Urban agriculture : the potential for South-East False Creek

Despite evidence that our present food and agriculture system is both unjust and unsustainable, decision-makers and agricultural policy units continue to push for greater production through increased applications of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and, more recently, the use of genetically modified organisms. This approach ignores ecological constraints as well as the risks to individual and community health. Agriculture, once a thriving urban activity, is now considered inappropriate in the city. 'This decline, brought about by technological changes and shifting perceptions of openspace, has been exacerbated by planners who have introduced restrictive regulations and policies that discourage sustainable urban food production. The potential of growing food in cities to address many urban problems is largely overlooked and ignored by planners in the West. In developing countries, urban agriculture plays a significant role in supplementing household incomes and nutrition, as well as dealing with urban waste management. I argue that despite a very different context in Canada, there is potential for urban agriculture to deal with urban wastes, bolster local economies, create jobs and increase local food security. This approach would be in tune with current theories of ecological economics, bioregionalism, and the healthy and sustainable communities movement which call for increased local self-reliance as a strategy for social and environmental change. The proposed model sustainable community at South-East False Creek offers the opportunity to explore some radical approaches to food production in a dense, urban community. This would entail moving beyond community and backyard gardening to intensive production techniques and recycling solid and liquid wastes at a community level. I show that it would be possible to produce the fruit and vegetable needs of the expected five thousand residents on the 43 acre site. This is demonstrated by calculating the space available to grow a variety of foods, the potential yields of different growing methods and the dietary needs of the inhabitants. Making sustainable urban agriculture a reality on this site, however, depends on overcoming many problems and requires revised attitudes as well as innovative planning and design. It will need encouragement from planners and local government in the form of innovative land-use allocation, economic incentives and the modification of restrictive by-laws and regulations. Most important, perhaps, is an on-going educational process whereby the modern perception of urban agriculture as inappropriate can be overcome.Applied Science, Faculty ofCommunity and Regional Planning (SCARP), School ofGraduat