In 2013, a survey indicated that 42% of Montrealers practiced urban agriculture. Montreal have been a pioneer in this domain and is still ahead of its time.
Stéphane Castongay explains in a chapter of the book Montreal, The History of a North American City, the agricultural past of Montreal since the arrival of European settlers, and how rural agriculture has progressively disappeared from the island of Montreal. Agriculture was really important until the 20th century on the island of Montreal, thanks to favourable soil and weather conditions and because the city of Montreal occupied only a part of the island. The intensification of the urbanization process pushed ‘agricultural production to the periphery’, outside of the island, even if it produced an increasingly important market.
Urban agriculture that have been existed since the foundation of the city, first with French vegetable gardens in the 17th century and then with the first community gardens from the 1890’s to the world wars, almost disappeared in the postwar era. Contrary to rural agriculture that had irreversibly disappeared on the island, urban agriculture reappeared in the financial crisis period of the 1970’s with new community gardens encouraged by the municipal community gardens program launched in 1975 (Bhatt & Farah, 2016, p. 3). Community gardens are the predominant form of urban agriculture in Montreal, there are 97 of them according to the city hall.
Socially, urban agriculture and community gardens have various interests at both individual and community levels. At individual level, community gardens give the possibility to people to produce their own vegetables at low cost and of their liking, notably for immigrants who want vegetables of the countries where they come from. Urban agriculture reinforces food security and food sovereignty of Montrealers. For Fabien Wegmuller and Eric Duchemin, the real food security is not only to produce enough food but also to be able to chose your food: a food in line with your culture, your religion, your health or your ideologies, notably about environment protection (Wegmuller & Duchemin, 2010, p. 4). At community level, in addition to help poor Montrealers to produce their own healthy food, urban agriculture is used by NGOs like Santrapol roulant to ‘distribute locally produced food to the mobility impaired, elderly, and those in need.’ (Bhatt & Farah, 2016, p. 5) Above all, urban agriculture creates social link in neighbourhoods, just as the ‘ruelles vertes’ we have talked about in a previous post.
Environmentally speaking, urban agriculture participates to Montreal’s revegetation to struggle against heat islands and pollution. It enables to produce locally healthy food, most of the time organic, with more labour and less chemical products. There are less transportation and packaging between the production site and the consumption site. Food can sometimes even be transported with soft transport modes. For example the NGO Santrapol roulant uses bikes to deliver its food (Bhatt & Farah, 2016, p. 5). Urban agriculture could also be an outlet for Phosphorus (P) recycling.‘Although UA [Urban Agriculture] in Montreal could not possibly recycle all P from on-island organic waste, UA may still have potential to increase P recycling, primarily by acting as an activity that changes residents’ relationship to, and understanding of, the food system and increases their acceptance of composting’ (Metson & Bennett, 2015, p. 15).
Economically, urban agriculture is becoming beneficial to cities with the appearance of private farms. The goal of these farms is to make profit like farms in rural areas. There were 50 companies concerning urban agriculture in the Québec in 2019, and 70% of them were in Montreal. Lufa farms is an example of them. It is a burgeoning company of Montreal which created the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouses. article Montreal gazette.
The following video make a state of play of urban farming in Montreal.
The city hall of Montreal continues to encourage urban agriculture for all the benefits we have just mentioned, but new projects are most of the time made thanks to citizens or associations initiatives. It is for example thanks to a petition signed by 30000 citizens that a large consultation about urban agriculture was set up in and that a work committee was created in 2013 to define better practices in this domain.
References
Agriculture. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://santropolroulant.org/en/what-is-the-roulant/urban-agriculture/
Benessaieh, K. (2013). Montréal aura son comité permanent sur l’agriculture urbaine. La Presse. Retrieved from https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/201303/21/01-4633411-montreal-aura-son-comite-permanent-sur-lagriculture-urbaine.php
Bhatt, V., & Farah, L. (2016). Cultivating Montreal: A Brief History of Citizens and Institutions Integrating Urban Agriculture in the City. Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems, 1(1), urbanag2015.01.1511. doi: 10.2134/urbanag2015.01.1511
Castonguay, S. (2017). 14 Agriculture and Urban Society on the Island of Montreal. In D. Fougères & R. Macleod, Montreal: The History of a North American City (pp. 561-603). McGill-Queen’s University Press. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2111gbs.24?refreqid=excelsior%3A7120baeda2f611e1129ca269f62c2ca1&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Metson, G., & Bennett, E. (2015). Phosphorus Cycling in Montreal’s Food and Urban Agriculture Systems. PLOS ONE, 10(3), e0120726. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120726
Nebenzahl, D. (2015). Montreal is fertile for urban agriculture entrepreneurs. Montreal Gazette. Retrieved from https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-is-fertile-ground-for-urban-agriculture-entrepreneurs
Radio Canada. (2019). Montréal, métropole de l’agriculture urbaine. Retrieved from https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1187218/environnement-agriculture-urbaine-portrait-montreal
Reid, D., & Pedneault, A. (2006). Montreal’s Community Gardening Program. Ville de Montréal. Retrieved from http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/librairie_en/documents/Montreal_Community_Gardening_Program.pdf
Schwartz, S. (2017). Urban agriculture pioneer Lufa farms opens third rooftop greenhouse farm. Montreal Gazette. Retrieved from https://montrealgazette.com/business/local-business/urban-agriculture-pioneer-lufa-farms-opens-third-rooftop-greenhouse-farm
Ville de Montréal – Développement durable – Agriculture urbaine. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7017,111991580&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
Ville de Montréal – Développement durable – Comité de travail. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7017,124191665&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
Wegmuller, F., & Duchemin, E. (2010). Multifonctionnalité de l’agriculture urbaine à Montréal : étude des discours au sein du programme des jardins communautaires. Vertigo, (Volume 10 numéro 2). doi: 10.4000/vertigo.10445
Urban Political Ecology UCL 
42% is a considerable portion of society and showcases an activity which is socially, economically and ecologically beneficial. Unlike Montreal, farming has been designed out of most urban landscapes due to the increased accessibility to global supply chains in supermarkets. The consequences of this dependence are severe, as urban dwellers miss out on relationships with their food. This has contributed to the food waste culture you mentioned in a previous blog, as people have limited to no connection with the food they consume
I also liked your mentioning of ‘food sovereignty’ and how this relatively new and niche topic is entangled with ethnicity/religion/cultures. The supermarket paints a very Western imaginary for me that offers globalised, generalised and packaged produce. These can often lack food traditionally eaten by the ethnic minorities in cities; a gap which urban agriculture conveniently fills.
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The personal touch of growing vegetables from the origin countries of immigrants is really cool. I also wasn’t aware of the economic benefits to urban agriculture, I guess I saw it as more of a small scale social project. Like Travis, I am also astounded by the 42% figure. I wonder how this could be reproduced on a larger scale in a bigger city such as London?
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