Deconstructing Dinner

Host Jon Steinman speaks with Rebecca Kneen of Crannóg Ales - Canada's only Certified Organic farmhouse microbrewery. Kneen published a manual on small-scale organic hop growing and she is extremely excited at the attention the manual has received since the global hops shortage hit home. We also learn more on the philosophies of biodynamic agriculture and the important presence of microorganisms in a post-carbon world.

Meet Bucky Buckaw - a backyard-chicken expert and Host of Bucky Buckaw's Backyard Chicken Broadcast. Also meet Christoph Martens - a subversive backyard chickener who raises chickens within the city limits of Nelson, British Columbia. While City Bylaw #2333 prohibits the raising of poultry, Martens won't let such an environmentally irresponsible bylaw get in the way of his path to greater self-sufficiency.

Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians believes water is the greatest ecological and human rights crisis of our time. Deconstructing Dinner recorded her speech in March 2008. We also hear from Farmer Percy Schmeiser and an exclusive interview recorded only moments after Monsanto paid him for the damages their genetically engineered canola inflicted upon his farm.

In this episode of Deconstructing Dinner, we explore the creation of a market for local grain using a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model. We also hear from a grade 4 student sharing some shocking information with his classmates on factory animal farms.

Recorded at the 2008 annual conference of the Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia, we hear segments from a workshop titled "Starting Your Organic Farm". Also featured is a short segment from a recent event titled, "Write to a Farmer Who Inspires You".

This episode highlights the dialogue that a regional food security conference can help inspire, and emphasizes the wealth of knowledge and talent that may be hidden in the recesses of North American communities. Host Jon Steinman also visits with a Conscientious Cook in Saskatoon, Canada - Daniel Walker.

What happens when a city of 80,000 without a farmers' market hosts a trial market in this new age of increasing awareness of local food?

If you were told, that organic farmers are giving up growing organic crops, would you be concerned? The Saskatchewan Organic Directorate has since 2002 been seeking compensation for the damages caused by the property owned by American-based Monsanto and Germany's Bayer.

Recorded at a regional food security conference in Nelson, BC, we hear from two keynote speakers and two elected officials on the current energy supply and demand balance, the imminent need to redefine local governance, mass migration, and a suggestion from one politician "to begin looking to political representation as a means to help politics stay out of the way of the interests of people!

In November 2007, Deconstructing Dinner attended one of the first regional food security conferences ever held in Canada. With a population of less than 10,000 people, the City of Nelson, British Columbia, hosted over 250 people for the first evening of keynote speakers. With an equally impressive 170 in attendance on the second day of keynote speakers and workshops, the conference acts as an example for other communities wishing to begin organizing themselves to take greater control over the food available to them.