Update: SFU announced on March 23 that Will Allen's talk has been cancelled due to "unforeseen circumstances".

Just as the buzz of local food production in Vancouver is picking up, a former pro basketball player who became an urban farmer is coming to town to talk about his successes helping inner-city residents grow, process, market, and distribute food.

Will Allen, winner of the $500,000 MacArthur Genius Fellowship in 2008, began urban farms in Chicago and Milwaukee and is now helping 10,000 people gain access to fresh, nutritious food. This comes at an opportune time for our city, given that plans are underway for the development of something called New City Market—Food Hub, a collaboration between the group Local Food First and the Vancouver food policy council, a city advisory committee.

The market would emulate one that existed near Main Street and Terminal Avenue in 1908 and push Vancouver towars a more self-reliant food system. no location yet. “Hopefully, it will be in the same vicinity,” says Herb Barbolet, a long-time food activist who sits on the food policy council.

“It would be a year-round wholesale, resale, farmers market, distribution centre, and storage facility, with a food-processing kitchen and meeting hall. A place where the whole food system is transparent,” Barbolet says. Neighbourhood food precincts would become forums for education on the processes of how to set up community gardens and farms. The idea is that every neighborhood has either a community centre or a school or neighbourhood house, and if they were set up with food as a focus, they could educate a lot of people.

“There have been a couple decades of organizing going on,” says Barbolet, who grows herbs and salad greens on his condo’s small balcony. Although it will take another three to five years to set up, the work is proceeding . The goal, Barbolet says, is to reconnect local producers with local consumers

David Tracey, a coordinator with the Vancouver Community Agriculture Network, says growing your own food from seed to harvest brings power back to the people. The idea of a central food hub, Tracey told the Georgia Straight by phone, is to relocalize our food system away from the corporate model, which tells us broccoli is better grown in other countries, often under “dubious practices”. He says that 86 percent of our produce was grown in right here in B.C. at about the time of the Second World War, whereas now that percentage has dropped to 43. He says that he feels optimistic about the prospect of reclaiming food production through the New City Market—Food Hub because Vancouver is blessed with many talented advocates and politicians who want to see change.

“We see all the pieces coming together,” he says.

Meanwhile, the SOLEfood farm, previously a vacant lot beside the Astoria Hotel on East Hastings Street, is preparing for its first harvest. Seann Dory from United We Can, a Downtown Eastside nonprofit group behind the urban farm, says SOLEfood would be eager to sell its produce to the envisioned New City Market—Food Hub. The farm’s mandate, according to Dory—who will sit on a panel for Allen’s talk—is to grow food to sell, creating jobs and promoting local production.

According to Carol Wood, a coordinator with the Pandora Park Community Gardens, part of the appeal of growing and producing locally is that consumers know from start to finish exactly where their food comes from. She says the Vancouver park board was very accommodating when she proposed the 65-plot garden near Nanaimo and Franklin streets in East Vancouver. Community members can plant anything they want in their allotted space.

Jeff Nield, operations manager with FarmFolk/CityFolk—a Vancouver nonprofit group that cultivates local sustainable food communities—says anybody can grow their own food. “You empower people by teaching them how to grow things,” he says.

Through buckets on apartment balconies, in backyard and community gardens, in concrete lots and on window sills, urban farming is possible for anybody. Nield is certain Vancouverites could sustain themselves if they tried.

Allen’s talk takes place Thursday (March 25) at the Croatian Cultural Centre between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. The event is free, but preregistration is required and can be done on-line.