Municipalities and urban agriculture

By Constance Aspart, Project Manager  I  Sustainable development. LEED GA

More than just a fad, urban agriculture has become an integral part of the aspirations and mentalities of the greater Montreal area.

With more than 25,000 signatures, the petition calling for a public consultation on urban agriculture in Montreal has raised awareness of the public’s desire to bring agriculture back to the urban environment. Municipalities now have to come to terms with this, and take a stance on both simple vegetable gardening and domestic livestock farming. As consultants to a number of smaller municipalities, we are often called upon to provide support on these issues, and we wanted to share our experience with you this month.

If urban agriculture is so popular today, it’s because it allows gardeners to:
– eat locally, thus avoiding the transportation of goods and limiting the carbon footprint of their plate,
– acquire a certain degree of food independence,
– have control over the quality of produce,
– limit the addition of chemicals,
– make certain savings, and so on.

Urban agriculture is also a response to the loss of agricultural land to urbanization, the loss of biodiversity in cities, the rise in obesity, and a UN recommendation to increase food security.

1. The urban vegetable garden

Local, healthy and economical, the vegetable garden is part of a new relationship with food that is gradually taking root in people’s minds. Whether collective, personal, commercial, on the facade or on the roof, the vegetable garden is no longer a rural luxury that can be dispensed with in the city. All methods are good for maximizing the few sunny square meters available.

Front garden
Remember Drummondville in 2011: the couple of Josée Landry and Michel Beauchamp had replaced the traditional lawn in front of their residence with a vegetable garden. Referring to its municipal by-law, the city had asked the couple to put back a strip of grass on 30% of the lot.
Source: journaldemontreal.com

After a 2-year battle, Drummondville has finally authorized front gardens, becoming one of the first municipalities in Quebec to adopt such a bylaw. However, Michel Beauchamp recently expressed his disappointment to Devoir: while it’s a victory for him and for urban agriculture, he deplores the fact that the city agreed not out of conviction, but in the face of media pressure.
As a general rule, municipal authorities have no desire to ban new practices, especially when it comes to sustainable development, but the regulations in place are outdated. Outdated, but also often too rigid… It’s just as important to update the regulatory framework as it is to leave room for flexibility!

Potager sur le toit
Green roofs, like white roofs, are increasingly popular for countering the heat island effect. But if the roof can withstand it, an above-ground vegetable garden in tubs is more interesting than a simple lawn!

In Montreal’s Saint-Laurent eco-neighborhood, for example, vegetable gardens are being planted on the roofs of some of the neighborhood’s schools. At a time when fewer and fewer children know where the vegetables on the grocery store shelves come from, we shouldn’t overlook another aspect of urban agriculture: its educational role!
Source: Ecoquartier St-Laurent, roof of the Maison de l’enfance.

As such, it is particularly well suited to municipal strategic planning documents, be they sustainable development plans, strategic development plans or urban development plans.

Public planting
Finally, why not replace traditional landscaping with edible plants? We completed an edible park landscaping plan in collaboration with a local nursery for a Montreal-area City. Fruit trees are generally less expensive, and species adapted to the local climate don’t necessarily require more maintenance. Cherry, hazelnut and berry hedges are waiting to be built.

2. Urban breeding

It would be incomplete to talk about urban agriculture without mentioning urban micro-farming. The fermette, the personal rearing of a few animals on one’s own plot of land, is now a well-established citizen demand in rural areas. But since the Montreal borough of Rosemont authorized the partial rearing of laying hens, the craze for the gallinaceous has continued to grow in urban areas.

Here are a few basics to help you adapt or create your regulatory framework:

– First of all, for reasons of hygiene and safety, hens should be introduced to the coop at 4 months of age or older. In any case, they don’t lay eggs before this age.

-Every hen house should have two enclosed areas: one for moulting and one for walking. Chickens need to roll around in the earth or sand to get rid of parasites.

– Ventilation windows, drinking troughs, perches and shelters are all necessary for the comfort of the henhouse. Measures are also needed for food storage, henhouse hygiene, wintering and end-of-life.

– Finally, don’t forget to ban roosters. Their early-morning crow is not always appreciated in urban environments!

And it’s all about making agricultural micro-uses compatible with the specificities and constraints of life in an urban environment. Whether it’s fresh eggs or vegetables from the garden, urban agriculture is a healthy and sustainable demand that must be, if not encouraged, at least permitted and appropriately supervised.