Forestry and agriculture were once seen as two mutually exclusive functions of land, with the presence of one meaning the total absence of the other. Ecologists saw the development and cultivation of farmland as a force working against their attempts to preserve valuable tracts of untouched land.
But now, in many of Canada’s national and provincial parks, specialists are realizing that small-scale agriculture and forestry can exist side by side—and that they may even benefit from one another. Forests help protect crops from pest infestations and the spread of airborne plant diseases. In turn, agriculture helps contribute to forests’ sustainability by providing food for nearby populations. This is especially true for forests located on the outskirts of urban areas, where locally grown food can be brought to market with very low transportation costs.
Parks Canada, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary, has decided to convert Rouge Park into an urban national park. It will cover 4,700 hectares of land, stretching from Lake Ontario in the south to two towns nearly 35 kilometers north. One thousand hectares of this has been set aside for agriculture, according to Alan Wells, chair of the Rouge Park Alliance. Of particular importance, this area is just northeast of the Greater Toronto region, making it an ideal choice for farmers who want to help feed the city.
Better yet, some of this designated farmland will be available to community garden projects and small farming operations. There are also collaborations underway with FarmStart, a non-profit Canadian organization whose mission is to support a new generation of small farmers.
Already, FarmStart has a 20-hectare incubator farm on lease in Rouge Park, where, for up to five years, farmers can stay, work, and learn holistic methods of raising crops. According to the website, “The goal of the New Farmers Incubator Program is to foster the development of fully independent and sustainable agricultural enterprises that supply local markets.”
Canada currently has 42 national parks and hundreds of provincial parks, many of which have enormous potential for the development of sustainable agriculture.
Kamaria Greenfield is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project. Photo credit: Library of Congress.
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
