Canada’s largest urban community farm, located in Balzac, is looking for a new home to facilitate its operations and efforts to alleviate food insecurity in the region.
Founded in 2011, Grow Calgary is a non-profit organization that grows fresh produce for social agencies in Calgary via food access programs, with 95 per cent of recipients being women and children.
According to its website, the organization’s ultimate goal is to ensure that all residents of Calgary – especially those who are vulnerable and living in poverty – have consistent access to healthy and local produce.
“More than that, we view urban agriculture as a feasible, immediate response to food access and food dignity among food insecure Calgarians living below the poverty line,” read the website.
Gabriella “Gabrie” Wong Ken, off-farm coordinator and farm manager at Grow Calgary, said the organization donates 100 per cent of the fresh food they grow to those in need.
“The farm is really all about operating on ecology – trying to be more of a sustainable farm,” she said. “We try to grow in a way that reduces our impact on the environment.”
She added the farm is currently in its 12th growing season, and recently expanded operations by adding a farm animal rescue sanctuary at the end of 2021. The sanctuary has cared for goats, pigs, sheep, chicken, roosters and horses, and currently houses a number of these animals in need of a new home.
“We have three horses and birds, so it’s quite a collection,” said Wong Ken.
Wong Ken said when Grow Calgary first began its operations, it was located on a plot of land near WinSport in northwest Calgary. It remained there for seven years until road development in the area pushed the non-profit to find its new home in Balzac
But now in their fourth growing season at the Balzac facility, the farm is once again looking for a new home.
“The land we’re on right now is privately-owned and the landowners have allowed us to operate on the land for the last four years,” Wong Ken explained.
“We always knew the development of the land was going to be the future of the space, so it isn’t a big surprise that we need to relocate. It was not a permanent situation.”
The farm manager said the team is looking for a piece of land that is two to five acres in size, though two acres would be the absolute minimum needed to care for the rescue farm animals and facilitate Grow Calgary's garden.
She added electricity would be a nice bonus but is not required.
“If we’re so lucky to find [a space] outside of the city, that would be awesome,” Wong Ken said. “Our animal rescue as well as our farming operation does need to have access to water, [but] we can get by with pretty much no electricity – we have for a lot of years.”
Wong Ken underscored the need for a plot of land in close proximity to a city in order to obtain volunteers, as they are a fully volunteer-run organization.
“So, you need to have the organization and the location that is accessible to people,” she said. “But we are pretty open to any sort of space.
“We had to move once before, so we created the farm in a way that has all the items you need able to transport a little bit easier... we don’t really have a lot of permanent structures at the farm.”
Wong Ken added the sooner the operation can find its new home and begin moving elements of the farm to the new plot of land, the better.
“We do have the current land until the end of summer, so we have [it] until October, but the sooner we can solidify a new home for the farm the better,” she explained.
Already, Wong Ken said the farm is receiving interest from people who own their own land or farm who have offered to donate a small portion of it to Grow Calgary. She added they have also been in talks with families who have similar property situations to the one they are currently experiencing in Balzac, where the land is planned for development in the next five or ten years.
“So, it’s kind of sitting there empty... we haven’t solidified any places, just some examples of some people that have reached out to us,” she shared.
Wong Ken added it is important that Grow Calgary find a new home soon, so the farm can continue servicing the underfed populations in Calgary and the surrounding area.
She said with food prices rising in Canada and with a lot of the country’s food being imported, it is important to promote and introduce more locally grown and produced food.
“We are really trying to promote local food production. There’s a lot of people right now that are struggling with [food] security,” she stated.
“There’s a lot of different programs in the city that are always looking for donations and the more we can grow locally, the more we’re able to give to those organizations as well.”
Wong Ken said looking to the future of agriculture, society needs to come up with a more sustainable solution to better serve the environment and to support local farms that are accessible to city dwellers.
“[For people] to come out and actually see how their food is produced and grown is really important. We host a number of school groups on the farm, host companies at the farm, and offer free education programs as well,” she said, “so that people can feel empowered and learn how to do things in their own backyard.”
