Canada: Growing resilience and promoting health through urban agriculture
Food gardening provides stress relief, connection to nature, social connectivity and recreation in a safe outdoor space, and also produces tangible benefits, thereby enabling people to participate in the food system and connect with how food is produced.
By Anna Chow
National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health
June 16, 2021
Excerpt:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world turned to growing food at home or within their communities. Almost one in five Canadians started food gardening in the past year, with two-thirds of new gardeners influenced by the pandemic. Retailers reported rapid growth in sales and many essential supplies became scarce commodities.
The surge in interest for gardening is part of the larger trend of urban agriculture towards environmental sustainability and social justice, which involves using urban land, labour, and water to produce food. Urban agriculture operations can range from commercial urban farms, to community gardens, backyards, school yards, and rooftop gardens, on any size of urban land, and may also include aquaculture and livestock. Urban farms are business entities that sell produce regulated through local permits and licenses. Where land access is a challenge, innovations such as skyscraper and rooftop farming (e.g., Singapore) has burgeoned amidst concern about a lack of land and reliance on food imports.
