Abstract
There is growing interest in the role of new urban agriculture models to increase local food production capacity in cities of the Global North. Urban rooftop greenhouses and hydroponics are examples of such models receiving increasing attention as a technological approach to year-round local food production in cities. Yet, little research has addressed the unintended consequences of new modes of urban farming and food distribution, such as increased competition with existing peri-urban and rural farmers. We examine how small-scale farmers perceive and have responded to a recently established rooftop greenhouse and online marketplace enterprise in Montréal, Canada. Drawing on interviews with key informants and small-scale farmers, we find that peri-urban and rural producers have been affected in three key ways that represent tensions, adaptations, and synergies arising from this new urban agriculture and food distribution enterprise. First, many farmers are concerned about increased competition and value conflation with the ideals of community supported agriculture (CSA) and organic farming. Second, some farmers have adapted by developing novel marketing strategies and working with local bridge organizations to collectively market their produce to urban consumers. Third, a few farmers have decided to wholesale their produce to this new enterprise, allowing them to specialize production and avoid marketing their produce directly to urban consumers. Our study suggests that the emergence of a new form of alternative food network in Montréal has created both positive and negative disruptions for existing small-scale producers. Advocates for the expansion of new urban food production and distribution models should therefore give greater consideration to the effects on other actors in the local food system.
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Notes
Web links: Brooklyn Grange (https://www.brooklyngrangefarm.com) and Gotham Greens (https://www.gothamgreens.com/).
We observed from Lufa Farms’ online marketplace (https://montreal.lufa.com/en/marketplace) that its partner network varies to some degree over time and by season. There were at least 39 participating farms providing fresh fruits and vegetables as of May 2019, mainly located in the province of Québec, but with several farms in Ontario, Canada, and Florida, U.S. Based on information provided about these suppliers, they included soil-based organic farms, as well as conventional greenhouse and hydroponic operations.
Équiterre’s Fermier de Famille [Family Farmer Network] database varies in size over time; however, there were at least 113 participating farms in April 2019, almost exclusively in Québec Province. These farms are predominantly smaller in scale, soil-based, and often certified organic or practicing some tenets of organic management. Interactive map available at: https://www.fermierdefamille.com
Archived copies of some webpage content from previous years can be found at: https://web.archive.org/.
We use a fairly standard dictionary definition of ‘farm’ as a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes, usually by a single owner or operator.
While it can be argued that this is a relatively small interview sample size, qualitative semi-structured interviews are not intended to represent large populations; rather they describe the everyday lived experiences and concerns of individual participants (Valentine 2005). In this study, we did not interview consumers, as our aim was to direct attention to the impacts of commercial rooftop farming on nearby small-scale rural and peri-urban farms.
For comparison, there were 31,050 male and 10,945 female farm operators province-wide in Québec in 2016 (Statistics Canada 2017). The greater proportion of women farmers in our study is perhaps due to the lead author being a young woman.
Jean-Martin Fortier is a Québécois farmer specializing in organic and biologically intensive cropping practices. In 2014, Fortier released a popular book called “The Market Gardener,” which provides horticultural techniques and innovative growing methods. His book includes practical information on setting-up a small but profitable farm by designing intensive cropping system based on Fortier’s experiences at Les Jardins de la Grelinette, a farm in Saint-Armand, Quebec.
Details on these individual farming operations can be found at: Serres Royales (https://www.lesserresroyales.com/en/); Serres Lefort (https://culturevog.com/en/serres-lefort/).
Future research will be needed to address concerns identified by farmer interviewees regarding potential consumer confusion over rooftop hydroponics and organic production in the North American context. For example, Specht et al. (2016) surveyed consumers in Berlin about their preferences related to UA production and found that initiatives that fused social and ecological goals were more desirable than production-oriented initiatives that focused on technology.
Abbreviations
- UA:
-
Urban agriculture
- CSA:
-
Community supported agriculture
- AFN:
-
Alternative food network
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the farmers and key informants who contributed their time to participate in this research and shared their knowledge with us. Graham MacDonald acknowledges the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants program for supporting his research program. Fieldwork conducted as part of this study was approved by McGill University’s Research Ethics Board (REB File #: 19-0617). Feedback from four anonymous referees improved the manuscript and we extend to them our thanks.
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Allaby, M., MacDonald, G.K. & Turner, S. Growing pains: Small-scale farmer responses to an urban rooftop farming and online marketplace enterprise in Montréal, Canada. Agric Hum Values 38, 677–692 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10173-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10173-y