Montreal will invest $10 million over the next 10 years in urban agriculture projects to bring its community gardens up to standard and develop new spaces for growing fruits and vegetables.
The executive committee will approve a borrowing by-law for this project on Wednesday morning during its weekly meeting.
The craze for urban agriculture has grown in recent years. Montreal has nearly a hundred community gardens resulting from a program launched in 1975, but some of them need renovations. And in some cases, the wait for a garden space can stretch up to seven years. Space is lacking for amateur gardeners. “The demand is really strong”, recognizes the head of ecological transition and the environment on the executive committee, Marie-Andrée Mauger. “That’s why we are working to develop other forms of urban agriculture. The City has distinguished itself internationally with this formula of community gardens born in the 1970s. But with the scarcity of space, I doubt that we will be able to meet all the demands. »
Montreal would like to favor the concept of collective gardens according to which a group maintains common spaces and shares the harvest. New spaces for cultivation could also be created on underused land, on rooftops and in parking lots, for example. Mme Mauger also mentions the creation of islands of fruit trees in parks.Have
Desired equity
Montreal plans to invest one million dollars a year for 10 years. The first year of the program will be used in particular to renovate installations deemed obsolete, such as fences, sheds and sprinkler systems, to enlarge the edges of the gardens or to install bins.
The boroughs will be invited to submit to the Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience projects developed in collaboration with community organizations. Marie-Andrée Mauger insists on the importance of ensuring equity between the boroughs.
Over the years, several community gardens have had to be closed or used for growing flowers due to soil contamination. The costs of decontamination are however so high that the rehabilitation of the soil is not possible in the short term, admits Mme Mauger. “For now, decontamination will not be part of the program criteria. On the other hand, in these spaces, it would be possible to grow in containers. The interest of the bins is that in addition to circumventing the problem of contaminated soil, gardening is made possible for people with reduced mobility and the elderly. »
Last year, the Plante administration adopted its Urban Agriculture Strategy 2021-2026 with the aim of increasing cultivable areas from 120 to 160 hectares in five years.