Suitability for City Farms in Vancouver

Community Gardens, urban farms, urban agriculture and city farms are names for more or less the same idea: growing local produce within an urban city. I've been to a few community gardens: my favourite of them all is the Strathcona Garden. For a while before I knew of its name I referred to it as the secret garden as it is shrouded by bushes in a semi-industrial area. Once you're inside the garden though, it's easy to forget that there are train tracks and warehouses near by. Some gardens are more than a medium for local produce; they are also a place of healing for troubled teens and adults. The Cottonwood garden, within a couple of blocks from the Strathcona garden, is youth-run.

The City of Vancouver is also promoting urban farming by introducing a goal for the year 2010. In May 2006 the city put forth a challenge to establish 2,010 new garden plots by the year 2010 as an Olympic Legacy. Food production plots are considered countable if they were established after January 2006. The status of this challenge seems to be about half way to its goal. Click here to read more about it.

An interesting concept--Small Plot Intesive Farming (Spin Farming)--is an urban farming concept that grows produce more ethically and even more economically than traditional agricultural farming. Because small plots in cities are surrounded by buildings and trees, the plots are protected from wind shear damage. The small plot enivornments are also more controlled and don't require large machinery to maintain. Best of all the food can be sold locally without wasting large amounts of energy and resources tranporting them into the city.

In densely populated areas land may be expensive and many people end up living in apartments (Downtown Vancouver). Community gardens are a great way for people in such situations to get small portions of land for farming/gardening. They also contribute to greenspaces and add to the asthetic appeal in a city.

For my analysis in this project I will factor in proximity to farmer's markets, population density, income, and distance from existing community gardens. (Potential sites that are close to existing gardens are slightly less favored, to encourage development distribution.) I will also factor in slope because areas with high slope are difficult to farm on.

My analysis will be constrained to the following areas:

Park Spaces: there is a good likelihood of getting approval from the city to start plots on city-owned greenspaces.
Instutional land: Schools may be interested to initate programs/project.
Open and Undeveloped: Since it's undeveloped the land is likely less expensive to obtain and convert.

References