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Parallel alternatives: Chinese-Canadian farmers and the Metro
Vancouver local food movement
Natalie Gibb
a
and Hannah Wittman
b
∗
a
Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada;
b
Faculty of Land and
Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
This article explores how food system localisation efforts in Metro Vancouver, Canada,
intersect with tensions in the global agri-food system, including racial inequalities.
Drawing on archival research, participant observation of local food marketing and
policy-making, and interviews with local food movement participants, policy-makers,
and Chinese-Canadian farmers, we explore factors that have influenced the
emergence of a food system comprised of at least two parallel food networks, both of
which challenge dominant modes of food production and distribution. An older
network consists of roadside stores and greengrocers supplied by Chinese-Canadian
farmers. A newer, rapidly expanding network includes farmers’ markets and other
institutions publicly supported by the local food movement. Both networks are
“local” in that they link producers, consumers, and places; however, these networks
have few points of intentional connection and collaboration. We conclude by
considering some of the subtle and surprising ways food justice is, and is not, being
realised in the Metro Vancouver local food system.
Keywords: local food movements; alternative food networks; food justice; racialisation;
environmental justice
Introduction
Under the banner of “local food”, a growing number of people and organisations across the
globe are advocating for changes in how food is produced, processed, packaged, trans-
ported, distributed, and consumed (Lang and Heasman 2004, Dupuis and Goodman
2005, Feagan 2007, Alkon and Agyeman 2011). Local food systems are argued to offer
an array of benefits, including: making fresher, tastier, and nutritious food more readily
available; reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with long-range food distribution;
supporting diversified, small-scale, sustainable farms; revitalising and celebrating local and
regional cultures; contributing to community economic development; cultivating a land
ethic and a connection to place; and strengthening community ties (Feenstra 2002, Gottlieb
and Joshi 2010, Wittman et al. 2010). In brief, for many alternative food system actors,
localisation is seen as a means of addressing social injustices and environmental degra-
dation within the contemporary global agri-food system (Allen 2004, 2010).
This article engages recent debates on food justice and racialisation through a
place-grounded case study of food system localisation in Metro Vancouver, Canada.
We investigate the discourses and practices of local food not only from the perspectives
of the people – typically white, middle class, and affluent – who most often identify as
participants in food-related social movements (Slocum 2007, 2008, Allen 2008,
# 2013 Taylor & Francis
∗
Corresponding author. Email: hannah.wittman@ubc.ca
Local Environment, 2013
Vol. 18, No. 1, 1 –19, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2012.714763
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Guthman 2008a, 2008b), but also from the perspectives of Chinese-Canadian farmers, who
have a long and significant history in local food production in Metro Vancouver but are less
commonly represented in local food discourses and institutions in the region.
Provincially and nationally, Metro Vancouver stands out both as a hotbed for local food
and as a farming region with a high proportion of farmers of colour. In 2006, 38.9% of
Metro Vancouver farmers and farm managers reported belonging to a visible minority
group,
1
a proportion three times higher than the provincial rate and 18 times higher than
the national rate (Statistics Canada 2006). In Metro Vancouver, as in British Columbia
(BC) and in Canada as a whole, the number one visible minority group among farmers
and farm managers is South Asian,
2
followed by Chinese (Statistics Canada 2006).
Chinese-Canadians have farmed in the area now known as Metro Vancouver since at
least the 1880s (Con and Wickberg 1982), and they currently make up 375 – or nearly
15% – of Metro Vancouver’s 2520 farmers and farm managers (Statistics Canada 2006).
But during interviews with participants in Metro Vancouver’s local food movement, at
various public events, and on local-food-related internet listservs, we observed local food
advocates discussing Chinese-Canadian farmers and the role of “Chinese” people in the
local food system in diverse, and often conflicting, ways. This knowledge gap, coupled
with the widely held perception among local food movement actors that current movement
demographics do not reflect Metro Vancouver’s economic, racial, ethnic, and cultural
diversity, poses challenges for the local food movement’s publically stated food justice
goals, which include working to create a food system that contributes to the “well-being
of all residents” and that “celebrates Vancouver’s multicultural food traditions” (City of
Vancouver 2007, Metro Vancouver 2011).
Responding to questions emerging from local food advocates themselves – questions
like “how can we bring ethnic and immigrant communities to the table to talk about
local food?” or “what more can we do? We translated our materials into Chinese, but the
Chinese community still doesn’t shop at farmers’ markets!” – this project investigated
claims that people of colour are often underrepresented in food movement projects and
institutions despite deliberate efforts to make these projects and institutions more inclusive
(Allen 2004, Slocum 2006, Guthman 2008a, 2008b, Winne 2008).
A food justice framework
In the USA and Canada, agri-food system scholars have begun to explore how embracing
food justice both as a principle and as an organising strategy might allow food movements
to democratise the food system (Levkoe 2006), begin rectifying historical and s tructural
inequalities in the distribution of food system benefits and burdens (Gottlieb and Joshi
2010), and build alliances with low-income people and people of colour (Alkon and Nor-
gaard 2009). Gottlieb and Joshi (2010) characterise food justice as “ensuring that the
benefits and risks of where, what, and how food is grown and produced, transported and
distributed, and accessed and eaten are shared fairly” (p. 6). The environmental justice lit-
erature offers several important insights into how Gottlieb and Joshi’s (2010) food justice
framework might be expanded.
First, injustices can – and do – occur in the food system even in the absence of laws or
policies that explicitly discriminate based on race, class, gender, or other axis of oppression.
Current policies and practices – whether or not they have discriminatory intent – operate in
a context marked by historical processes of racialisation and other forms of “othering”
(Pulido 1996, Holifield 2001). As Alkon and Norgaard point out, in the USA, access to
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healthy, fresh, local food is “shaped not only by the economic ability to purchase it, but also
by the historical processes through which race has come to affect who lives where and who
has access to what kind of services” (2009, 300).
