Image from EssentiallyHealthyFood.com

Strawberries and Asparagus is a spring harvest celebration that incorporates renewable energy, live music and green living.

The 4th Annual Strawberries and Asparagus Festival will be happening on June 12th 2010 in Toronto. The event will include free food, festival fun, live music, solar stage, solar cooking, green gardening and the very excellent Inorganic Market. Kids activities all day. Yoga and Zen Zone.

Strawberries and Asparagus festival originated in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but you can host a local festival of your own.

We are happy to share our ideas with you – so that you can kick the growing season off with a Strawberries and Asparagus festival in your community.

A bit of history – event organizer and community member Chris Chopik started a little neighbourhood BBQ kind of gathering in June and one year a band showed up. The BBQ was a celebration of the anniversary of the Spadina Expressway when the 40 acre greenspace that is now host to the Strawberry and Asparagus festival was slated to be paved. Until Active citizens assisted strong minded politicians to make the right long term decision to abandon the Allen at Eglinton.

Check out the event on Facebook.

Proposals for oral presentations (15 or 30 minutes) or posters/informational displays are invited for the first symposium of the Canadian Institute for Sustainable Biodiversity. “Living Plants, Liveable Communities: Exploring Sustainable Horticulture for the 21st Century” will be held February 17-19, 2010 at RBG Centre, 680 Plains Road West, Burlington, Ontario, Canada. We are hoping to foster a dialogue among professionals, scholars and the public as to just what sustainable horticulture is and can do for Canadian society. We welcome contributions that address current problems and possible solutions dealing in areas such as:

• Urban design and cultural heritage of greenways
• Encouraging children and families to use green spaces
• Ethics in sourcing and design of gardens and urban landscapes
• Win-win solutions for unsustainable practices
• Economic sustainability of horticulture as a business
• Green space and governance issues
• Innovation, communication and education
• The Sustainable Sites Initiative and other certification programs
• Plant choices and managing gardens in an era of climate change
• Protecting biodiversity in urban spaces and gardens
• Human psychology and landscape elements/design
• Productive gardens and agriculture in urban spaces
• Water consumption and management
• Invasive species issues – management and prevention
• Horticultural therapy
• Pesticide reduction and elimination
• Green roof applications

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Interested individuals are invited to submit an abstract (max. 300 words) with title, contact information and a brief biography in MS-Word format by October 30, 2009. Please note: Electronic submission only!  Submit abstracts to: qyee@rbg.ca    Successful applicants will be notified by December1,  2009.

For more information and regular updates visit the event web page at: http://www.rbg.ca/cisb/cisbsymposium2010.html

The Seventh Annual Conference for Social Research in Organic Agriculture

in conjunction with:

The 29^th Annual Organic Agriculture Conference and The Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada

at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Friday, January 29, 2010

As people search for alternatives to the threat of economic, environmental and, consequently, social collapse, what role will organic agriculture play in the search for sustainable solutions?  How will it contribute to such issues as food security, energy consumption and water accessibility? Can it support community development in the face of global alienation?  Will it evolve to meet these growing challenges or become part of the problems we face?

This interdisciplinary conference will focus on the theme of Organic Connections / Sustainable Solutions, both in Canada and around the world.  It will provide a forum for exchanging theoretical reflections, critical analyses and case studies from such disciplines as food studies, adult education, sociology, women’s studies, geography, environmental studies, political science, rural studies and philosophy.  The overall goals of the conference are to:

1.      broaden our understanding of the complex, interconnected problems we face

2.      compare the philosophies of current and alternative systems

3.      examine the relationship between organic agriculture and sustainable solutions from a variety of economic, environmental, cultural and social perspectives

4.      highlight any incompatibilities between organic agriculture and sustainable solutions

5.      explore the links between organic agriculture, sustainable solutions and issues such as food security, peak oil or the privatization of water

6.      present case studies that demonstrate how organic agriculture can contribute to viable solutions to current problems

7.      propose public policy around organic agriculture and sustainable solutions.

All proposals for papers must include a 250-word abstract and be received by Friday November 6, 2009.  Notification of acceptance will be given by Friday November 27, 2009 and the full text of the paper must be submitted no later than Friday January 22, 2010.

Abstracts should be submitted to:

Dr. Veronika Mogyorody

Sociology/Anthropology

University of Windsor

Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4

mogy@uwindsor.ca

OR

Dr. Jennifer Sumner

Adult Education and Community Development

OISE/University of Toronto

Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E6

jsumner@oise.utoronto.ca

Information on past conferences is available at: http://www.organicagcentre.ca/ResearchDatabase/res_social_science.asp