Dr Lee: Hello Mr. Steves, tell us a bit about your farming background:
Mr. Steves:
I studied genetics at UBC and I am a practicing geneticist. Our family established the first seed company in BC in 1888. We are still growing, saving, improving, and selling seed from over 50 vegetable varieties adapted to the BC climate.
Dr. Lee: Tell me more about this picture of Victory Garden
Mr. Steves:
That’s a picture of myself on the far left as a youngster. During WWII people still knew how to grow their own food. We dug up back yards, lanes and roadsides. We grew 42% of our food in Victory gardens. Everything was recycled. Manures and compost were returned to the land. Crops were rotated. Cow pasture was plowed under to grow vegetables, then oats cover crop, then legume hay to add nitrogen, then pastures again.
Dr. Lee: How has the city of Richmond responded to pesticides and GMO?
• Richmond banned cosmetic pesticides in 2009 and GMO’s on May 28, 2012
• After over 50 years of monoculture soils are depleted. It’s scientifically impossible to produce more food with minerals and microbes that no longer exist in the soil. Yet that is the GMO claim
• GMO’s do not produce more food to feed the world. GMO’s are designed to kill weeds with round-up or 2-4-D. That is all.
• To feed the world we need to maintain our genetic diversity, and replenish our soils.
Dr. Lee: What is an anaerobic digester and the compost trial?
Mr. Steves;
Through the green can program, residential yard and food waste are taken to a facility on Westminster highway and put into these large tall structures called anaerobic digesters. These anaerobic digesters help turn the food waste into organic matter called compost.
Our compost has been tested and showed to be so clean that it can be used to put back into our organic farm soil and gardens to help nourish the soil. This is a very exciting project.
Dr. Lee: Are there other exciting projects that are happening in Richmond?
Mr. Steves:
Yes, there are! You will soon hear some exciting news about the Garden City Lands and the proposed land use. Also, near the Brio clinic, the new development called The Gardens will also have community gardens and dedicated farm land that Kwantlen University students will be using to do research and learn more on organic farming practices.
