Urban farming is growing, but needs nurturing

Since a food strategy was named one of the Star’s top 10 Big Ideas, Toronto has begun creating community gardens in hydro corridors, updated its food strategy and signed a global accord.

Thestar.com
Jan. 5, 2016
By May Warren

Last year, Star readers identified adopting a bold food strategy as one of their top 10 big ideas. This week, we check in on what, if any, progress has been made.

Growing up in the diverse Scarborough neighbourhood of Malvern, Alex Dow was surprised by how many people left it for places such as Orangeville or Peterborough, abandoning the urban environment to “reconnect with the land.”

That’s something he hopes will change in a few years as about 1.6 hectares in the Finch hydro corridor are harnessed for use as a unique community garden - one that will allow people to grow food not only for themselves but also to sell. It’s one of five hydro corridor sites the city is at work on securing in low-income areas across the GTA.

“I think one of the markers of a healthy community is people being able to stay and have their needs met in the community, long term,” said Dow, program director at the Malvern Family Resource Centre.

“I want people in Malvern and Morningside Heights to be able to stay here.”

The city has already done some work on the garden plan, under the title of Community Engagement and Entrepreneur Development, or CEED. It has tested soil in the hydro corridors to make sure it’s safe for farming, and plans to help with securing leases for the land from Hydro One.

But the plan was championed by the communities themselves, who saw a need for access to healthy food and an opportunity to use the land for a sustainable food source.

In the CEED gardens, people will be able to sell their harvests at places like farmers’ markets, something they’re not supposed to do when they grow food on public land now.

Dow said there’s already been interest expressed in the community, ranging from a group of Tamil seniors to young people who want to learn about farming.

Denise Andrea Campbell, director of social policy, analysis and research at the City of Toronto, said making use of unused or underused space is key for supporting access to food.

“In a city like Toronto, we have to be creative,” she said.

Access to healthy food was also one of the key issues identified for action in the city’s poverty reduction strategy, passed at council in November. The food issue was something Campbell said was heard “really loudly” in community consultations.

Toronto has had a food strategy since 2010. It was updated in 2015, with a pledge to build on partnerships, with initiatives such the poverty reduction strategy, and to look for opportunities to scale up urban agriculture.

Toronto also recently signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact along with nearly 120 other world cities, committing to develop sustainable food systems that provide healthy and affordable food to all people.

Still, more could be done, said Minaz Asani-Kanji, of the green space advocacy group Park People.

“There are a lot of gardens. What would be really great that the city could do is support the gardens (financially),” she said. There are currently 62 scattered across the GTA.

Another spot where green space is underused: around condo and apartment buildings.

A pilot program at the San Romanoway towers in the Jane-Finch area has turned formerly unused land over a parking lot into a community garden. It has been very successful and could be expanded, Asani-Kanji said.

“They’re just these towers, and they have all this unused green space that nobody’s using. There are no playgrounds, there’s no garden, so it would be perfect to grow food. But I don’t think there’s enough thinking that’s gone behind that,” she said. “Nobody’s talking about it.”

Rhonda Teitel-Payne of Toronto Urban Growers, a group also involved with the CEED garden project, said tweaking the city’s green-roof bylaw to allow food gardens is one example of small changes that could have a big impact on urban agriculture.

“There’s a lot of neighbourhoods that don’t have open land, per se, but you can still grow quite a lot on a rooftop,” she said.

Teitel-Payne - whose own East York yard has become something of an ad hoc community garden over the years, growing everything from okra to watermelon - said devoting more resources to the parks department would also ease waiting lists for community gardens.

“You have people who are raring to go and who have put together all of the application material, but their application can’t get processed,” she said.