Are pocket markets like this the future of food?

Credit: DARSHAN STEVENS

Food Folk

When longtime food activist Herb Barbolet comes to town, it’s only good taste to listen. As a 30-year veteran of the food fight, the founder of urban agricultural initiative Farm Folk/City Folk knows what he’s talking about when it comes to issues of food security.

“Basically, we’re talking about anything from peak oil, which is now peak everything, to climate change, which is now climate chaos, to population growth, pandemics, border closings . . . on and on. It appears that almost all of them are worse than originally predicted,” says Barbolet. “And that’s the good news, because the food system has already changed, is changing and is going to change drastically. We have the opportunity to get back to—and improve upon—the healthiness and celebration of food, rather than all the additives and toxins that go into producing, processing and distributing it. This is the opportunity to open it up and try and look for something better.”

Whew! Glad there’s nothing to worry about.

But the good news is Barbolet, who’ll be speaking on the nutritionally-packed topic of “The Illusion of Abundance: The Fragility of the Global Food System and What We Can Do Locally” this week, coutesy of community yumminess supporters FoodRoots, is actually feeling encouraged by current developments in local food movements. “For the last several decades, I’ve been talking about where our food comes from, advocating for a closer relationship between primary producers and consumers,” he says. “I’ve been talking against corporate concentration and globalization, against so-called free-trade rather than fair-trade, against the over-reliance on energy and oil, and against a mystical belief in magic bullets like biotechnology or nanotechnology. But also about the benefits to the local economy and the health of people and communities in producing much more food locally.”

The clearly passionate Barbolet is the first to admit his arguments hadn’t found a wide audience until recently. “For most of the last 30 years, I’ve been talking to myself and a few close friends; it wasn’t until the pandemics like mad cow disease and the avian flu and things like Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma that people started to wake up.” (Does that make him a visionary? “I’ve always been a visionary,” he chuckles, “now I’m just being recognized.”)

And there’s no question the Vancouver-based indie food guru knows what’s been happening on our side the pond. “It’s absolutely ludicrous that you’re producing less than 10 percent of the food you consume, when you have so many resources and so much going for you,” says Barbolet. “But all the wonderful pocket markets and farmer’s markets you have there are attracting more and more people. You’re doing wonderful things on the Island.”

Again—whew!

The Illusion of Abundance

7pm Friday, June 19

St. Ann’s Auditorium & Patio

Tickets $35 • 250-595-6742

Dinner Music

Bard & Banker - Jazzy sounds of Noah Becker (8:30pm SUNDAY) plus singer-songwriter Paul O’Brien (8:30pm MONDAY-WEDNESDAY). 250-953-9993.

Canoe brewpub - Quoia, featuring Mike Hann and members of Velvet and Mouth Full of Bees. 9pm THURSDAY. 250-361-1940.

Esquimalt Serious Coffee - Best of bluegrass with the Core. 7:30pm TUESDAY. 250-590-0910.

Heron Rock Bistro - Acoustic duo Mowbray and Mills, 7:30pm FRIDAY. 250-383-1545

hotel Grand Pacific - Jazz piano with Jan Stirling. 6:30pm FRIDAY and SATURDAY. 250 590-8484.

Ocean Pointe - Jazz piano with Phil Newns (6pm FRIDAY-SATURDAY) and Richard Bird (7pm FRIDAY-SATURDAY). 250-360-2999.

Ogden Point Cafe - Funk-blues rock with Big Horn Sheep (6pm SATURDAY). 250-386-8080.

The Paisley - Pop, rock and funk with the Normons, 8pm SATURDAY. 250-380-1105.

Spiral Cafe -Vernon Jones showcases his new CD In a Hurricane (8pm FRIDAY) plus string swing with the Spiral String Orchestra (7:30pm WEDNESDAY). By donation. 250-386-9303.

The Superior - ’80s night with Mike Demers (7pm THURSDAY), jazz with the Fisher-Nealis-Thomson Trio (7pm FRIDAY), Paul Laverick Trio (6pm SATURDAY), late night flamenco lounge with Gareth Owen and Alma de Espana (10pm SATURDAY), ambient jazz with Alboa (7pm TUESDAY), more flamenco guitar with Gareth Owen (7pm TUESDAY). Reservations recommended. 250.380.9515.

Swans - Rock out with Wide Awake (9pm THURSDAY) and Ginzou Knives (9pm FRIDAY-SATURDAY), classic folk rock with Vincent Black Lightning (8:30pm SUNDAY), jive and boogie with the Flying Saucers (9pm MONDAY), bluegrass with the Rock Island Ramblers (9pm TUESDAY) and blues with the Jordan Dunning Band (9pm WEDNESDAY). 250-361-3310.