Canada: Halifax eyes urban gardening to increase food security
It’s very cool that there is the mission to really utilize space in the inner cities,’ says resident
By Vernon Ramesar
CBC News
Sep 11, 2022
Excerpt:
Jabbour said market gardening should be done not only to increase food security, but also for the environmental impact of reducing how far food has to travel.
Jabbour said urban gardening cannot realistically grow all of the food that a family eats, but it can have an impact on the weekly grocery bill and put money in pocketbooks that wasn’t there before.
She said Halifax should be looking to places in Europe and the United Kingdom that are “leaps and bounds ahead of us in producing local food in urban areas.”
Pat Fogarty of Fogarty’s Market Garden operates a mobile market from his solar-powered bus and sells produce from his two-hectare residential farm in Hammonds Plains, N.S.
He said rather than just encouraging market gardens, the municipality should provide incentives to people.
Fogarty said he and a few other farmers have been working on a list of measures to present to the city, including property tax concessions for people who want to use their property to produce food for local residents.
He said food security should be a priority for government and is more important than other matters, such as installing swing sets or playgrounds.
