UBC Farm Needs Support Now

I just received this e-mail from the friends of UBC Farm:

Hello friends of the UBC Farm,

As you may already be aware, a group led by the Friends of the UBC Farm recently initiated a campaign to enact an AMS climate change action fee referendum that would provide some financial support for the Farm. We were cautiously optimistic about this process, as it seemed like an opportune time to go ahead with a student referendum. However, in the past two weeks, the university has taken some actions demonstrating a decision-making process around South campus development that is still far from being transparent and democratic**. As a result many of the Farm’s allies now are concerned that a referendum, no matter what the outcome, could be used to support a unilateral decision to shrink, move, or eliminate the UBC Farm**.

(**Background information on these events and decisions can be found below)

Meeting: Friday, Feb. 29 12 noon, SUB 205

Now is the most crucial time to get involved and take action! This is possibly the most critical time the UBC Farm has faced. Although we are not going to further pursue the climate change referendum, our concentrated efforts to compel transparency in University development are needed NOW to put the Farm on the map and keep it there. We are going to initiate a campaign to garner a critical mass of support from community, government, and media. We invite letters of support to show the university administration how important the UBC Farm is to the community. We aim to include Metro Vancouver (formerly the GVRD) in the decision-making process, hence ensuring community voices in community planning. We will raise awareness through a targeted media campaign. Most importantly, we need as many voices and as diverse a set of ideas at the table as possible. Come to the meeting on Friday the 29th at noon in SUB 205 and we will plan the steps ahead, form sub-committees and begin to take action. If you have been thinking about doing something to help the future of the Farm – NOW IS THE TIME!

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**BACKGROUND

Student leaders are committed to finding innovative ways to improve
the learning experience at UBC and also to address the most pressing
issues our society faces. During the last seven years, the efforts of students working in partnership with faculty, staff, and the community
have given rise to a number of programs that accomplish these goals,
thanks to the presence of a unique facility on campus: the UBC
Farm.

Continued student effort has allowed these programs to grow with the
assistance of funds from forward-thinking foundations and businesses,
contributions from a number of UBC Faculties, and countless donations
of time and money from the wider UBC community. Despite these efforts,
the funding base at the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (CSFS) at
UBC Farm has not been stable or large enough to meet the demand of a
growing number of students wanting to learn at the site. The addition
of stable revenue streams is sorely needed, and option under consideration was to seek support from the larger student body through an AMS student fee referendum.

When this idea was first discussed several years ago, a spring 2008
vote time seemed to be a reasonable date to pursue. The initial
timelines for the Main Campus Plan review process and reassuring
discussions with UBC's senior administrators suggested that the
long-term future of the land itself would be substantially decided by
this point. The emerging societal consensus that climate change was
the major challenge of our generation coupled with emerging scientific
evidence that reforming the food system would be a key part of the
efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions provided a good rationale
and context to pursue an issue-focused student fee referendum. A
committee was formed to develop a plan for a fee referendum and put it
into action.

WHERE WE ARE TODAY

As of February 2008, the long-term future of the farm site is undecided and appears increasingly elusive. The extended timelines for the Main Campus Plan review, the uncertainty about the process used to determine the future of the farm, and a barrage of ambiguous
communication from UBC's administrators have left students with no
expectation that the land's future will be secure at the time of a
March 2008 vote.

The failure to explicitly address the long-term future of the farm and
the lack of reassurance that a transparent public process will be
initiated to make this decision has led to a disquieting atmosphere
where rumors and speculation flourish and trust is eroded between
UBC's administration and the student body.

OUR DECISION

In the absence of a transparent planning process, we are deeply
concerned that the future of the farm can be too easily manipulated by
special interests. Specifically, we feel that something as inherently
contentious as a referendum vote - regardless of its outcome - will be
misconstrued as political evidence in a unilateral planning decision
that will not be in the best interests of students.

Our interest in pursuing this strategy was to improve programming for
students. The current planning climate has made us fear that our
strategy could, instead, compromise the long-term future of the
facility that is absolutely essential to run this programming. For
this reason, we do not want to proceed with this strategy until such
time as the land's long-term future is secure, or a transparent
community planning process is assured, and open dialogue between all
stakeholders can replace an atmosphere of speculation with one of
trust and good faith.