The whole city is a farm – but not for chickens

Posted: February 05, 2009, 4:26 PM by Allison Hanes
National Post

Corn stalks growing along the Gardiner Expressway, tomato plants lining University Avenue and chicken coops in thousands of backyards were among the food for thought offered to Toronto policy makers yesterday as eager greenthumbs advocated returning swaths of the city to its agricultural roots.

City bureaucrats will be drafting Toronto’s first urban food production policy in the coming months as part of the green agenda, but to nurture the brainstorming process the parks and environment committee invited the local gardening community to plant some seeds of inspiration.

“All of the city of Toronto is a farm. All of the city of Toronto was a farm,” said Debbie Field, executive director of Food Share, a grassroots group that promotes everything from cultivation to healthy eating. “We literally have paved over paradise and put up a parking lot on the most important agricultural land in Canada.”

Ideas stemming from a panel discussion suggested everything from turning more parks into community plots, edible landscaping and markets to sell of produce raised in leased-out backyard gardens.

Until now, the message that city has been sending to would-be gardeners is “No, go away,” she said, with policies that frown on fruit trees for being messy and veto tomato vines in front yards. Ms. Field said she envisions a first policy that opens up more public space for growing food, neighbourhood compost heaps that can be used on gardens (unlike the green bin program which includes contaminants like diapers and tampons) and a few pilot entrepreneurial urban farms.

Untangling a nexus of zoning regulations that hamper plowing under parking lots and bylaws that complicate rooftop gardens are expected to be a major part of getting Toronto growing, said Richard Butts, the deputy city manager. Examining the sale of food is expected to be an even thornier question with its public health implications.

Councillor Paula Fletcher (Toronto Danforth), chair of the parks committee, said the scope of the soon-to-be drafted urban food production policy is not yet defined. But the one thing not on the table is livestock.
“I’d say take out the chickens and livestock at this point, we’re really talking about growing plants,” she said.

Gardens with food instead of flowers fits with Toronto’s environmental, social and economic agenda, she said, but such a policy really isn’t that revolutionary.

“We’ve moved very far away in the city from the city 40 or 50 years ago where people were harvesting the fruit in our yards,” Ms. Fletcher said. “People grew a lot of food in the city 50 years ago and we’re trying to go back because those were very positive things.”

Councillor Ron Moeser (Scarborough East) lamented once having to disappoint a former farmer in his ward who grew vegetables on the right-of-way between the sidewalk and the road in front of his house.
“It broke my heart to have to tell him he had to take his corn down,” Mr. Moeser said.

Councillor Joe Mihevc (St. Paul’s) is perhaps the lone advocate of urban chicken coops on council. As a city of immigrants, many of whom come from agrarian backgrounds or cultures that prize home gardens, he said Toronto should help residents who want to feed themselves.

Mr. Mihevc spoke of his own parents and their neighbours, who feed their whole block from the backyard olive trees and tomato vines they lovingly tend.
“They don’t have chickens yet,” he said. “At least not that I’m willing to say publicly.”

Photo: a top secret backyard chicken farm, somewhere in Toronto.