions the idea that more urban areas should grow vegetables, but in order for this to happen, there must be an intentional control of the squirrel population. I know of too many people in Ottawa who have given up growing their own vegetable gardens and fruit vines because of their ultimate destruction by squirrels. It is also unfortunate that housing lots are so often so small that one must choose between having a mature tree or having sunshine for a vegetable garden -- very often a lot is too small to have room for both.

[Kaia Nightingale]

Oh yes, those ol' squirrels. Mine regularly devastated everything I had. At first I was forgiving thinking, well this is the only buffet for them for quite a distance (I live in Centretown). Then one day I had enough and 'went metal.' I biked down to Preston Hardware and came back with a roll of fine gauge chicken wire. I threw up a simple 2x2 frame, put the chicken wire around and sewed the strips together with wire so it was impenetrable. I have been eating my vege ever since.

 

If / when we hit a real food crisis, the squirrel population will likely reduce or disappear quite quickly into pots and pies, along with anything else that moves. I'm vegetarian, so won't be me doing this kind of cooking, but I can see it happening. I don't know how the squirrel population could be reduced right now.

 

If push comes to shove, there might be people choosing between having the shade and beauty of a tree and having vegetables. I'm on the third floor of a house, so I'm above the tree line most of the year.

 

Thanks for posting!

Come to our event on March 21st where we're focusing on local food growing.

Come on Feb 7 and 28th too if you can - I look forward to meeting you.

Kaia

elise dubois said:

Hello.

 

Your paper mentions the idea that more urban areas should grow vegetables, but in order for this to happen, there must be an intentional control of the squirrel population. I know of too many people in Ottawa who have given up growing their own vegetable gardens and fruit vines because of their ultimate destruction by squirrels. It is also unfortunate that housing lots are so often so small that one must choose between having a mature tree or having sunshine for a vegetable garden -- very often a lot is too small to have room for both.

[Elizabeth Cliffen]

Wow, I must be very lucky!  I live in west centretown and the Squirrels have only gone after my spring bulbs and that's it!  I even leave some extra tomatoes out for them, and they don't seem too interested!  Maybe it's because my neighbor has dogs?  Hmmmmmm.....

Kaia Nightingale said:

Oh yes, those ol' squirrels. Mine regularly devastated everything I had. At first I was forgiving thinking, well this is the only buffet for them for quite a distance (I live in Centretown). Then one day I had enough and 'went metal.' I biked down to Preston Hardware and came back with a roll of fine gauge chicken wire. I threw up a simple 2x2 frame, put the chicken wire around and sewed the strips together with wire so it was impenetrable. I have been eating my vege ever since.

 

If / when we hit a real food crisis, the squirrel population will likely reduce or disappear quite quickly into pots and pies, along with anything else that moves. I'm vegetarian, so won't be me doing this kind of cooking, but I can see it happening. I don't know how the squirrel population could be reduced right now.

 

If push comes to shove, there might be people choosing between having the shade and beauty of a tree and having vegetables. I'm on the third floor of a house, so I'm above the tree line most of the year.

 

Thanks for posting!

Come to our event on March 21st where we're focusing on local food growing.

Come on Feb 7 and 28th too if you can - I look forward to meeting you.

Kaia

elise dubois said:

Hello.

 

Your paper mentions the idea that more urban areas should grow vegetables, but in order for this to happen, there must be an intentional control of the squirrel population. I know of too many people in Ottawa who have given up growing their own vegetable gardens and fruit vines because of their ultimate destruction by squirrels. It is also unfortunate that housing lots are so often so small that one must choose between having a mature tree or having sunshine for a vegetable garden -- very often a lot is too small to have room for both.