Second, understandings of justice and injustice should not be limited to the fair distri-
bution of benefits and burdens. Pulling together the feminist, anti-racis t, and environ mental
justice literatures, Agyeman et al. (2009) identify three dimensions of environmental
justice. Distributive justice entails the equitable distribution of environmental benefits,
such as clean air and access to healthy and aesthetic natural spaces, and environmental
burdens, such as toxic waste dumps, and contaminated water. Procedural justice involves
equal opportunity to participate in decision-making. Access to information, participatory
opportunities, and the power to shape discourses and decision-making are essential com-
ponents of procedural justice. Finally, the recognition dimension of environmental justice
speaks to questions of whose knowledge counts, hinging on critical awareness of which
experiences, practices, and ways of knowing are normalised, and which are rendered invis-
ible, deprecate d, or stigmatised (Young 2006). This three-pronged approach to understa nd-
ing environmental justice can be applied to food justice. Food justice, then, can be
characterised as: ensuring that food system benefits and burdens are shared fairly; ensuring
equal opportunities to participate in food system governance and decision-making; and
ensuring that diverse perspectives and ways of knowing about the food system are recog-
nised and respected.
The colour of local food
In this article, we focus specifically on the distributive, procedural, and recognition inequal-
ities in the food system (re)produced through racialisation. Racialisation refers to the social
processes that define, construct, and constitute different categories of people with the effect
of “exalting” some (see Thobani 2007) while marginalising others (Dei et al. 2004). Trans-
formational work on “intersectionalit y” by Collins (2000) and others (Thobani 2007, Choo
and Ferree 2010) has demonstrated the ways that multiple systems of oppression, such as
race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship status, interact to produce social inequalities.
Our decision to foreground race as an axis of inequality in the food system is deliberate. In
Canada, talking about race has been something of a taboo since multiculturalism was
adopted as a state policy in the 1970s, introduced to accomplish four objectives: the culti-
vation of diversity and ethnic identities; the full involvement of ethnic minorities in Cana-
dian society; national unity and social harmony; and awareness of and tolerance for ethnic
diversity (Little Bear et al. 1985). Although widely understood as indicative of Canadians’
tolerance and cosmopolitan sensibility, the shift in national discourse from “race” to
“culture”, “ethnicity”, and “diversity” also serves to limit the spaces available to challenge
racial oppression (Dei et al. 2004, Thobani 2007).
One of the most notable features of the food system literature is its longstanding
neglect of questions of racial difference and white privilege in food movement discourses
and practices (for important exceptions, see Guthman 2008a, 2008b, Slocum 2006,
2007). Indeed, recognising racial inequalities and contesting white privilege may be par-
ticularly difficult within the spaces and discourses of food movements. As Alkon and
McCullen (2010) observed in their ethnographic study of two Californian farmers’
markets, these spaces often reflect a variant of whiteness that is distinguished by its ten-
dency to maintain a liberal regard for cultural diversity while leaving race and class pri-
vileges unexamined.
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Conversations in the nascent literature on race and local food centre on racial
inequalities related to the consumption, promotion, and production of local foods.
Studies in the USA (Slocum 2007, 2008, Alkon and McCullen 2010) and Canada
(Campigotto 2010) note that people of colour are underrepresented in farmers’ markets,
natural food stores, and other spaces of local food consumption. These studies suggest
that alternative foods are overwhelmingly eaten by privileged (white and wealthy) consu-
mers not because people of colour do not know or care about healthy, sustainable food
systems (see Gottlieb and Joshi 2010). Instead, the specific ways local and alternative
foods are promoted, packaged and sold are argued to cater to a “white” ideal about what
constitutes “good food”.
This literature also examines who is defining and delineating food movements. Several
scholars have noted that the most visible food movement organisations, initiatives, and
institutions not only are overwhelmingly led and staffed by white people, but also reflect
distinctively white ways of thinking about food, health, and sustainability. For instance,
Guthman (2008a) argues that the whiteness of food movement discourses can be observed
in the missionary zeal with which participants in food movement organisations in California
seek to “bring good food to others” and exalt particular ways of growing and eating food,
speaking of desires to “put their hands in the soi l” and “get their hands dirty” (437 –438).
Such discourses do not always resonate with people who, due to personal experience,
family history, or the past and present marginalisation of people of their skin colour,
associate farm work with slavery and exploitation.
Finally, a third conversation interrogates racial inequalities in the production of local
and other “alternative” foods. In the USA (Guthman 2004, Allen 2010) and Canada
(Otero and Preibisch 2010), people of colour are underrepresented among farm owners,
but make up the majority of hired farm workers. In these contexts, food movements’
emphasis on “supporting your local farmer” may function, in many contexts, although
certainly not all, to foreground the contributions of white managers, while silencing the
work of people of colour labouring on the farms.
These studies should not be taken as evidence that all food movement organisations and
initiatives everywhere offer only constrained opportunities for people of colour. Recent
work has documented how African-American communities are using farmers’ markets to
further environmental justice efforts (Alkon 2008), how the innovative commercial
home-gardens of Southeast Asian immigrant farmers in Florida are disrupting the conven-
tional/alternative agriculture dichotomy (Imbruce 2007), and how indigenous activists in
California are using a food justice frame to improve access to healthy, traditional foods
(Alkon and Norgaard 2009). These studies do, however, shed light on some of the ways
food system localisation efforts may be re-inscribing racial inequalities despite the implicit
and explicit social justice objectives of the alternative food networks and social movements
associated with local food.
This study builds on the growing attention to the ways racism functions materially and
ideologically within food movement discourses and practices, and to the ways people are
transforming, contesting, and undermining “othering” processes within these spaces.
Particularly, we examined the discourses and practices of local food not only from the per-
spectives of the people who identify as participants in food movements in Metro Vancouver,
but also from the perspectives of Chinese-Canadian farmers, who have a long and
significant history in local food production in Metro Vancouver but are less commonly rep-
resented or understood as part of the system in food movement discourses and institutions.
Our analysis reveals that the history of anti-Chinese racism in Canada, together with
Chinese-Canadian farmers’ creative resistance and entrepreneurialism in responding to
4 N. Gibb and H. Wittman
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social and economic changes, is linked to the emergence of a food system consisti ng of
parallel alternative food networks. An older network consists of roadside stores and green-
grocers supplied by Chinese-Canadian farmers. A newer, rapidly expanding network
includes farmers’ markets and other institutions publicly supported by the local food
movement. Drawing on a broad understanding of food justice – one that encompasses
distributive, procedural, and recognition inequalities – we discuss some of the sometimes
subtle and surprising ways food justice is, and is not, being realised through these parallel
alternative food networks.
