Farm folk, city folk
Urban agriculture: coming soon to a backyard near you?
Jessica Johnston
Photography by Jane Johnston
Paula Sobie is a new kind of farmer. A year and a half ago, the 34-yearold and her partner, Martin Scaia, 40, founded City Harvest in Victoria, B.C. The couple had never farmed before, but now have just under half an acre of “farmland” spread across 17 backyards in the city.
City Harvest began with an ad placed on a handful of online classified sites. “Contribute to food security, help protect the environment, increase our health through better food options and have a beautiful, bountiful yard,” the ad read. Sobie, who says the couple chose urban farming to live their values, was surprised by the big response to their plea for space to grow vegetables.
Within a month, Sobie and Scaia were turning down offers of land, and had committed to their new lifestyle. “We traded our Subaru wagon for a Subaru van, and suddenly we were calling ourselves farmers,” recalls Sobie.
The parents of two young children are early adopters of urban farming, a practice common in other parts of the world that is just starting to gain momentum in Canada. Using the small plot intensive (SPIN) method of farming, Sobie and Scaia converted 9,000 square feet of lawn into garden space in their first year.
SPIN is a non-technical way to grow food that is appealing because it requires little in the way of land or start-up capital. (The City Harvest backyard space is all donated.) All work is done by hand, eliminating the need for expensive, carbon-emitting machinery, and the process is organic.
“It doesn’t make sense how we have been living,” Sobie says. “The rising cost of fuel and a globalized food system mean there is a demand for locally produced food. There is a growing awareness of the value of local eating.”
Saskatoon farmer Wally Satzewich, 49, coined the SPIN acronym six or seven years ago. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact number of SPIN farmers in Canada, he says, but urban agriculture is becoming more popular. “I wouldn’t say it’s exponential, but there has certainly been a real big increase over the last year.”
As well as being environmentally sustainable, SPIN farming is intended to sustain the farmers. Its website suggests potential grosses of up to $50,000 from a half-acre of land, and there are some key differences between conventional and SPIN farming that can make the practice lucrative. For example, even in climates less temperate than Victoria’s, urban farmers can complete three growing cycles per year. Growers often cater to higher-end organic restaurants and farmers’ markets, which is more profitable than selling in bulk.
City Harvest earns its income using others’ lawns, but their landowners aren’t looking for a piece of the action. The physical labour is all done by Sobie and Scaia, and participants get the pleasure of watching their water-hogging lawns become productive, with a bonus weekly bag of whichever veggies the couple has in excess.
“We would have donated our yard for this just based on our belief in the movement,” says Cara Hunt, a 33-yearold law student. “But to be able to get wonderfully tasty organic greens as payment is terrific.”
Hunt heard about the urban farmers from a friend who’d offered up his own lawn. She and her husband decided to join too, attracted to the idea of promoting sustainable farming and local food security. “It seemed like a very logical and community-oriented idea,” says Hunt, whose former lawn now yields soybeans and bush beans. “The grass does nothing for you, but this is feeding people.”
