This is an interview I did a couple of months ago with Joe Nasr, Co-coordinator at MetroAg (Alliance for Urban Agriculture) and June Komisar, Associate Professor at Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science. They both curated Carrot City, an exhibition that ran in Toronto last Winter and showed how design, architecture and urban planning can facilitate food production in the city.
Is there really an urban agriculture trend?
Joe Nasr: Beyond the general trend, there are specific professions that can contribute each one from their own side. That itself is maybe a trend. Five years ago certainly we would have had a far smaller show, because so many of these projects are brand new.
What is the part of responsibility of professionals and city governments?
JN: Some of the examples that we’re showing cannot happen easily. The Egglu, the urban chicken coop, cannot be used legally in Toronto. You can display it, but you can’t have chicken in it. This is just one of many examples in which governments can shift to becoming an enabler. That reflects on some of the professionals and what they can or cannot do.
In Canada, are city governments usually open to hearing new ideas?
June Komisar: Yes, they are. Toronto has a food policy council, and it has been instrumental in pushing forward certain initiatives. One is to provide access to a larger variety of food in the carts. Different departments work together to try to make certain things happen. The fact that they have a food policy council means that certain initiatives can be brought forward.
JN: In Montreal, the city is well known as an enabler of the community garden movement. In Vancouver, they’ve developed new guidelines to enable or even encourage developers building condominiums to integrate food production in them. Governments are starting to realize how they are often hindering, limiting the development of it, and starting to figure out what they can do about it.
JK: This Artscape Wychwood Barns, this was city property.
JN: Yes, it’s a new city park. But to get to it, it took eight years of planning and a lot of debate. A city councillor was supportive of it and was committed to make it happen, as well as a number of groups. The neighbours were very divided on different visions of what to do with that park, it was a very difficult project to make happen. The city played a crucial role even if most of the funding was private donations.
JK: Cities are looking towards each other for ideas: what has worked in this city, what has worked in that city…
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Local currencies: help businesses, connect residents
An article in Yes! magazine’s summer issue presents local currencies as a way to limit the effects of the recession by stimulating local economies. Local currencies such as the Chiemgauer in Germany or BerkShares in Massachussetts force cash to be spent in local businesses, thereby maximizing the use of profits and reconnecting citizens with their community.
The entire issue is devoted to the new economy, showing examples of how to give the control of our global economy back to citizens, from local banks to worker co-ops. Quite interesting…