Methods
The primary field research for this project took place between September 2010 and April
2011. We first conducted an archival analysis of the history of regional food production
and the emergence of a local food movement in Metro Vancouver. The second phase
of the research consisted of 23 semi-structured interviews with Metro Vancouver local
food system actors including Chinese-Canadian farmers, farmers’ market vendors, gov-
ernment agricultural extension agents, and local food activists. The specific focus of the
interviews varied depending on the participant’s role in the food system; for instance,
while farmers were asked to outline their production and marketing practices, food
activists were asked to describe their projects, programmes and campaigns. At no point
during the interviews did we ask participants to state their racial or ethnic identity or
citizenship status; however, when participants volunteered this information, we did ask
how this identity shapes their food-related work. Interviews lasted between 45 minutes
and three hours. All but a few interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently
transcribed. To protect interview participants’ confidentiality, all participants have been
given pseudonyms.
The research also involved observing and participating in local food production,
marketing, and advo cacy periodically between 2006 and 2011. Biweekly “cycling tours”
during the summer and fall of 2010 through agricultural areas of Metro Vancouver
served as opportunities to observe farm characteristics such as crop diversity, approximate
field size, and farm machinery use on various farms, including nearly two dozen operated
by Chinese-Canadian farmers. We also attended food-focused panel discussions, exhibits,
conferences, and public consultations. During these events, we took note not only of what
was being said about local food, but also of who was speaking, and who was in the audi-
ence. Finally, we shopped for locally grown vegetables at farmers’ markets, greengrocers,
and large-format grocery stores catering to Chinese-Canadian and multi-ethnic clienteles.
These shopping expeditions offered opportunities to observe the variety of locally grown
vegetables available – as well as what and how information about these vegetables was
communicated – at each establishment.
Along the way, we collected web addresses and promotional and educational
materials created by the farmers and organisations whose work we observed. Implicitly
or explicitly, these websites and publications reveal which issues are prioritised, and
which solutions are preferred, by different actors in the Metro Vancouver food system.
We analysed these print and online documents to see which perspectives and practices
are promoted, and which are ignored or criticised. These websites and publications also
indicate how connected farms and organisations are to one another. By browsing the
links pages on websites and looking for repetitions of wording, we learned which farms
and organisations are situated at the core of the local food movement, and which operate
on the periphery.
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Finding the “local” in the lo cale: the Metro Vancouver agri-food sector
A highly produc tive agricultural region with 41,035 hectares of farmland and 2618 farms as
of 2006, Metro Vancouver makes up less than 1.5% of the BC agricultural land base, yet
this region generates 28% of the province’s farmgate receipts (Metro Vancouver 2006,
Wittman and Barbolet 2011). Much of the food produced in Metro Vancouver is di stributed
through socially and geographically long food supply chains. Sales to wholesalers and pro-
cessors (rather than direct sales to consumers or retailers) for export or local markets
accounted for 91% of field vegetable sales and 98% of all berry, fruit, and nut sales in
Metro Vancouver in 2004 (BCMAL 2004).
Some particular attributes of the Metro Vancouver food system, however, tend to be
associated with local food systems and reveal a strong potential for food system localis-
ation. Small farms predominate in Metro Vancouver: average farm size is 15.7 hectares
and 94% of farms are smaller than 52 hectares (Metro Vancouver 2006). Metro Vancouver
farms produce a wide range of agricultural products including: poultry, beef cattle, and
other livestock; dairy products; eggs; berries and tree fruit; vegetables; wheat, oats, and
other field crops; and mushrooms (Metro Vancou ver 2011). Indeed, Metro Vancouver
stands out as a “hotbed” for food system localisation efforts. The region was the home
base for Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon’s 100-Mile Diet experiment in 2005 (Smith
and MacKinnon 2007) – an initiative widely credited with catalysing interest in local
food in Canada and elsewhere. Polls indicate that the majority of Metro Vancouver residents
intentionally look for food grown or produced in BC when grocery shopping and almost
nine in ten Metro Vancouver residents believe it is important to buy local food (Metro Van-
couver 2011). Especially since the early 2000s, a growing number of non-profit, private,
and public sector organisations have been creating, promoting, and in some cases,
funding new and emerging food networks that link local production with local consumption
(Metro Vancouver 2011). These networks include: farmers’ markets; community-supported
agriculture; local organic delivery services; restaurants showcasing local foods; institutional
purchasing of local sustainable foods; agri-tourism; U-Pick farms; and farm gate sales (City
of Vancouver 2009). Some, but not all, of the actors involved in these networks consider
their work to be part of an emergent social movement: the local food movement (see
Beers 2010).
In what follows, we show that food moves from Metro Vancouver farms to local con-
sumers through (at least) two parallel alternative food networks. The first, and older,
network is supplied primarily by Chinese-Canadian farmers, connecting producers and con-
sumers through roadside produce stores and greengrocers. A second network consists of the
farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture and other networks recently develop ed
and made popular by the Metro Vancouver local food movement. This network informs –
and is informed by – what mainstream local food activists, policy-makers, and academics
understand as “local food”. Understanding the lack of connection between these parallel
food systems requires recognition both of the construction of a food system based on a
history of structural inequality and of Chinese-Canadian farmers’ creativity and entrepre-
neurialism in responding to social and economic challenges.
From rice to potatoes: A history of Chinese farms in BC
The role of Chinese immigrants in BC agriculture must be understood in its broader histori-
cal context. Chinese immigra nts began farming in BC in the 1860s; by 1921, 90% of BC’s
vegetables and 55% of the province’s potatoes were produced and distributed by Chinese
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immigrants (Anderson 1991), and by 1941, 20% of the Chinese in BC were involved in
agriculture, either as farmers or as farm workers (Con and Wickberg 1982). In the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries, Chinese farmers in BC produced European staples
such as potatoes, carrots, onions, corn, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, cabbage, and pigs
(Con and Wickberg 1982, Yee 2006). Many Chinese in BC were pushed into farming
because anti-Chinese racism, combined with difficult economic conditions during the
1930s, excluded them from many forms of waged employment. Even in agriculture,
however, the Chinese in Canada were not free from racial discrimination. Initially,
Chinese farms in BC were small, and Chinese farmers leased the land they worked. As
Chinese farmers became more numerous and began to purchase their land, operate green-
houses, and produce larger quantities of vegetables, early in the twentieth century some
white Canadians perceived Chinese farmers as a threat (Yee 2006).
