Canada: Scarborough may get 15 new farmers as a Morningside Heights hydro field comes to life
Malvern Family Resource Centre farm to produce food for area
By Mike Adler
Scarborough Mirror
May 07, 2021
Excerpt:
There are 18 plots at the farm, a fenced space in a hydro corridor some residents mistook for a dog park until MFRC tilled it with a two-wheeled tractor and dropped black mushroom compost along the centre of each bed.
Native Child and Family Services Toronto will work one plot, while another two are community plots where all farmers must contribute.
The idea drew a great community response in 2015, when MFRC asked what residents wanted from a farm.
Access to healthy and affordable food is an issue in Malvern and Morningside Heights, but though the agency was backed by Toronto’s Community Engagement and Entrepreneurial Development (CEED) Garden Program, getting a sublease agreement for part of a hydro field took several years, said Amy Semenuk, MFRC’s community and family programs and services manager.
The farm, which still needs a water line installed, won’t charge farmers’ fees this year, but wants them producing crops that can be sold in northeast Scarborough and that reflect its cultures, she said.
“People will feel good about organic produce grown in their community because they’ve seen where it’s being grown.”
