Contaminated land derails urban farm expansion plans

The trouble with land is that it's practically impossible to make more of it. Despite the City of Vancouver’s plans to see its flagship urban farm expand to new locations, SOLEfood farm is getting a hard lesson in real estate: the city’s few empty lots are either slated for development or are long-abandoned and contaminated industrial sites.

“Unfortunately the soils are not usable,” says seasoned farmer and author Michael Ableman, the man in charge of growing food at the social enterprise in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. “We cannot move forward and allow people to grow edible crops in soil that’s going to essentially poison those crops,” he says.

That’s exactly the problem at 1015 East Hastings Street, a half-acre former junkyard the city has already leased to United We Can, the parent company behind SOLEfood, with the expressed purpose of expanding the farm’s operations. As the new growing season draws near, Ableman worries the site’s grade, drainage and, above all, soil toxicity might be deal-breakers.

“I made the decision last week to walk away from that site,” he says. “They’re working had to try to resolve this, but unless the city is going to come forward and cover the cost of that mitigation, then we’re going to walk and go for another location.”

Deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston knows all about challenges of urban agriculture, having helped set up a number of similar projects in Chicago before being hired by Vancouver to lead the city’s environmental efforts.

“We are very enthusiastic to support SOLEfood,” he says, but concedes the city's support is limited by a tight budget. “We’re giving them the land for nothing,” says Johnston. “We certainly haven’t set aside a budget for cleaning up this land."

The two parties are scheduled to meet later this month, but Ableman worries this may be the third potential growing location to slip away. Last May, Seann Dory, manager of sustainability for United We Can, struck a verbal agreement with the landlord of a parkade in Chinatown to start farming on its rooftop, but the arrangement fell through at the 11th hour after the landlord made new demands of the group. United We Can was also in a development permit process at 898 Main Street, but opposition from the surrounding community forced Dory to withdraw the application.

Ableman says they’re always scouting potential sites for expansion, from vacant lots in Richmond to discussions with local school boards. In the interim, he plans to ramp up production at the existing location.

“Last spring when I entered the scene, there were some boxes full of soil and a bunch of people with a lot of great ideas and not any experience whatsoever,” says the veteran farmer with a laugh. “I think we did an amazing job in the first year, but that site can be managed much more efficiently and the production level can be much higher.”

Last year, SOLEfood hired eight Downtown Eastside residents and paid their wages with market sales of the approximately 10,000 pounds of food that was grown on the farm. However, that revenue did not cover start-up and ongoing infrastructure costs. Ableman hopes to increase production fourfold at the original site this summer and says it’s essential for the farm to wean itself off external grants and loans.

“An urban farm should make its living the same way a rural farm does: by the pound,” he says. “We have an obligation to demonstrate that we can support our staff and management by the products we’re growing. Otherwise we should call ourselves something else.”