Advertisement

Victoria Assigns Parks Staff To Start Growing Food For Residents

A photo of an orca-themed horticulture display taken in good weather in Victoria, B.C.
A photo of an orca-themed horticulture display taken in good weather in Victoria, B.C.

OTTAWA — Growing season is on the horizon and Canada’s “City of Gardens” is planning for more plants to increase local food security amid the coronavirus pandemic.

City councillors in Victoria, B.C. passed a motion Thursday to expand an urban food production program by temporarily reassigning some parks department staff to grow 50,000 to 75,000 seedlings to give to residents in May and June.

“These are extraordinary times and they do call for extraordinary measures,” said Mayor Lisa Helps in the council meeting. She referenced city measures taken in the Great Depression when potatoes were grown in Beacon Hill Park for the orphanage and seniors’ homes.

“This is a little bit different in the 21st century, but I think it’s a small thing staff can do and the residents can do, working together,” Helps said.

Ornamental gardening, such for the city’s orca floral display, will continue. But the city will see a 20 per cent reduction in the number of decorative hanging baskets. Those resources being redirected to the food security project.

Screen grab of Victoria City Council proceedings on April 2, 2020.
Screen grab of Victoria City Council proceedings on April 2, 2020.

Coun. Jeremy Loveday, one of two city councillors behind the motion, told HuffPost Canada that food security is a more top-of-mind in Victoria “because we are on an island and we have limited amounts of food stock and limited amounts of food that is grown locally.”

Loveday said the provincial government has reassured residents that supply chains are intact amid the coronavirus pandemic. But the severity of the situation has compelled him and some neighbours to be more proactive about gardening this year, he said.

“I do think this crisis has brought this into people’s minds a little bit more and that they want to have a little more of a hand in growing their own food.”

In the 1950s, Vancouver Island farmers were responsible for 85 per cent of the region’s food supply, according to the Capital Region Food and Agricultural Initiatives Roundtable. But by the early aughts, food imports had increased to 85 per...

Continue reading on HuffPost