The Commerce Times

Carrot City and the future of urban agriculture

The importance of thinking green has been a fact of urban life for a while now. Combine this with the unavoidable reminder of the current recession, and you’ve got urban gardening, the hot new money-saver for tough economic times.

This March, Ryerson’s architecture department developed an urban agriculture exhibit at Toronto’s Design Exchange, named Carrot City. June Komisar, urban designer and associate professor at the Department of Architecture, gave The Commerce Times a tour.

The Design Exchange, at 234 Bay St (look for the old TSX facade), is where Carrot City features a series of products that make urban gardening convenient, fun, and very environmentally friendly.

Carrot City’s ultimate goal is to show that a predominantly green city is possible, one surrounded by urban farms and full of hand-grown produce.
“Urban agriculture used to be considered an oxymoron, and then they started to look at possibilities for growing in the city,” explains Komisar. “Urban planners started to think that we needed to plan for food in the city.”

Ryerson architecture students have envisioned a number of projects, all incorporating existing infrastructure, that create spaces for greenhouses and community gardens.

“[We’re] thinking of urban agriculture on the city scale, the community scale, and the building scale,” says Komisar. “These projects enable all of that to happen.”

While now they’re just dreams in the making, the students’ final projects may launch Toronto to the forefront of sustainable urban living.

But what sort of market is there in the world of small-scale urban agriculture? The idea is to grow your own food and bring the farm closer to home, while saving money at the grocery store. How does that promote commerce? Products are coming onto the market that will have you preferring to tend the tomatoes than hoof it to Loblaws.

A company called What-If: projects Ltd. is a London, UK based architecture practice that has designed portable gardening bags. Almost any vegetation that needs enough soil for deep roots can be planted in the grow bags, and they sit on whatever slab of asphalt or square of patio you choose. They’re perfectly portable, too. “If someone was growing something and they wanted to move it, they would zip it up,” demonstrates Komisar “And then move it.”

The grow bags aren’t commercially available in Canada yet, but they have been used in urban projects in Toronto, and were met with great success.
The best products in Canada are self-watering planters. This two chamber system is partially filled with water in one, and the plants in the other use their root systems to reach it.

Some wall-mounting systems are also available in Canada. They use minimal amounts of soil, and depending on the exposure, need little watering.

Several grocery stores in Toronto are big supporters of urban agriculture. The Big Carrot, an independent grocery store on the Danforth, is a funder for Carrot City.

“Some [companies] see it as a selling point,” says Komisar. Big corporations like Hellman’s also advocate urban agriculture.

Regardless of the price tag or the size of your garden, urban agriculture does one thing exceptionally well; builds a sense of community.

“There was this elderly man standing [at his garden] and there were these other guys that were on the second floor of the building next door,” Komisar describes a community garden in Toronto. “And he was looking up at them excitedly and said ‘Look at my tomatoes!’”

In a world where a slab of asphalt, a brick wall, or your roof can become a lush, loved garden, you wouldn’t worry about the recession. There’s salad to be made!