This year, Village Vancouver is hosting their 2nd annual Westside Food Festival. While more than halfway through the festival, there are still dozens of activities to come from now until August 9. This festival takes place in locations throughout the westside of Vancouver: Fairview-False Creek, Marpole-Oakridge, Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, and West Point Grey.
These workshops and activities are part of Village Vancouver’s ongoing Building Community Food Security and Resilience Project. Village Vancouver’s work “inspires individuals and organizations to take actions that build resilient and sustainable communities.” They operate as a knowledge and resource hub to bring people together over issues of social, environmental, and economic change.
Community seed libraries have sprung up around the world to create alternatives to the globalized farming industry. Locals in Vancouver have joined the global “Seed Sharing Movement” and established a number of seed libraries across the city. These seed libraries offer a variety of locally grown and climate-adapted seed specifically for our region. Additionally, they offer resources and tools to grow and save one’s own seed.
Seed art at Nexways wa lh7aynexw “Transformed Life” Britannia School Gardens
According to local seed saving project Borrow Save Share, we have lost between 75-90% of global crop diversity, including many heirloom and heritage crop varieties. As a result, our food crops are far less resilient in face of environmental disaster and extreme weather conditions.
While farmers and growers have saved and shared seeds for thousands of years, this practice has declined in recent years with the rise of a global food system. The global food system currently relies on the practice of monoculture farming, which encourages intensively growing a single crop on a large scale.
Village Vancouver and Grandview Woodlands Food Connection recently collaborated to start the Grandview Woodland Community Seed Library.
In Vancouver, we are lucky to have a number of dedicated individuals and community groups who offer free or low-cost #SeedySaturday events and provide educational resources.
Beyond preserving seed diversity, one of the goals is to “increase self-reliance and community resilience by focusing on community seed saving as opposed to large commercial seed suppliers,” says Grandview Woodland Community Seed Library.
Read on for a list of local seed libraries across Vancouver.
