Farms in the city win backing-but not pigs in the city

Councillor backs away from permitting chickens or livestock

Friday, February 06, 2009
Presented by Financial Post

Allison Hanes, National Post
Published: Friday, February 06, 2009

Corn stalks growing along the Gardiner Expressway, tomato plants lining University Avenue, and chicken coops in thousands of backyards.

Urban farming advocates offered Toronto policymakers food for thought yesterday, as the city drafts its first urban food production policy.

"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."

To nurture the brainstorming process for the city farm policy, due in the coming months, the city's parks and environment committee invited gardening activists to plant seeds of inspiration. A panel discussion produced suggestions ranging from turning more parks into community plots, edible landscaping and markets to sell off produce raised in leased-out backyard gardens.

Until now, Ms. Field said, the message that city has been sending to would-be urban farmers is "No, go away," with policies that frown on fruit trees for being messy and veto tomato vines in front yards.

Ms. Field said she envisions a first-draft bylaw 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 farms.

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

Councillor Paula Fletcher (Toronto Danforth), chair of the parks committee, said the scope of the farming policy is not yet defined--other than no animals.

"I'd say take out the chickens and livestock at this point; we're really talking about growing plants," she said, as bags of greens and apples were passed around.

Gardens that produce food instead of flowers would fit with Toronto's progressive environmental, social and economic agenda, she said, but really aren't 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. "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 from agrarian backgrounds or cultures that prize home gardens, he said Toronto should help residents feed themselves. Mr. Mihevc spoke of his own parents and their neighbours, who nourish their whole block from the backyard tomato plants they lovingly tend.

"They don't have chickens yet," he said. "At least not that I'm willing to say publicly."

ahanes@nationalpost.com---------

SKATING RINK OF VEGETABLES

Some ideas on the table at yesterday's urban food policy forum: - Rent-a-farm City Harvest, a Victoria, B. C., company that leases out residents' backyards to grow local organic cash crops, last year sowed close to 30 backyards with 20,000 square feet of crops yielding 300 pounds of fruits and vegetables a week, which were sold at local markets. City Harvest uses the SPIN (small plot intensive farming) method, and plants vegetables ranging from leafy greens to garlic. - Edible landscaping Debbie Field, executive director of Food Share, said the city should replace grass and shrubbery with crops like corn stalks along the Gardiner Expressway or cherry tomatoes beside soccer pitches -- giving new meaning to healthy snacks for kids. "I'd love to see a vegetable garden in the middle of the City Hall square in the skating rink," she said. "Every year we put annuals." - Greenhouses Rhonda Teitel-Payne, urban agriculture manager for the Stop Community Food Centre on Davenport Road, said Toronto's climate calls for farming in existing or abandoned greenhouses.

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