Canada: Aaren Topley on the power of school farms and urban agriculture
In the next five to 10 years, about half our farmers will retire and others will give up the farm life and move to the urban centres. We’re also seeing, at least before COVID, a lot of people moving to urban centres.
By Cloe Logan
National Observer
Feb 6, 2021
Excerpts:
“Whether that’s a teacher doing a school garden or a meal program, or someone providing community meal programs to people that are living on the streets,” he said. “Those people really inspire me day to day. I get to connect with them.”
Topley has worked in food system development for eight years and is now the provincial manager of Can You Dig It at the Public Health Association of BC. For the past four years, he has worked with Farm to School BC, which brings fresh and sustainable produce to schools across the province.
You helped establish Victoria’s first urban school farm while working with Farm to School BC. How does that work?
It’s a model where a local urban farm grows on school land. There’s about 6,000 square feet of space for them to grow in. Every week, they send out an e-mail to the teachers letting them know what they’re up to in the garden and give them some ways they could connect their curriculum to what the Mason Street Farm is doing.
What makes the way the school farm operates interesting?
I think what’s unique about the model is that the school gets produce, a neighbourhood house across the street gets food for their box program, the farm provides some of the food for low-income folks, and some of it is sold to restaurants. And with that, (they’re) able to sustain the program without any grant money, which is how they’re usually funded.
