The Draft Whole Community Agricultural Strategy is so enticing, councillor Anny Scoones wanted pie after reading it.
The district is looking for input on the plan set to complement the Agricultural Area Plan — providing strategy for combined traditional and urban agriculture.
“When I read it I thought ‘I gotta go out and have pie’,” Scoones said.
The draft food production outline is peppered with photos to entice readers and encourages the community as a place to live, work, play and grow food.
“It is a very forward looking and innovative document,” said councillor Dunstan Browne.
It ties together non-traditional, and traditional agriculture using recommendations from the agricultural area plan, and expanding it to include other areas in the community that could be used for growing food.
“The purpose of this is not only to expand on that proposal but to give practical directions for implementation. That I think is the real strength of this strategy,” said mayor Alice Finall.
“I’m very much hoping we can translate this into action,” Scoones said.
The summary of the strategy outlines four areas of action: The priority municipal actions to support each factor in the local food system (44 items were selected as priority from 89 identified); prioritize the 11 community actions recommended to support the local food system; ‘low hanging fruit’ actions that can be quickly and easily implemented (not priorities, but those that wouldn’t take significant municipal resources); and edible plantings for use in landscaping of single family, multifamily and commercial developments as well as public lands. The plan includes a list of plants compiled during the agricultural ideas fair in November.
“I’m hoping that this will come back to us before the end of this council term,” said councillor Cairine Green. “It’s sort of a bucket list item for some of us.”
The draft strategy is available online at www.northsaanich.ca.