3
The vegetables pro-
duced by Chinese farmers were said to be too cheap, and the greengrocers where these veg-
etables were sold were labelled as crowded and unsanitary (Anderson 1991). These
stereotypes about Chinese farmers and the networks through which they marketed their
food reveal something about the constraints experienced by Chinese people living in a
racialised society. Discrimination forced Chinese farmers to sell their labour and their
produce cheaply if they were to survive at all in a competitive market. Similarly, living
and business quarters became crowded because Chinese people were discouraged from
establishing homes and businesses outside of Chinese neighbourhoods (Con and Wickberg
1982).
Anti-Chinese racism linked to agriculture also took root in the provincial government.
In 1927, the Province of British Columbia released its Report on Oriental Activities within
the Province. One item of particular concern to the authors of this report was “That in the
four years from 1921 to 1925 the acreage of land owned by Orientals increased by approxi-
mately 5,000 acres and the land leased by approximately 1,500 acres” (British Columbia
Bureau of Provincial Information and British Columbia Department of Agriculture
1927). These data were provided as context for Members of the Legislative Assembly
charged with studying “whether legislation can be enacted to prevent Chinese and Japanese
from owning, selling, leasing, or renting land in British Columbia, or, in the alternative,
imposing conditions on their rights of ownership” (British Colu mbia Bureau of Provincial
Information and British Columbia Department of Agriculture 1927).
These racial fears had tangible ramifications. Con and Wickberg (1982) note that white
Canadians used the growth of Chinese agricultural operations as a justification for the
Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. This act abolished the head tax that the Chinese commu-
nity in Canada had long been protesting, but limited immigration from China to university
students, merchants, ministers, teachers, and diplomatic personnel. Because nearly all
Chinese immigrants in the early twentieth century were peasant farmers, the Chinese Immi-
gration Act effectively stopped Chinese immigration to Canada until the Act was repealed
in 1947.
The Chinese in Canada were not passive in the face of white racism and exclusion.
Chinese farmers’ and vegetable retailers’ response to their social and economic segregation
in Canada is eviden t in the number of trade associations they created between 1920 and
1962 (Con and Wickberg 1982). These organisations aimed to advance the social status
and address the economic marginalisation of Chinese farmers in Canada (e.g. the 1930s
era Overseas Chinese Produce Merchants Association and the Overseas Chinese Farmers
Association). The BC Lower Mainland Farmers Cooperative Association, for example,
was created in 1962 to enable Chinese-Canadian farmers to obtain higher prices from the
wholesalers at a time when it was common for wholesalers, most of whom were white,
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to discriminate against Chinese-Canadian farmers. With a full-time manager authorised to
threaten wholesalers with a boycott unless higher prices were offered to its members, the
BC Lower Mainland Farmers Cooperative Association gave Chinese-Canadian farmers a
degree of economic security that had been impossible before (Con and Wickberg 1982).
From field to table: Contemporary Chinese-Canadian farms and food networks
It was not until the 1970s that many Chinese-Canadian farmers started commercial pro-
duction of bok choy, gai lan, and other vegetables associated with Chinese culture and
cuisine (interview, 11 November 2010; see also Wang and Cerkauskas 1999). All of the
Chinese-Canadian farmers interviewed for this study described their decision to grow
Chinese vegetables not in terms of their “cultural proximity” to these vegetables, but as
a business decision. Growing Chinese vegetables was a wa y of tapping into an emerging
market for these vegetables – a market that opened both as a result of the growing
Chinese population made possible by the liberalisation of immigration policy and as a
result of rising interest in “ethnic” foods in Canada. Because many Chinese vegetables
have a short growing cycle and can be harvested quickly, growing these vegetables
allows farmers to achieve the intensive production levels required to operate an economi-
cally viable small-scale farm. During interviews, we heard that for other farmers, particu-
larly for immigrant farmers with few economic resources, growing Chinese vegetables is
an attractive option because these vegetables cannot, for the most part, be mechanically har-
vested and as such have lower capital start-up costs.
Today, Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver are reputed to operate some of the
most productive vegetable farms in Canada (British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Food
and Fisheries n.d., Burnaby Director of Planning and Building Inspection 1986, Levenston
2010). Chinese-Canadian vegetable growers in this region are operating highly intensive
farms that, on a per acre basis, achieve farm gate sales up to three times higher than other veg-
etable farms in the area. In BC, the commercial production of Chinese vegetables is concen-
trated in Metro Vancouver: of 114 harvested hectares, 105 hectares (or 92%) were in this
urban region (Statistics Canada 2007d). Of the 1514 metric tonnes of Chinese vegetables offi-
cially grown in Metro Vancouver and the neighbouring Fraser Valley region in 2004 , 41%
was sold at roadside farm stands or through direct farm sales to retail outlets and consumers.
The remainder is sold fresh to local wholesalers and greengrocers. By comparison, only nine
per cent of all field vegetables grown in the region were sold at roadside farm stands or
through direct farm sales to retail outlets and consumers (BCMAL 2004).
Various factors limit Chinese-Canadian farmers’ sales to wholesalers. First, stagnating
prices at the wholesalers have pushed many farmers (no matter how they are racialised) to
seek out direct marketing opportunities that allow them to retain a higher share of the food
dollar. Second, unless their customers specifically request local produce, wholesalers will
buy produce from places where produce is cheap, uniform in size, and long-lasting. Accord-
ing to the vice president of one of the largest fresh produce wholesalers in BC, California is
especially important as a source for Chinese vegetables because harvesting and refriger-
ation techniques extend the vegetables’ shelf life. In contrast, Chinese vegetab le production
in BC is not highly mechanised, and Chinese vegetables produced in BC do not tend to
remain fresh very long (interview, 8 November 2011). Third, many Chinese-Canadian
farmers in Metro Vancouver prefer to sell directly to greengrocers because they tend to
offer payment upon delivery, whereas payment from whol esalers is often delayed for
two or three weeks.
