VANCOUVER – The line between urban and rural is blurring more and more in North American cities.
Many urban planners are discarding the notion that rural is rural and urban is urban and never the twain shall meet. They are looking at food and food systems as a way to achieve social, environmental and economic goals in their communities.
It’s long worked the other way – city residents seeking the peace and quiet of a rural lifestyle have moved to acreages or small communities.
Integrating agriculture into cities is trickier but several municipal governments have taken the challenge.
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“Local government has the least authority but that’s where the concerted efforts are being made,” said Wendy Mendes of the Centre for Urban Health Initiatives at the University of Toronto.
In most cases municipal governments work with other organizations to put empty city property to use growing vegetables.
It’s happening in cities as large as New York, where neighbourhoods are using community gardens and markets as a way to beautify their streets, involve children, feed and employ people and make money.
Tanya Mercado, who works with East New York Farms in Brooklyn, said a half-acre space where seniors and youth work together producing vegetables, fruit and honey also addresses health issues such as obesity and diabetes.
She is now 19 and has been working with the project since she was 12.
“I can see how my community has improved,” she said.
In Portland, Oregon, a city of about 550,000 with a greater regional population of 1.5 million, residents are allowed to keep up to three chickens in their yards for egg production. If they want to keep more they have to obtain a permit.
The law also applies to rabbits, pygmy goats and ducks.
At the World Urban Forum held in Vancouver last June, participants saw a video presentation on urban agriculture in which someone kept a milk cow in the basement of a house.
That is extreme, but it points to the fact that people want to produce their own food.
During a session on urban agriculture at a recent conference about food security, delegates from around the world discussed the implications of increasing food production in cities.
A delegate from Detroit argued that city farmers are the most important because food systems are going to be more local in the future as transport costs soar and cities grow.
But Vancouver Food Policy co-ordinator Devorah Kahn said rural farmers can’t be forgotten.
“We can’t develop agriculture in the city at the expense of the farmers outside the city,” she said. “We need to increase what we’re having here, but we need to continue to support our farmers.”
Eric Busch of the Rainy River Valley Food Council in Emo, Ont., said that rural farmers could benefit from the city movement.
“You don’t have to worry so much about shutting out rural agriculture,” he said. “The more that you guys can get urban folks connected (to farming) this can open doors to rural folks having a tough time.”
Urban agriculture is seen differently in North America than in developing parts of the world, added Derek Masselink of Pender Island, B.C.
He sits on the Community Food Security Coalition’s urban agriculture committee.
“Where it’s valued is where there’s a desperate need for access to food,” he said.
Getting research dollars or academic support to examine urban agriculture is difficult in North America.
“We value city parks,” he said. “Why aren’t we seeing the same thing for gardens?”
But the abundance of farming and food in Canada doesn’t mean access to food is the same for everyone.
Kim Stansfield, a farmer from Summerland, B.C., lives in an area with a population of 10,000 people and 300 farmers.
“We have a food bank,” she said.
