Real Food For Real People

Real Food For Real People

Glen Valley seems to be a little glitch on the map—an area with no major roads through it, no gas stations, major crossroads, industrial estates or fast food outlets. Driving through it is not easy as many roads end abruptly or veer in odd directions due to quirks in the landscape. This is an area that has not been heavily rationalized for vehicle traffic or the needs of a fast paced, commuter oriented lifestyles. It is a place where the noise of traffic doesn’t penetrate and it is best not to be in a hurry.

Stephen Gallagher seems like an anomaly here in this quiet valley. He is a great bundle of energy and enthusiasm. His ideas and knowledgebase are so large it is hard to constrain him to basic sentences. In between sentences, he tends to run off and check on the beet harvest or whatever else is going on.

Stephen calls his farm Nathan Creek Organic Farm because his house and home fields in Abbotsford are on the head waters of Nathan Creek which drains into Glen Valley. His personal goal is to produce “Real Food for Real People”. Having serviced the high-end restaurant and hotel trade in the past, he finds producing food directly for his community much more satisfying. For the last six years, Stephen has been building a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) operation at Nathan Creek. His farm produces a wide range of vegetables including subsistence crops such as winter squash, onions, potatoes and garlic—which are not typical among market oriented organic produce growers—and highvalue, perishable crops like spinach and arugula. His is the only CSA operation serving the lower mainland area at present.

The farm’s brochure explains that the CSA concept originated in Japan in the 1960s. This was in response to some horrific industrial pollution incidents in the 50’s—The Minimata incident being the most severe and most infamous. The Japanese system was a consumer driven effort to organize farmers to produce food under a guarantee contract. The consumers took on all the distribution, shipping, storage and handling post-harvest. The farmers could grow as much as required and know that they had a guaranteed price for their product.

The CSA approach has other benefits to the farmer. Bio-diversity on a farm is an essential part of sustainable practices and organic farming. A diversity of plant families are necessary for crop rotation, pest control and disease resistance—especially when not using herbicides and pesticides. Stephen asserts that growing for CSA is the only way it is possible to combine low value crops with highly valuable, perishable crops—a mix that provides good nutritional value to the consumer and good market value to the farmer. He sees the CSA approach as fundamental first step to a well functioning local food economy. “The permaculture concept of concentric rings of intensity is valid here. Foods that are most valuable for their vitamin content should be produced within the sho

rtest possible radius. If you’re talking about a treat to get a banana, great, but if you’re talking about a quality potassium or vitamin source, you want to get something as close to you and as reliable as possible”, he says.

Stephen grew up in New York City. His farming experience was largely a week at the beginning and the end of the summer pulling Queen Anne’s Lace from the dairy pasture on his grandparent’s farm. His early career was in environmental protection and he worked on municipal recycling programs and community gardens. Eventually, he began to have nagging doubts that he was simply helping to sustain and maintain an industrial system that was fundamentally destructive. His experiences working in community gardening were very rewarding and he began to think about farming as a profession and BC as the place.

As well as actively farming, Stephen continues to be active in policy and program development. He is currently serving his second three year term on the BCARA Board of Directors. He is also one of two vice presidents of the COABC.

He is adamant that BC is unique in North America. He considers this to be due partly to the success of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in BC. “The ALR, at the very least, keeps most of the land which could be used for agriculture from being converted to other uses. There are flaws and loopholes, but there is no zoning law or farmland protection act anywhere that comes close to the comprehensiveness of the stated objectives and actual results [of the ALR]”, he explains. “The ALR prevents consolidation or fragmentation beyond what was already in place at the time it was put into effect. It means the five to ten, twenty acre parcel size has become a significant unit of production. This has supported a service industry geared towards a scale which doesn’t exist anywhere else in North America. A five acre scale of production simply doesn’t exist. ” Also to its favor, the lower mainland has the highest climate potential in Canada, so even relatively low quality land is potentially more productive than better quality soils in more unforgiving climates. Excellent river delta soils and the high climate potential make this corner of BC particularly exciting for agricultural development.

When I first met Stephen, he wanted to make it very clear that he wasn’t the only farmer “actually growing food for people”. According to Stephen, there are many people working towards developing local markets and sustainable methods. The size and scale of farms in BC make for a great deal of diversity in product and method. The proximity to large urban markets is an enormous opportunity. And, the simple act of growing food for people is deeply rewarding. This, he says, is the beginning of a local sustainable food system.

This valley may not be as quiet as it seems.

Michael Marrapese Nov, 2003