Abstract
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, home food gardening articles have saturated popular media outlets. Home food gardening is more popular than ever, and community gardens and community greenhouses are at capacity with long waiting lists for plots. Several local governments across the country are also participating in the food gardening craze. This study compares 19 municipal urban home food gardening programs that ran in 2020. These municipalities provided program participants with free gardening supplies and instructions on how to grow food at home. This study reveals a complicated relationship among municipalities, food gardening programs and household and community food security. The study also determines that the social and emotional challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic are somewhat alleviated through gardening. Ultimately, municipalities are limited in their policy capacities to adequately move the needle on food insecurity in Canada.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 273 |
| Journal | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The total cost for a home food gardening program is difficult to ascertain because of the in-kind factor—so many municipal staff members were redirected from their usual tasks to support the food gardening initiative. Of course, many municipalities partnered with non-profit organizations, which adds another layer to cost. Montréal knew the exact direct cash amounts—$45,000—but that does not include any staff time. Halifax’s cost calculation does not include the hours of work other municipal staff contributed, nor does it factor in delivery of kits to community distribution partners. Similarly, the cost of Get Growing, Victoria!, did not make data on costs publicly available, making cost-estimates difficult given the number of labor hours: growing over 81,000 healthy vegetable seedlings and preparing hundreds of yards of soil is not a quick project. Whillans estimates that the upfront cost for Brampton’s Backyard Garden Program was around $100,000, but that does not include the in-kind contributions of city staff, which amounted to hundreds of hours of labor. At least six city departments were involved, with dozens of staff members (City of Brampton, ; Whillans, pers. comm., 2021). In 2021, Brampton’s Backyard Garden Program was sponsored by several businesses, which greatly reduced the upfront cost of the program (City of Brampton, ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- General Business,Management and Accounting
- General Arts and Humanities
- General Social Sciences
- General Psychology
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
