Despite being environmentally laudable, the 100-mile diet has remained financially elusive for many shoppers who can't afford the higher-price of locally grown foods, but one organization is trying to change that.
Can You Dig It? was launched in 2009 to promote urban agriculture and healthy food.
"Not everybody has access to fresh, local, organic produce, and we want to facilitate that," said project co-ordinator Cinthia Page.
The non-profit is currently tending 28 gardens in the Lower Mainland, but what makes those gardens unique is their charitable aspect.
The gardens include a give-back box which is often stuffed with vegetables, and according to Page, many people end up sampling the goods.
"People that walk past the garden can help themselves," Page said.
Many of the gardeners are developmentally disabled or face other problems related to isolation. Besides harvesting vegetables and the satisfaction of nurturing a living thing, Page said the experience allows the gardeners to feel included and to give back to the community.
"We realized that the people that we support with developmental disabilities are more and more isolated," Page said. "It's not enough to just have shelter in a community, everyone wants to contribute, everyone wants to play a role in the community. This is really what we try to achieve and it doesn't only apply to people with disabilities, it applies to anybody really in our modern life."
Part of the produce is donated to local food depots, according to Page.
Asked about the taste of the vegetables, Page is enthusiastic.
"It's day and night. Once you taste the vegetables that you grow yourself, it's really hard to go back to anything else," she said.
The group regularly uses vacant lots as a way to turn anonymous residents into neighbours. "They have a backyard where they could grow food but they've been living in that neighbourhood for years and they don't know the neighbours," she said. Having recently set up a garden on a vacant lot at Clark Drive and East 12th Avenue in Vancouver, Page has seen that community spirit in action.
"There were dozens of people that were just walking by, or they were living in the neighbourhood and they stopped and said, 'Do you need a hand?' 'Yeah, absolutely!' and they just joined us," Page said.
Now in its third growing season, Can You Dig It? works with 900 gardeners.
"We are in North Van, Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and we're planning to extend to Port Moody as well next year, so it's growing."
Find out more at cydi.ca.
