Canada: Urban farming initiative “Get Growing, Victoria!” made into permanent program
Council extends COVID-19 food-security plan
By Christopher Driscoll
Martlet
October 22, 2020
Excerpt:
On Oct. 1, Victoria’s City Council passed a motion to make Victoria’s newest urban-farming initiative “Get Growing, Victoria!” a permanent program. The multi-level initiative focuses on providing public and private land for urban farming and seedling start-ups.
The program works alongside over 40 non-profit and community partners to coordinate volunteers and develop effective bylaws to allow for small-scale farming in urban areas.
Get Growing emerged from the fears about Vancouver Island’s food security that were raised in the early days of COVID-19.
“Being on an island there is already heightened concerns about food security,” says city councillor and co-founder of the program Jeremy Loveday.
Alongside the food policy group Urban Food Table, city councillors Loveday and Ben Isitt proposed that the city play a more active role in growing food.
“Our official community plan, which was adopted in 2012, had very strong language around promoting food security and growing food locally but that language wasn’t turned into action for a few years and now within the last two terms of council there has been really great progress,” said Loveday.