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Greengrocers constitute an important part of Metro Vancouver’s fresh produce retail
environment. In 1935, 125 of Vancouver’s 158 greengrocers were owned by Chinese immi-
grants (Yee 2006). Today, ownership of greengrocers is more diverse, but Chines e-
Canadian greengrocers remain ubiquitous in Metro Vancouver and are widely recognised
as a source of affordable fresh produce (Vancouver Food Policy Cou ncil 2009). Some
greengrocers cater to first and subsequent generation Chinese-Canadians by employing
staff fluent in Cantonese or other Chinese languages, labelling food products in Chinese,
and offering a wide range of Chine se vegetables. One greengrocer we visited offered not
only the widely available bok choy and Napa cabbage, but as many as 22 varieties of
leafy Chinese greens (field notes, 1 November 2010). Offering an array of food products
– some local, some imported – associated with Chinese cuisine, these greengrocers are
part of a food supply chain that connects local producers with local consum ers through cul-
turally desirable foods sold in a comfortable shopping environment.
Some Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver also market their produce through
roadside farm stores. Average farm and roadside sale prices for crops grown on intensive
field vegetable farms in Metro Vancouver are up to four times higher than wholesale
prices (BCMAL 2004). In the 1970s and 1980s, some Chinese-Canadian farmers began
opening produce stores where they sold their own vegetables, and vegetables grown on neigh-
bouring farms. The success of these operations prompted other Chinese-Canadian farmers in
the area to open their own roadside farm stores. Although most of these stores also carry some
imported fruits and vegetables, they feature primarily local, seasonal, and, sometimes, pesti-
cide-free produce. At Chinese-owned roadside stores visited as part of this research, veg-
etables are harvested every morning from June through October to ensure produce is fresh.
Are Chinese-Canadian farmers “local”?
Not all of the networks supplied by Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver can be
classified as local. In particular, the wholesaling networks in which some Chinese-Canadian
farmers are involved tend to be characterised by distant and fragmen ted relationships
between food production, consumption, and place. Yet, in different ways and to different
degrees, many Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver are involved in local food
networks that shorten relationships between producers and consumers and connect food
production and place through ecological farming practices and invocations of cultural
proximity. The roadside farm stores and greengrocers owned by several of the research par-
ticipants are venues in which an array of local, seasonal, and organic products are sold
directly to consumers. Farm stand operators have known some of their customers for
over 30 years, and their customers have told them that the local and seasonal quality and
freshness of their vegetables, as well as the level of service at their stores, keeps them
coming back year after year, sometimes even after moving to communities over 100 kilo-
metres away. For one Chinese-Canadian farmer, relationships with his customers are what
make him keep farming even though farming is “a lotta work, a lotta time, and you can
make more money working [off farm]” (interview, 8 November 2010).
On the Chinese-owned farms visited as part of this research, food production is con-
nected to place through the use of ecological agricultural practices such as compo sting,
some forms of integrated pest management, and, most notably, human-intensive, rather
than fossil fuel intensive, production. Additionally, some of these food networks connect
food production to place on the basis of what Renting et al. (2003) call “cultural proximity”,
invoking the socio-cultural traditions of a particular place to construct their products as
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quality foods worthy of consumer trust. Thus, cottage, artisanal, and designated-place-
of-origin foods invoke the cultural heritage and local traditions of a particular region and
thereby contest the anonymity and placelessness of the contemporary global agri-food
system. These types of alternative food networks are common in Southern Europe,
where government policy and gastronomic traditions have supported markets for culturally
proximate foods (Trubek 2008).
In North America, where colonialism and neo-colonialism have seriously eroded indi-
genous food systems, where govern ment policy has largely favoured corporatised and in dus-
trialised farming systems, and where numerous food traditions intersect as a result of massive
immigration, it is harder to conceptualise what types of food production and processing
methods can meaningfully represent “local” socio-cultural traditions (Hinrichs 2000). The
greengrocers through which some Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver market
their vegetables provide a clue as to how culturally proximate alternative food networks
might be conceptualised. Offering an array of food products – some local, some imported
– associated with Chinese cuisine, these greengrocers are part of a short food supply chain
that connects local producers with local consumers through culturally desirable foods sold
in a comfortable and multilingual shopping environment. It would be amiss, however, to
understand the role of Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver simply as catering
to an “ethnic” or “immigrant” population. Chinese-Canadians have shaped all facets of econ-
omic, political, and social life in Metro Vancouver, and have played a role in agriculture for
over 130 years – almost as long as commercial agriculture has existed in this region.
In different ways and to different degrees, some Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro
Vancouver are involved in food networks that shorten relationships between producers
and consumers and connect food production and place through ecological farming practices
and invocations of cultural proximity. As we will show below, these networks operate par-
allel to, rather than as integrated with, the Metro Vancouver local food movement’s efforts
to enact food justice. In considering the relationship between Chinese-Canadian farmers
and the more recent local food movemen t, we assess the extent to which three criteria of
food justice are met: involving diverse community members, recognising diverse ways
of knowing, and fairly distributing food system benefits and burdens.
Inclusion
As has been observed in food movements elsewhere (cf. Allen 2004, Winne 2008), the
demographics of the most recent version of the Metro Vancouver local food movement
are disproportionately white and affluent. During interviews with local food activists and
advocates, many expressed awareness that participation in local food movemen t does not
reflect the “cultural” diversity in Metro Vancouver, a region where in 2006, more than
40% of the region’s two million residents were “visible minorities” (Statistics Canada
2007a). Tamara Toor, a grassroots community activist who works primarily on food secur-
ity issues, expressed this observation most succinctly:
At least in BC, it’s still tending to be a topic that is primarily white middle-class... I mean, the
poverty side of things does bring in certain low-income families and you know, we talk about
availability and affordability. But I don’t see many other cultures involved (interview, 14
October 2010).
Tamara’s observation that there are not “many other cultures involved” holds among farm
vendors at Metro Vancouver farmers’ markets. Farmers’ markets are one of the most publicly
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visible manifestations of the local food movement in Metro Vancouver (Wittman et al. 2012).
