URBAN AGRICULTURE: Part 3 - North American Examples

URBAN AGRICULTURE: Part 3 - North American Examples

North American cities are arguably NOT the leaders in urban agriculture today. Out of necessity, enlightened leadership or a different cultural, historical and social framework, many cities in Europe, Asia, africa and Latin America are much further along this continuum than our cities find themselves.  (i.e. An estimated 60% of Bangkok’s urban footprint is under cultivation with up to 73% of inhabitants involved in growing food. UNDP An estimated 200,000 earn an income from growing food in Cuban cities today.) However, there are clear signs that urban agriculture is “on the move” in north /american cities today. Contemporary examples of urban agriculture can be categorized as follows:

1. Private Yards and Gardens – While private food gardening has always been a part of North American cities, the lull in this activity of the past generation or so may be coming to an end. From a rise in vegetable seed sales, to the development of a plethora of urban food gardening web-sites, to the great success of “Seedy Saturdays” in cities across Canada, growing food in your yard is definitely back. What is exciting about this aspect of urban agriculture is the new intentionality and purposefulness the activity seems to hold for so many people; we garden not just for pleasure or past time but as a political, environmental and social statement as well. Furthermore, there has been some excellent research documenting the incredible productive possibilities for gardening in small spaces, including the cumulative environmental and economic impacts. See the work of John Jeavons, promoter of the bio-intensive gardening method, the Gervais family and their Urban Homestead project in Pasadena California and the excellent article by Michael Pilarski, The Role of Home Gardens in Feeding the World and Sequestering Carbon. The work of many small scale permaculture practioners further reinforce the importance of small-scale producitve systems with a host of benefits.
2. Community Projects – There are as many examples of urban community food growing projects as there are communities concerned about food security and local food production. The diversity and creativity of these projects in cities throughout North America today is astounding. On the one hand, we have the now well-developed movement of Community Gardens which not only provide the space for people to grow food, but they provide the context for bringing people together to grow community. There are community gardens present in all major cities in Canada today and while they may trace their roots back to the allotment gardens of Europe and the Victory gardens of the war periods, their expressions today are diverse and evolving. Most community gardens are run by the members and require a nominal annual fee to cover costs. unfortunately, there is no national network of community gardens but many regional networks do exist.In recent years, a range of other community based urban agriculture projects have emerged across the continent. Many of these are aimed at empowering participants to become more self-sufficient in their food needs through learning food gardening skills, participating in food growing cooperatives, and, in some cases, being involved in advocay work for food security and local sustainable food production. Many are run by non-profit organizations such as The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto, Growing Power in Milwakee, People’s Grocery in Oakland, or Lifecycles in Victoria. Lifecycles has created schemes such as the “Fruit Tree Project” whereby volunteers pick and share unwanted fruit from local fruit trees, and the “Sharing Backyards” program which connects people with extra yard space with those who would like to grow food. Some organizations, such as City Farmer in Vancouver also run demonstration gardens where the public can come to learn about growing food in urban areas.
3. Institutional Initiatives – Schools, housing complexes, churches, hospitals, businesses and even municipal governments themselves are undertaking activities promoting local food production. The Edible Schoolyardproject in Berkeley California pioneered a model of integrating extensive food gardens into schoolyards, thereby providing a rich context for food literacy amongest sudents, their families and the surrounding community. Village Homes in Davis California was also a pioneer in demonstrating that food production could be designed in to an entire urban subdivision. Hence the “edible landscape” planted about thirty years ago now provides food for over 225 households in the community. The City of Vancouver has just undertaken an intiative to plant fruit trees in public parkland as an alternative to the usual ornamental species.
4. Small Commercial Enterprises – The possibility of making a living from growing food in cities may seem like a stretch, but many urban farmers around the world do just that. In addition to producers growing on larger tracts of land on the edges of cities,  a new model for commercial urban agriculture called SPIN (small plot intensive) farming has grown out of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The essence of the model is that the SPIN farmer borrows or leases yard space from a number of urbanites and grows high value, fast growing crops in small spaces. Produce is marketed through “foodbox” schemes, farmer’s markets or gate sales. The SPIN farming website currently lists 49 such commercial ventures in North America but in reality there may be many more “unofficial” operations. In addition to SPIN, there are other efforts at commercializiing urban agriculture through services that plant and maintain food gardens and edible landscapes for residential clients, small scale production of high value crops such as herbs and specialty vegetables, and other innovations. Conflicts with zoning by-laws and permitted uses have and will continue to occur as these initiatives continue to multiply.
5. Peri-urban Agriculture – Farming on land on the fringes of the city, often referred to as “Peri-urban Agriculture” has always been a common practise as close proximity to market is a key need for any grower. The challenge has and continues to be that these lands become sought after for other development purposes, and, as cities expand, speculators inevitably buy and re-sell these lands for tremendous profit. The City of Edmonton, like many other North American cities has been confronted by this issue in recent years. A very succesful campaign to protect threatened agricultural land on the margins of the city has stimulated the City of Edmonton to create a formal policy on urban agriculture which includes a new “filter” in development permit applications that assesses the agricultural value of any given land. Many municipalities around North America are recognizing that protecting their surrounding agricultural lands may be a key to future food security. An interesting related development is the decision of cities such as Detroit to re-zone land within cities as agricultural, providing small commercial food growing opportunities on abandoned or underutilized space.
6. Roof-top Growing and Other Innovations – Cities have limited physical space and intitiaves such as roof top food production represent a promising under-utilized potential. The Rooftop Gardening Project in Montreal is a non-profit Montreal project dedicated to developing this potential. Other high profile rooftop food gardens in cities like Toronto and Vancouver at the Fairmont Hotels have begun to normalize these options. Pushing the envelope further in this regard is the notion of”Food-scrapers”, vertical farms built in cities relying on no outside inputs beyond the waste organic matter and water produced in cities themselves. Advocates of this option such as Dickson Despomier,The Vertical Farm Project, point out that by 2050, nearly 80% of the world’s population will live in cities and we will need to be far more innovative to produce the food we will need within the urban area.
7. Urban Chickens, Rabbits, Bees and Other Critters – Raising small livestock in the city is a growing and controversial phenomena in North America, though our counterparts from Europe and the Southern hemisphere may wonder what the fuss is all about as they have been happily doing it for generations. The reason that this development is so high profile in North America today is that it is cutting to the heart of the regulatory framework and underlying assumptions that have limited agriculture of all kinds in our cities. What is an apropriate activity for a city, and what is not? What kind of cities do we want to live in? By-laws that prohibit chickens, rabbits, bees and other small livestock are being challenged in cities across the continent.  For an overview of the issue in Canada see: On a Wing and a Prayer – The Urban Chicken Movement in Canada Takes Flight by Ron Berezan. Good websites on this issue include: Urban Chickens,and The City Chicken.