Guest: Ron Berezan, The Urban Farmer
Big Idea:
How Cuba’s drastic food reform system will help us grow.
Topic Today:
In today’s podcast Ron says “The more the pandemic endures, the more I keep thinking back to Cuba, because, here we are. Many of us have begun to see some of the fragilities in our own food system. I think people in Cuba would never have seen coming what came. It seemed like everything was quite fine, thank you very much. And I think we’re the same.”
Ron’s background bringing tours to the once starving, now thriving, country of Cuba is filled with tidbits and sustainability ideas everyone will enjoy. Ron is so concerned about food systems and security he has dedicated his life to it and is helping his community by taking part in a co-housing project.
Asked what he learned in Cuba Ron says “I had my head blown open in a big way by meeting some amazing people involved in Cuba’s very drastic food system transformation [in] the early nineties.
I’ve been 37 times and I’ve taken 27 different groups to see, urban agriculture, permaculture and organic agriculture in practice in Cuba.”
From his work with The Urban Farmer, his tours to organic farms in Cuba, and his latest project developing a co-housing farm in Powell River, Ron literally puts his money where his mouth is. “I think that home gardens, urban agriculture [and] small scale solutions are our greatest security and, in looking at this, our greatest bet. And imagine if everybody in your community, everybody in my community, everybody in the city of Vancouver starts to grow a little bit of food: that becomes significant. It becomes significant.”
References: How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons (https://johnjeavons.org/)
Connect with Ron: www.theurbanfarmer.ca
Blueberry Commons: www.blueberrycommons.ca
