Canada: Study Finds Saskatchewan’s Garden Patch Urban Garden a Success
Since the Garden Patch’s establishment in 2010, it has produced nearly 90,718 kilograms of food.
By Katelyn Yee
Food Tank
Jan 11, 2023
Excerpt:
The Garden Patch is working to achieve all of these goals for the Saskatoon community. And the SROI study from the University of Saskatchewan concludes that the program is doing so sustainably. The authors estimate that for every CA$1 invested in the Garden Patch, there is a CA$1.61 of social value returned. The social, environmental, and economic benefits of the program outweigh the costs.
Wanda Martin is an Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of Saskatchewan and co-author of the study. She tells Food Tank there are three key areas for urban farming sustainability. The farm should reduce the effects of climate change by minimizing food waste and feeding more people with that food. It should also promote employment with job training opportunities. And the urban farm should produce value-added food for the people who can afford it.
“You have to create some sort of self-sufficiency within the system,” Martin says. This circularity is what allows projects like the Garden Patch to maximize social returns from minimal input costs.
The Garden Patch strives to accomplish this by involving the whole Saskatoon community. “Countless people have attended workshops, volunteered, or taken part in the education programs we offer,” Goff tells Food Tank.
“So much of what we hope to do at the Garden Patch is demonstrate what can be done with urban agriculture, and hold open a space where people can come and take part in it,” Goff tells Food Tank.
The study views SROI as a tool for social and nonprofit organizations to justify their existence to donors and the community. For the Garden Patch, the authors argue that its SROI results are critical to demonstrate its value as a form of sustainable community development.
