The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities

Our reliance on industrial agriculture has resulted in a food supply riddled with hidden environmental, economic, and health care costs and beset by rising food prices. With only a handful of corporations responsible for the lion’s share of the food on our supermarket shelves, we are incredibly vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

The Urban Food Revolution provides a recipe for community food security based on leading innovations across North America. The author draws on his political and business experience to show that we have all the necessary ingredients to ensure that local, fresh sustainable food is affordable and widely available. He describes how cities are bringing food production home by:

• Growing community through neighborhood gardening, cooking, and composting programs
• Rebuilding local food processing, storage, and distribution systems
• Investing in farmers markets and community supported agriculture
• Reducing obesity through local fresh food initiatives in schools, colleges, and universities
• Ending inner-city food deserts

Producing food locally makes people healthier, alleviates poverty, creates jobs, and makes cities safer and more beautiful. The Urban Food Revolution is an essential resource for anyone who has lost confidence in the global industrial food system and wants practical advice on how to join the local food revolution.

Peter Ladner has served two terms as a Vancouver City Councilor. With more than thirty-five years of journalistic experience, he is a frequent speaker on community issues and has a special interest in the intersection of food policy and city planning.

Peter Ladner has more than 35 years of journalistic experience in print, radio and television and is a frequent speaker on business and community issues. As the publisher and co-founder of Business in Vancouver Media Group, he founded Greenspace Magazine before serving two terms as a Vancouver City Councilor. He is also a director of The Natural Step Canada. As part of his focus on the intersection of food policy and city planning, Peter initiated a program to create 2,010 new food-producing community garden plots to coincide with the 2010 Olympics. A lifelong vegetable gardener, he has replaced his own front lawn in urban Vancouver with a productive food garden.