Vancouver’s Urban Farms
A growing reality.
Row upon row of pristine organic produce soaks up the sunshine on a cloudless late-summer day. Heirloom Scarlet Nantes carrots, sweet chocolate peppers, juicy strawberries, Technicolor rainbow Swiss chard, luscious Brandywine tomatoes; growing season is at its peak, and the crops are ready for harvest. Farm workers are busily trellising cucumbers, washing and bundling beets, weeding planting beds, and defoliating heads of cauliflower. But they set about their slate of daily duties against a cityscape of concrete and glass high-rise towers and residential streets rather than a backdrop of rolling pastures. This is the growing reality of urban agriculture, and a new vanguard of city farmers is proactively redefining the agronomic possibilities of a civic landscape.
Lisa Giroday, Sandra Lopuch, and Samantha Philips are the trifecta of inspired women behind Victory Gardens. Their company name recalls civic gardening campaigns that supported the First and Second World War efforts by alleviating the burden of food shortages and galvanizing community morale in the face of adversity and privation. These concepts of self-sustainability and social empowerment resonated with the trio of urban farmers. “In thinking of victory gardens now and their contemporary relevance, the importance is of the same magnitude but for different reasons,” says Giroday. “Today, they help foster dialog, bring communities together and reconnect us to our food sources by decreasing our reliance on unsustainable food systems.”
Since March 2012, Victory Gardens has been encouraging Vancouverites to take an active role in their own food production and cultivate their own food. Through creative use of underutilized or marginalized locations—whether a balcony, rooftop, front yard, or street boulevard—the team carves out innovative growing niches in a city where land is at a premium. “If everyone had something as simple as one tomato planter or a little patio box,” remarks Philips, “the aggregate effect would be a significant first step.”