By HEATHER PICOTTE
Coordinator, Neighbours Feeding Neighbours
Amid all of today’s economic and political uncertainty, one of the biggest stressors for many is the rising cost of food.
Our food security on Salt Spring — that is, our ability to consistently access healthy food — is lower than it ever has been. We now rely on outside producers for approximately 95 per cent of our foodstuffs. This is bad enough on its own; we import food extravagantly at great cost to our wallets and our environment. But what if, on top of that, a major emergency happened tomorrow? What if we were cut off from Vancouver Island and the mainland for days or even weeks? How would you and your neighbourhood fare?
Take a moment to think about it, and you might start to panic. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you don’t have a plan and don’t know the resources available. However, the antidote to anxiety is action! Neighbours Feeding Neighbours (NFN), Salt Spring’s emergency food security project, has some tips for getting started:
1. Be aware: There are so many good emergency resources in our community: sign up for the Public Alert Notification System via the CRD website, which will call or text you during weather events and other crises. Visit the NFN website (nfnsaltspring.org) to learn more about emergency food security on Salt Spring and download resources, including our emergency plan templates. Find out which emergency pod you belong to with our updated pod map, and connect with your emergency pod by emailing ssipod@crd.bc.ca.
2. Build relationships: Exchange contact information with a few people in your neighbourhood in case one of you needs something during an emergency. You can also participate in one of our community’s many food security projects. One upcoming initiative is the invasive plant disposal hosted by NFN on May 24, May 31 and June 8. Removal and proper disposal of invasive plants can make way for Indigenous and/or food plants, thereby increasing the island’s long-term resilience to climate change and weather events. This summer, check out the Salt Spring Island Farmland Trust (SSIFT) Food Share and Gleaning programs, or Transition Salt Spring’s new garden mentor program. All of these serve to increase the amount of food available on island, while simultaneously strengthening relationships.
3. Build up a simple stock of emergency food supplies: Try to have at least three days’ worth of food and water for each member of your household, including pets. It doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. Make sure it’s food your family enjoys, and is as shelf-stable and easy to prepare as possible. Keep it in a place you can easily access in an emergency. You can store water purification equipment, utensils and simple washing supplies in the same area. Be sure to incorporate awareness of the food supplies into your broader household emergency plan.
4. Buy local goods whenever you can: supporting local farmers and food producers builds our island’s food sovereignty, expands the market for new producers and keeps our local economy thriving.
5. Try growing some food! Ultimately, there’s no surer way to be food secure than to grow your own. And while it’s not feasible for most of us to be completely self sufficient, growing even just a bit of your own food can be incredibly rewarding. If you’re a beginner, we recommend starting with beans. They’re easy to grow and the harvest can be used in multiple ways: eaten fresh, or dried and then cooked, sprouted for greens, ground for flour, or planted for more beans! Best of all, in an emergency the complete protein from beans gives us the healthy energy we need to make rational decisions and survive.
For more information on Salt Spring’s emergency preparedness and food security resources, visit:
• Neighbours Feeding Neighbours: nfnsaltspring.org;
• SSI Emergency Program: crd.ca/programs-services/fire-emergency/electoral-area-emergency-management/salt-spring-island-emergency-program;
• SSI Farmland Trust: ssifarmlandtrust.org;
• Transition Salt Spring: transitionsaltspring.com.