Farm in the City?

I went to a riveting City Council meeting which hosted an expert panel on urban agriculture. Not everyone agrees about the environmental benefits of eating local foods, but the crowd at this meeting was thinking beyond the carbon footprint of shipping apples from New Zealand versus Niagara. This is about improving the quality of life for Ontario farmers and job creation in our struggling province. It's about learning and teaching food growing skills with neighbours, improving our urban physical environment and taking advantage of the most fertile soil in Canada. Debbie Field from Foodshare made a convincing plea to Council to stop saying 'no' to community gardens and other urban agriculture initiatives. I felt her tactic of giving out local organic apples and pea sprouts grown at CAMH (the only urban garden permitted a commercial market stall in our fair city) was effective. Councillor Paula Fletcher paused the hearing for a second serving... who could blame her after being in that packed and windowless room for three hours? I opened my bag of pea shoots for a snack and the smell that wafted up was a delicious reminder of summer in Ontario.