In 2010, Metro Vancouver was home to 20 farmers’ markets (BC Association of Farmers’
Markets, 2011), and over 20 Metro Vancouver organisations had programmes to create,
support, and promote farmers’ markets. The Overwaitea Food Group, one of the province’s
major grocery retailing businesses, advertises its pride in being Western Canada’s “number 1
supporter of local suppliers” through its sponsorship of the BC Association of Farmers’
Markets (Overwaitea Foods 2011). Farmers’ markets are featured in virtually every report
on the Metro Vancouver local food system, reaching potential consumers even on bus shelters
showcasing advertisements for Your Local Famers’ Market as part of the City’s Transit
Shelter Advertising Program (City of Vancouver 2010). For the past two years, Vancouver
farmers’ markets have been named a Metro Vancouver “food hero” (Edible Vancouver
2011). In some ways, policy documents treat farmers’ markets as a proxy for the local
food system, limiting the conceptualisation of alternative networks to a few privileged
spaces. For instance, in the Metro Vancouver Regional Food System Strategy, the only per-
formance indicators related to alternative food networks are the number of farmers’ markets
and the gross receipts at farmers’ markets (Metro Vancouver 2011).
In Metro Vancouver, many farmers from groups that tend to be marginalised in the con-
ventional food system, including women, small farmers, and young farmers, use farmers’
markets as primary sales outlets (Jacobsen 2006, Vancouver Food Policy Council 2009,
Beckie et al. in press, Wittman et al. 2012). However, farmers of colour are underrepre-
sented in Metro Vancouver farmers’ markets. The farm vendor counts we did while shop-
ping at farmers’ markets in Vancouver and Burnaby in summer and fall 2010 suggest that
people of colour make up fewer than 15% of farm vendors at farmers’ markets, while
farmers of colour made up 39% of Metro Vancouver’s total farmers and farm managers
in 2006 (Statistics Canada 2006). Simone O’Donnell, who coordinates a number of
farmers’ markets in Metro Vancouver, explained in an interview that only one of the
approximately 20 farm vendors who sell at her markets is Chinese-Canadian (interview,
12 October 2010); by comparison, about one in seven Metro Vancouver farmers and
farm managers identified as Chinese-Canadian in the 2006 Census.
Chinese-Canadian farmers are underrepresented at Metro Vancouver farmers’ markets
despite the stated desire of market managers to encourage their participat ion. A Vancouver
farmers’ market coordinator explained why having Chinese-Canadian farm vendors at her
markets was important to her:
It’s interesting because they bring Chinese vegetables, and we notice at our farmers’ market.
Farmers’ markets stereotypically are middle class white people that come and shop at them.
But when [the Chinese-Canadian farmers] come with their Chinese vegetables and stuff like
that, you’ll see ... an increase in cultural diversities that are coming then to shop because
they’ve heard that they can find fresh gai lan, or some sort of fresh Chinese vegetable at the
markets. So it’s really good to incorporate farmers that grow culturally traditional produce,
because that’s a whole other segment of the population that you then can tap into and get start-
ing to come to the market (interview, 12 October 2010)
We heard many local food advocates express similar desire for “other ethnicities” and
“other cultures” to be brought into farmers’ markets. However, it is less clear that
Chinese-Canadian farmers want to sell their produce at farmers’ markets. There are both
push and pull factors that lead Chinese-Canadian farmers to prefer to sell their vegetables
to greengrocers and wholesalers, and at on-farm produce stores.
First, for some farmers, the benefits of wholesaling outweigh the benefits of marketing
through the farmers’ markets. As described above, selling to wholesalers offers Chinese-
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Canadian farmers the option to conduct transactions in a Chinese language. Moreover,
regardless of how they are racialised, some farmers argued they preferred selling to whole-
salers because it allows them to spend more time doing what they like: farming. Farmers’
markets are especially labour-intensive for farmers: selling small quantities to many custo-
mers is much more time-consuming than selling large quantities in one place and often
requires a more diversified operation.
Perhaps due to the pest damage that can occur in organic farming systems, several
Chinese-Canadian farmers we interviewed associated farmers’ markets, where there is an
emphasis on organic produce, with flawed, dirty, and imperfect produce. This perception
of the produce at farmers’ markets stands in stark contrast with how Chinese-Canadian
farmers describe their own produce. The Chinese-Canadian participants in the study
explained that they harvest every day to ensure their vegetables are always fresh, and
several Chinese-Canadian farmers emphasised that the quality of their products secures
loyalty from their customers.
Finally, for some Chinese-Canadian farmers, farmers’ markets are not only not con-
sidered desirable, but also not needed. Some Chinese-Canadian farmers began opening
roadside farm stores in the 1970s and 1980s. When farmers’ markets re-appeared in Van-
couver in the 1990s, and were promoted as a sales outlet where farmers could obtain a
higher share of the food dollar and build relationships with their customers, these
farmers were not interested. They had already created and invested in on-farm produce
stores that allowed them to achieve these objectives.
Why did some Chinese-Canadian farmers already own and operate roadside produce
stores decades before the local food movement started promoting direct marketing insti-
tutions like farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture? Interviews with
Chinese-Canadian farmer/store owners suggest that the lived experience of racism is part
of the explanation. Here is how Elaine Wong, a second-generation farmer and produce
store owner, describes her parents’ struggle as they started their farm in the 1950s and
1960s, when most wholesalers were owned by white British Columbians:
When my parents came, there were not a lot of options. We had a big family, there were seven
of us kids, and it wasn’t always fair – because of the racial thing. My dad would go down to the
wholesaler’s in his truck, with a truck full of vegetables, and they would just take it from him,
because they could. They would just take the vegetables and then not pay him. They could do
that. I’m not saying it’s right; it’s just the way things were then. It was a different time (inter-
view, 19 September 2010).
Although Elaine is no longer confronted with racial discrimination in her day-to-day work
marketing vegetables, the lived experience of “the racial thing” continues to shape what
the Wongs produce on their farm, and how they market their agricultural products.
