Seeds of sustainability : food literacy communication in sharing gardens

Abstract

Food is omnipresent in our lives. As humans, we spend a great deal of time thinking about it, growing it, marketing it, looking for it, and consuming it. Yet access to food is anything but guaranteed, even in a thriving city like Vancouver, Canada. On the North Shore, where the cost of living is high and the number of vulnerable residents relying on food aid is growing, the Edible Garden Project (EGP) and its volunteers are focused on narrowing socioeconomic gaps. By exchanging and generating local food knowledge, as well as producing food in sharing gardens using ecologically responsible methods to supply neighbours in need, the EGP is articulating urban sustainability in practical terms and via sensory means. Using ethnographic research, I sought to explore this phenomenon and place it in the context of a culture advocating hyper-local food sovereignty and community-based health management to ensure its future.