The Non-Profit Urban Roots Has Broken Ground For Its First Planting This Spring
The Non-Profit Urban Roots Has Broken Ground For Its First Planting This Spring
By Jane Sims, The London Free Press
Tuesday, May 30, 2017 | 7:40:25 EDT AM
Cars and trucks speed down the hill along Highbury Avenue, past the transmission towers and a former horse pasture just north of the Thames River.
It would be simple enough to miss seeing the newly tilled patch of earth in the middle of an open green field that used to be horse pasture.
There are big plans for that little bit of turned-over urban ground. For the people behind London’s first not-for-profit organic urban farm, it’s a big step back to the community’s agrarian roots and using empty spaces to produce food.
Urban Roots, an organization slowly, steadily growing in momentum since its incorporation six months ago, has leased one hectare of land with the goal of a first planting and harvest this year.
This is a much different project than local community gardens. The goal is a sustainable, working farm that would supply produce to charities and neighbourhoods that have difficulty finding good quality fresh produce.
And because it is different, it has challenged municipal law-makers already working on an urban agricultural strategy.
“London, right now is focusing on its urban agricultural policy so they’re working to establish that, but it’s not in place yet,” said Heather Bracken, one of the group’s founding board members.
“So, we’ve had lots of conversations with the city. They’ve been great with taking our phone calls and with helping to guide us, but it’s still kind of an unknown.”
The city, she said, “has never encountered a project like this.” The policy is supposed to be ready by summer’s end.
One of the hurdles, for example, is the need for soil testing, not something that is necessary if you want to put a few tomato plants in your backyard.
“We’re the first of our kind. It’s a unique project for this area so it’s hard for all involved, the city and us, to really know the best way forward and to make sure we have to do it properly,” Bracken said.
But there are inspirations for their plan.
The group has made a couple of visits to the successful urban farms in the blighted areas of Detroit, part of the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MIUFI), some that strictly donate produce to the needy and other for-profit enterprises.
Graham Bracken, another founder of the London project and Heather’s husband, said they want to take the best of those models and “mash them all together.”
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm we’ve been picking up from people who have green thumbs and are involved in agriculture in one way or another, be it the food forests or the community gardens,” he said.
“A lot of people have been asking us, ‘Why did it take so long for it to happen?’ From that we get the sense that London is ready.”
Also needed was some added agricultural expertise. Of the four founding board members, only one, Richie Bloomfield, an accounting instructor at the Ivey School of Business, grew up on an organic farm. Social services veteran Jeremy Horrell, founder of the Forest City family project, “has an impressive backyard garden.”
Heather Bracken is a criminal defence lawyer. And Graham Bracken is an environmental philosophy writer.
But all of them agree there are food deserts in the city that could produce food.
The goal for this season is to get seeds in the ground, build a hoop-house — a portable greenhouse structure — and have a harvest to show “what we can do within the boundaries of the city,” Heather Bracken said.
Then, they want to expand the project to more locations to include training in how to grow and harvest your own food, plus cooking and canning sessions.
Urban Roots already has established relationships with Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Goodwill Industries.
The group has applied for a series of grants, but also has a GoFundMe campaign at www.gofundme.com/urban-roots-london, with the hopes of raising $7,000. So far about $1,700 has been raised.
jsims@postmedia.com