Some recently found items of interest

With all the recent attention given to the push for legalizing chickens in the city, This Magazine’s recent article may be of interest: “Be an urban chicken farmer in 5 easy steps”

“Square foot gardening” presents an approach to growing food that can really simplify things — making gardening much more approachable for people new to it, or just too busy to deal with more complicated setups. The CBC has a useful story on this approach: Another take on urban gardening.

The Eat Well Guide is an online database of local, sustainable and organic food sources (farmers, shops, community gardens, restaurants, organizations, etc.) for Canada and the U.S. They don’t have any listings for Calgary, yet, but you can add listings. Another spot to promote our local resources.

Citizens Market “is a non-profit user-generated website for ethical consumption.”

"Group Calls for Urban Chickens"

Metro Calgary published a story today about the push to legalize chickens in Calgary. Unfortunately, they confused a few of the details (I'm not involved in CLUCK- as much as I would love to be associated with the work they're doing,) but it is really great to see media starting to pick up on specific issues related to urban agriculture. Thanks Jennifer!

Here's the story, written by Jennifer Hillicker:

If you can’t afford to buy fresh meat in today’s economy, one Calgary group has a solution — raise it at home.

The Calgary Liberated Urban Chicken Klub (CLUCK) wants city council to update the Calgary Municipal Code in order to permit the responsible raising of backyard chickens.

“The major benefit of backyard chickens is food security,” said Rachel Simpson, who is involved with CLUCK through Calgary Urban Agriculture. “It’s pretty key, especially in Calgary right now. Calgary is a little bit lacking as far as how much food we get locally and how much food people grow themselves. The idea of growing your own food develops a pride in your community.”

The group is petitioning city council to follow in Vancouver’s footsteps, which approved bylaws to legalize the keeping of urban hens on March 5.

They say benefits include the fact that chickens produce a rich fertilizer by-product, they eat table scraps, reducing municipal organic waste, and they produce fresh, healthy eggs.

Legalizing urban chickens

I've been so excited about the recent enthusiasm for trying to get the keeping of chickens legalized. It's a great idea, the benefits of which would be enormous for those of us interested in producing our own food sustainably. All the hubbub began with an article Angela posted on her blog. After that, there was an article in ffwd, which probably should have referenced her.

There has been talk recently about orchestrating the movement - writing letters, getting the support of local businesses, which seems like an excellent direction to take it. Here is the email sent by ravis, which outlines an excellent step-by-step plan we could use.

Hi All,

I have just recently come back to Calgary and have been following this
thread as I am also interested in getting chooks in the future. Why
don't we take a slightly different approach to gaining support from
the alder people? We should leave the Guerilla method in our back
pocket and definitely whip it out if needed, but only if they are
wearing leather outfits and spike collars like Lindsay suggested.

To gain the support of the aldermen/women we need to build support in
a similar fashion to that of a pyramid. These alderpeople have
nothing to gain right now by agreeing to allowing chickens into our
neighbourhoods. We should start getting letters of support from non
profit groups like clean calgary, sympathetic CEO's, and local
businesses. This will take time as we need to get a lot of them.
Then as far as the petition goes we should focus on areas of the city
where we know a lot of people would get into urban chook farming.
Luckily we have large numbers of ethnic people who may very well have
had chooks in their home country and may want to have them here. I
bet you that there are 70,000 people that go in and out of T n T
market on a Saturday and Sunday for food. My point is if we start to
haggle the aldermen without getting support from a number of different
sources he is going to push the issue aside and focus his attention on
things that "matter" like arresting cats that are peeing in your
garden. Lets start a list of people in high up places that would
support this. We can also get a petition going in parallel. In
addition we need to write a letter on good management practises for
keeping chickens. We don't want anyone to think that sanitary
conditions are going to be compromised by keeping chooks. To test
this best management practise we get Lindsay set up with some Guerilla
chickens, doesn't monsanto already make these??:)

Here is the start of support list.

Natalie Odd, Clean Calgary
Lindsay Ross
Provincial Green, Liberal and NDP candidates
I will write a letter as www.ravissustainable.com
Calgary Garden Path
All of the other community gardens
Hip businesses on 17th and in Ingelwood
Rivas Ecostore
Green builders
Arusha
YEP Calgary
Green drinks
Landscaping centres??
Home Depot (they might sell chicken coops)
Rona (dido)
Pet stores( they will sell the chicks)


This looks like a great way to get started.

For those of you interested in getting involved, comment here. Join the facebook group, or send letters to your MPs! Let us know what you think about meeting up and getting started!

Urban Chickens; Composting Workshop

There are two items of business today. The first is an article that appeared in Ffwd this week titled "Chicks in the City." You can read the article here. It's a piece about the movement to repeal the law against owning chickens in Calgary. Woo!

Also, check out The City Chicken.

I also recieved this general invite on Facebook from Lindsay of Calgary Social Change, and thought I would pass it along to you folks. For more details, or to register, drop her a line @ (403) 230-1443 ext 225 or by email at lindsay@cleancalgary.org.

Master Composter Course: 20 Hour Certification Course

Learn home composting techniques from trained Clean Calgary Association Master Composters and become one yourself! No experience necessary; just a willingness to learn. After completing the course, you will receive certification as a Master Composter.

Cost: $200 or $75 plus a 25 hour time commitment to volunteer, some subsidies available. Next start date: Tuesday, Sept 23rd, 2008 at 6:30pm. (6 consecutive Tuesday nights, except for Tues. Oct 7th. 2.5 hours per night. Includes two optional field trips.)

End date: Tuesday Nov. 4th. Saturday Nov. 8th, 2008 is an optional field trip and graduation lunch.

Location: Westwinds Superstore community room (Upstairs at the Superstore). The address is 3633 Westwinds Dr. NE. Registration Please register by Friday September 19th, 2008. Refunds will be provided to those who withdraw before 5pm Sept. 19th, 2008.