Partially in response to discrimination by white wholesalers, the Wongs branch ed out
from a vegetable-only business. In the 1970s, they opened an on-farm nursery and
produce store allowing them to bypass the wholesalers and sell their produce directly
to consumers. This farm business model turned out to be “a lot better than selling to
wholesalers”, and to this day, Elaine and her family continue to operate their combined
nursery/vegetable farm and roadside farm store. Certainly, the experience of racism is
not the only influence on how the Wongs farm; rather, these experiences intersect with
the broader context of stagnating farm gate prices, increasing uncertainty in the global
food system, and labour shortages that farmers face regardless of how they are racialised
(see Metro Vancouver 2011).
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Recognition
Chinese-Canadian farmers are not only underrepresented in the cherished institutions of the
Metro Vancouver local food movement, but also inconsistently recognised within the local
food movement. During interviews, at various public events and on listservs, we observed
local food advocates discussing Chinese-Canadian farmers and the role of “Chinese”
people in the local food system in diverse, and often conflicting, ways. Some local food
advocates question whether the Chinese-Canadian community “has a big mandate to pur-
chase locally” (interview, 14 October 2010), while others describe Chinese-Canadian
farmers as “the original local farmers”, having continued to produce vegetables for the
local market throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when the rest of the agricultural sector
turned to export markets (interview, 2 March 2011). A debate on the listserv of a large
local food organisation shows that some local food advocates associate the greengrocers
where some Chinese-Canadian farmers market their vegetables with “scores of vegetables
that could be grown here” and with unsafe products like “dried lizards or toads or whatever
[with] no labels with expiry dates or nutritional information” (field notes, 22 July 2010).
Finally, with respect to the sustainability of the farming systems operated by Chinese-Cana-
dian farmers in Metro Vancouver, some local food advocates suggest Chinese-Canadian
farmers “come from a culture that is 10,000 years old” (interview, 2 March 2011) and
may draw on a worldview more oriented to sustainability than do most Euro-Canadians
(interview, 21 September 2010). Conversely, other local food advocates suggested
Chinese-Canadian farmers either do not want, or do not know how, to conform to pesticide
regulations (field notes, 23 September 2010).
In outlining examples of a range of statements made by several local food movement
participants about Chinese-Canadian farmers and the local food system, we are not inferring
that these statements are true or necessarily representative of the views of the local food
movement as a whole. Rather, we list them here to show that collective knowledge
about Chinese-Canadian farmers is limited, racialised, and often contradictory, which
may constrain the movement’s ability to recognise the contributions of Chinese-Canadian
farmers. These sentiments also reflect a lack of engagement between Chinese-Canadian
farmers and the local food movement in Metro Vancouver.
Indeed, Chinese-Canadian farmers are virtually invisible in the educational, pro-
motional, and policy documents created by mainstream local food advocates. For
example, the Museum of Vancouver featured an exhibit exploring local food in the fall
of 2010. Of the exhibit’s 39 photographs, 13 were of local farmers and their farms. All
of the farmers featured in this exhibit appear white (field notes, 14 October 2010). Althou gh
Chinese-Canadians make up nearly 20% of the population in Metro Vancouver (Statistics
Canada 2007a) and are and have been active participants in the local culture, economy, and
food system, the only photograph in the exhibit featuring people who appear to be Chinese-
Canadian was of three elderly women “binners” – people who search urban alleyways and
dumpsters for refundable bott les and cans. Harvested Here, a book professing to offer a
history of the local food movement in Metro Vancouver, does not mention the contributions
of Chinese-Canadian farmers to the local food system (Beers 2010). Similarly, searching the
archives of Edible Vancouver, a regional magazine that claims to offer “the story on local
food”, we found only one article featuring a farmer who appears to be of East Asian back-
ground (Fall 2010 issue), although each of the 16 issues published since the magazine’s
inception in 2008 include stories celebrating local farmers (Edible Vancouver 2011).
In sum, although some local food movemen t participants are aware of the role Chinese-
Canadian farmers play in growing food for local consumers, the local food movement does
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not tend to involve or recognise Chinese-Canadian farmers in its programmes, policy-
making processes, and educational campaigns. The underrepresentation and under-recog-
nition of Chinese-Canadian farmers – and of communities of colour more generally – is
not a characteristic unique to Metro Vancouver local food movement. It does, however,
pose challenges for the movement’s expressed commitment to food justice. By emphasising
the stories, faces, and practices of white farmers in its public outreach initiatives, the local
food movement – in effect if not in intent – valorises the role of white people in the local
food system while rendering invisible the contributions of farmers of colour. To borrow the
phrase coined by anti-racist scholars Dei, Karumanchery, and Karumanchery-Luik, the local
food movement appears to be creating a local food “norm” against which all other models
of local food are measured and judged as somehow “less than” (Dei et al. 2004). By stressing
– and using as an indicator of the local food system – the types of alternative food network in
which white farmers tend to participate (farmers’ markets), the local food movement is chan-
nelling financial resources and institutional support towards white farmers but not towards
Chinese-Canadian farmers participating in parallel alternative food networks.
Distributive justice in the local food system
Yet, it is precisely in the arena of the distribution of food system benefits and burdens that
the story of food justice in the Metro Vancouver local food system is further complicated.
As demonstrated above, a history of racialised exclusion shaped the role that Chinese-Cana-
dian farmers have come to play in the Metro Vancouver local food system. In response to
their social, economic, and political marginalisation and to broader structural changes in the
agri-food sector, some Chinese-Canadian farmers engaged in collective resistance, devel-
oped new food networks through which they could market their produce, and switched
their cropping systems to supply emerging markets for Chinese vegetables, herbs, and
nursery products. Today, Chinese-Canadian farmers in Metro Vancouver are reputed to
operate some of the most productive vegetable farms in Canada, and several indicators
suggest that they are able to access the (economic) benefits of the local food system.
First, although all of the Chinese-Canadian farmers lamented the hard work and low
returns associated with farming during our interviews with them, none of them relies on
off-farm work to support their families. What is more, none of these farmers relies on a
spouse’s off-farm employment income. That these farmers derive all their employment
income from their farms is particularly significant given the important role of off-farm
employment among farm operators in the region. In both the 2001 and 2006 censuses,
49.9% of Metro Vancouver farm operators reported having an off-farm job (Statistics
Canada 2007b, 2007c).
