Bailey's Local Foods A wide selection of local food made simple.
Waterloo Hen Association Promoting small-scale urban henkeeping in the City of Waterloo
Hayley Lapalme Getting local sustainable starts with asking, just ask!
Urban Agriculture
Encourage and support the expansion of food grown or raised in urban areas. Urban Agriculture also includes Wild Foods.
Urban Agriculture
Support and promote urban agriculture
Growing food in the city is a strategy to help ensure that everyone has access to healthy food. Urban agriculture includes backyard and rooftop gardens, community gardens, edible landscaping, and keeping animals, chickens, and bees in the city.
Wild Foods
Increase awareness about foraging for edible wild foods in the Region
Our cities contain numerous natural or "wild" plants that most of us are unaware are edible. Educating people about what these plants are, and where they exist, and encouraging municipalities to plant more of them, would increase the healthy, free foods that we can access locally.
Background/Context
The Community Garden Council of Waterloo Region supports a network of over forty community gardens in Waterloo Region today, but these could be better supported, and many more resources are needed to be able to expand the number of plots and gardens. Gardeners need access to more urban land for growing food, and existing gardens need more staff support and better access to compost, water, and woodchips.
We could produce a lot more food in our city if more people grew more herbs, fruits, and vegetables in their own yards or in containers on their porches and balconies. We need programs to encourage this urban food production, and to provide people with the skills and knowledge to do so. Another alternative is programs like SPIN farming, which match up people with yard space with willing gardeners who will grow food for them. Encouraging urban gardening can also be a way to encourage more composting: in addition to diverting organic waste from landfills, composting can return vital nutrients to the soil.
The new Regional Official Plan commits the Region to providing some of these supports, and encourages area municipalities to do their part, but the policies are new and will need monitoring.
Some of our municipalities explicitly prohibit some urban agriculture such as the raising of chickens (the City of Waterloo banned it in 2009): lifting these prohibitions and actively encouraging urban hens and bees will help residents connect better with the sources of their food and improve access to fresh, healthy food.
