Communities Collaborating Blog

A small group of us are just entering into conversations to explore the local assets and possibilities for adapting unused or underutilized agricultural (Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), greenhouse, other) land for purposes that could include any combination of food provision, skills training and education, community engagement, employment, and social entrepreneurship, to name a few.

Widely referred to as ‘The City in the Country’, Abbotsford is an amalgamation of several smaller communities, and, with an estimated population of 130,000, represents the fifth largest city in British Columbia. It is a mix of urban and rural; of service-based and agricultural economies, boasting some of the richest soil inCanada. 

There are over 2,500 farms in the Fraser Valley (2006 numbers), with wide ranges in size, productivity, and business orientation. These include large industrial scale operations through to small lot agriculture, hobby farms, and residential properties located within the ALR with limited or no activity taking advantage of the rich earth.Underutilized agricultural land can be used for community benefits ranging from mainly social (recreational areas) through to nutritional (food for food banks and others in need), and economic (social enterprise training businesses / job creation for the difficult-to-employ).

• community gardens (equipping condo, apartment dwellers, or home owners who have no space with a way to connect with the land, and grow their own food and flowers )
• a social enterprise that trains those requiring job skills, in agriculture and even value-added food production
• a source of food for local food banks and other social service agencies requiring it
• educational sites for children, who become more and more distanced from food sources
• a source of product for local farmers’ markets, assisting their own organizational sustainability through sales
• transfer of the concept of the organic garden training enterprise that was housed at Ferndale Institution (Mission), into a policy environment that is more flexible, and accommodating to a wider population
• directing the yield from the land to community kitchens with potential processing by a community-based enterprise or cooperative, with some of the (value-added) output flowing to the hungry
• any combination of these … or something entirely different, in response to community need.

Any suggestions or resources to similar / existing / successful projects, such as community gardens & food security programs, would be much appreciated... please post here, or email any information you can share at:  joelle@uwfv.bc.ca.

Thanks,

Joelle