Photo Credit: Organic Nation
Today is the last day to submit feedback on the District of North Vancouver’s Official Community Plan (OCP)! We’ve taken a look at the OCP and have noticed that there is not very much content supporting urban agriculture or food security.
The OCP is an important document, and it sets the course for the DNV for the next 20 years. Interest in local food, urban agriculture, and food security has been steadily growing, and as Will Allen said at an event in Vancouver last night, “It’s gone from a movement to a revolution.. It’s everywhere, and we’re [only] at the beginning…”
There is an incredible opportunity for the DNV to embed incentives for urban agriculture and increase access to affordable local food in this OCP. In particular, it would be great to see incentives (or requirements) for developers to include growing space (roof top gardens, community gardens, green walls, etc) in their plans. This could present a low-cost (for the DNV) option to support long term development of food growing space in our community.
We’ve got lots more ideas too! A couple of weeks ago a group of about 30 people that attended last fall’s Table Matter event met to discuss potential projects for 2011. At the end of the night we decided to put together these ideas and share them with the community in the hope that we could generate enough interest to include more wording specific to food security and urban agriculture in the OCP.
Click here to take a look at the other recommendations we put together. We also put together a template letter that you can send to the District to support include more wording specific to food security and urban agriculture in the OCP. Or send your own feedback directly to identity@dnv.org.
Thank-you for your support!