Northern Communities Food Security

Northern Communities Food Security

I saw in the media a few months back that the northern communities and the government had been meeting to discuss food security and all the aspects this involves.

There are many different facets as one can imagine. Social, cultural, logistical, climate, and economics.

Unlike almost any other scientific endeavour, permaculture is non reductionist. It was interesting to note that the investigative panel consisted of a number of academics who specialise in a particular field, but there were no system thinking people who understand the behaviour of highly interconnected systems.

Anyway, this is not the reason why I decided to write about this. I decided to write about this because it makes sense that in remote communities, food security requires:

• Being close to the food source.
• Having robust food production systems.
• Being as self sufficient as possible in terms of energy, water, and food.
• Having self sustainable systems for food production and processing.

It seems obvious to me that these are all aspects that are central to most, if not all permaculture designs, so let's pretend for a moment that the expert panel had some permaculturists...

Assume for this exercise that the people of Northern communities desire self sufficiency and place a value on dietary nutrition. Assume too that the commercial interests of those supplying these communities under the status quo are eliminated. How does one go about designing practical food production systems for this climate?

The northern communities are located in boreal forest, and tundra where it's too cold for trees to grow in abundance. We're talking USDA hardiness zone 1 and 2 which doesn't leave a lot of perennial edibles capable of surviving such extremely low temperatures.

In a situation like this it makes sense to look closely at micro-climates and the use of earth works to facilitate a more hospitable climate. When it comes to cold climate micro-climates, the worlds most experienced permaculture expert would be Sepp Holzer.

Lets take a look at what he's been up to recently and see if it might work in the far North...

Sepp has been busy developing what he calls "Crater Gardens" in Siberia. If there is a climate analogue to the Northern territories then Siberia makes sense. We can confirm this by consulting the Köppen Climate Classification System.

We can also confirm it by using the on line climate analogue tool, which identifies Russia, and the Scandinavian countries as being similar.

So what is a crater garden? 

A crater garden (kratergarten) is an artificially created micro-climate growing system built into the ground and resembles a crater.

Earthen berms are constructed around the perimeter to act as wind breaks and trap heat.

The inner walls of the crater are terraced so that there are flat areas that can be used to grow crops and provide easy access.

An option is to construct the terraces in a spiral formation so that access to the bottom of the crater is gradual, minimising erosion effects of water.

At the bottom of the crater, a pond is constructed. This performs a number of functions:

• Reflects solar energy up onto the terraces.
• Increases humidity within the crater.
• Acts as a thermal mass that releases heat during cold nights.
• Provides an environment for beneficial insects and other animals.
• Provides a growing environment for fish and aquatic plants.
• Acts as an accumulation and collection point for nutrients.

Here is a short video of people constructing a crater garden:

The resulting micro-climate can be 3 hardiness zones warmer, and the growing season extended. This effectively means that anything that grows in Thunder Bay would grow in a crater garden situated in Fort Severn.

Here is another series of videos that record the installation of a large crater garden in a Northern climate:

Now that a suitable micro-climate has been established using berms, terraces, ponds, and rocks, growing beds can be constructed. One very practical option is to use Hugelkultur. 

The great thing about hugel beds are that they last about 20 years and require no fertiliser or irrigation. This means the logistics of transporting these materials is eliminated, as is winterizing irrigation lines.

In regions where trees are not available, alternative material like grasses / hay / brush can be used in their place.

Now a crater garden takes a lot of effort, or heavy machinery to establish. However, it will be there for 1000 years or more which means that the energy required to establish and maintain it is greatly exceed by it's outputs over the lifetime of the system. This is truly sustainable. 

What can be grown in these Northern communities? Well as I've already pointed out, anything that can be grown in Thunder Bay should grow using crater gardens. Apples, pears, plums, berries, and annuals.

In later posts, I'll investigate some interesting food plants that have commercial potential for the Thunder Bay region. I also have a very interesting commercial tree crop in mind that will grown not only in Thunder Bay but the Northern communities as well. Stay tuned.