Second, at the same time as the practice of engaging unpaid or stipended interns is being
normalised on organic and other sustainability-oriented farms in Metro Vancouver,
4
all of
the Chinese-Canadian farmers interviewed for this study pay their farm workers at least the
minimum wage. We make this point not to argue that the wages paid to farm workers are
sufficient. Rather, we make this point to argue that the Chinese-Canadian farmers inter-
viewed for this study do not rely on unpaid labour to remain economically viable. They
pay wages in line with th e average hourly wage ($9.64) paid to general farm workers in
the Lower Mainland (Government of Canada 2011).
Third, the Chinese-Canadian farmers interviewed for this study have maintained
farming as a livelihood in a highly urbanised region for long periods, ranging from 10
years to an entire working career. These farmers’ long-term commitment to agriculture is
14 N. Gibb and H. Wittman
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evident not only in the number of years they have been farming, but also in their investment in
farm business infrastructure such as greenhouses, small tractors, farm trucks, and farm stores.
These three indicators of economic viability suggest that the underrepresentation and underre-
cognition of Chinese-Canadian farmers within the institutions and discourses of the local food
movement pose a more serious problem for the movement’s self-proclaimed commitments to
food justice than it does for the livelihoods of Chinese-Canadian farmers themselves. Chinese-
Canadian farmers who choose to sell their products to local consumers may be “opting out” of
the institutions supported by the local food movement because they have (already) found econ-
omic viability in food networks developed decades before institutions such as farmers’ markets
were popularised by the local food movement.
Conclusion/parallel networks
In describing the contrasts and convergences between the longstanding Chinese-Canadian
farming community and the more recent local food movement in Metro Vancouver, this
article highlights what Alkon and Agyeman call “additional stories” about local food –
stories “rooted in the perspectives and experiences of low-income communities and com-
munities of colour that are all too often absent from the dominant food movement narrative”
(Alkon and Agyeman 2012, p. 4). Specifically, we found that the new and emerging alterna-
tive food networks promoted by the local food movement are but one pathway through
which food moves from Metro Vancouver farms to local consumers. The roadside farm
stores and greengrocers supplied by some Chinese-Canadian farmers constitute a second
alternative food network operating in the urban region. Because Chinese-Canadian
farmers appe ar to be opting out of the local food movement’s preeminent institutions
(farmers’ markets) at the same time as few websites, educational materials, and policy docu-
ments created by local food movement participants feature Chinese-Canadian farmers and
the networks in which they are involved, we call these two networks “parallel”. Both sets of
networks are “local” in that they shorten relationships between producers, consumers, and
place; however, these networks have few points of intentional connection and collaboration.
Understanding the lack of connection between these two parallel networks requires
what Dupuis et al. (2012) call “a strong memory of past inequalities” (300). We found
that the history of anti-Chinese racism in Canada, together with Chinese-Canadian
farmers’ creative resistance and entrepreneurialism in responding to social and economic
changes, is linked to the emergence of roadside farm stores and green grocers that began
supplying Metro Vancouver consumers with produce grown by local Chinese-Canadian
farmers. These food networks emerged decades before the contemporary local food move-
ment. Failing to acknowledge the complex interests and experiences of Chinese-Canadian
farmers – which include the lived experience of racial discrimination – is to limit under-
standings of how the Metro Vancouver local food system came to be as it is and what alli-
ances might be built to create a more just local food system (cf. Alkon and Agyeman 2012).
Food justice involves ensuring that food system benefits and burdens are shared fairly;
ensuring equal opportunities to participate in food system governance and decision-making;
and ensuring that diverse perspectives and ways of knowing about the food system are
recognised and respected. This article sheds light on some of the sometimes subtle and sur-
prising ways in which food justice is and is not being realised in Metro Vancouver. We
found that, although some local food movement participants are aware of the role
Chinese-Canadian farmers play in growing food for local consumers, the local food move-
ment does not tend to involve or recognise Chinese-Canadian farmers in its programmes,
Local Environment 15
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policy-making processes, and educational campaigns. For the local food movement, learn-
ing from, and recognising the contributions of, Chinese-Canadian farmers may constitute a
means of rectifying the racialisation of who can ask questions, be heard, and be treated as an
authority on the subject of the food system. Yet, the story of racialised exclusion does not
capture all of the diverse experiences of Chinese-Canadian farmers in the Metro Vancouver
local food system. Some Chinese-Canadian farmers in the region have been supporting
their families by growing food for local consumers for decades. Through their resistance
and entrepreneurialism, they have managed to continue in agriculture, despite the history
of racialised restrictions on access to farmland, markets for agricultural products, and Cana-
dian citizenship, and despite the broader context of the increasing globalisation of the food
system. To study and work for food justice, then, is to examine not only racial discrimi-
nation, but also contradictions, historical disjunctures, and additional ways of thinking
about and engaging in the food system.
Notes
1. In Canada, the Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Abori-
ginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour” (Statistics Canada, 2011,
n.p.). The term “visible minority” is problematic in that it normalises whiteness, homogenises
groups that may have little in common with each other, and masks the social (rather than biologi-
cal) construction of racialised groups. We use the term here because these census data offer the
best available figures on the number of farmers belonging to racialised minority groups in
Canada.
2. According to Statistics Canada, South Asian encompasses people from many ethnic back-
grounds, including Bangladeshi, Bengali, East Indian, Goan, Gujarati, Hindu, Kashmiri,
Nepali, Pakistani, Punjabi, Sikh, Sinhalese, South Asian, Sri Lankan and Tamil. Most South
Asian farmers in Metro Vancouver emigrated from the Punjab, India.
3. In the late 1910s, for example, a representative from the BC Farmers’ Institutes testified before
the Agriculture Committee of the provincial Legislature: “The Orientals have control of the
markets in Vancouver and other cities. Many of them are cooks. If you do not let them do
their buying of potatoes, for instance, they say the potatoes are no good and they cook them
so they are no good. Then they say, if you let us buy, we will get good potatoes. They go and
get them from Orientals and in this way the whole market is being controlled by them. Once
they have got the land, look out, there the mischief starts.” (quoted in Yee, 2006: 55)
4. WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) is perhaps the best known of many pro-
grammes designed to link organic farms with volunteer or stipended labour.
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