The city of Montreal boasts numerous agricultural projects based on building a sustainable food system in schools, parks, and urban communities. Food Tank formed a list of ten urban gardens and sustainable farms in Montreal that deserve a closer look.
Alternatives’ Feeding Citizenship is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting social justice and environmental rights by growing healthy food and healthy communities. The project supports numerous school and neighborhood gardens, provides horticultural training programs, and facilitates community engagement.
Collective Kitchens is a nonprofit organization tackling issues of food insecurity and poverty. Collective kitchens are places in which several families can pool resources to make nutritious meals to take home. By providing a network of collective kitchens, poverty stricken families ensure proper nutrition and a supply of available food. The group prides itself on providing fair trade products, responsible consumption, and sustainable practices.
Evoo is a locally sourced organic restaurant in the St-Henri neighborhood. The restaurant’s offerings include classic French and Irish cuisine made from seasonal ingredients grown on small-scale farms in the Montreal area. Evoo’s support of over a dozen local farms aids pastoral and horticultural endeavors in Quebec.
Les Jardins du Petit Tremble is a 26-acre family farm located on the banks of the Richeliue River. Through the garden’s community supported agriculture (CSA) program, conservation education, community volunteering, and commitment to delicious food, Les Jardins du Petit Tremble serves its missions to distribute healthy, affordable food to the Montreal area and build a network of community food advocates.
Lufa Farms offers Montreal residents healthy, locally produced food that can be ordered online and collected at a pick-up point anywhere in the city. The site itself consists of a rooftop greenhouse, perpetuating their vision of “a city of rooftop farms.” Lufa’s farmers practice resource conservation through water recirculation, energy consciousness, and composting.
Mon Marche Local, a community of food producers, artisans, and community members, bridges the gap between local markets and Montreal’s residents. By encouraging local food production through social media, urban marketing, and grassroots campaigns, Mon Marche Local supports the local food economy.
MUSE, McGill University’s Urban Sustainability Experience, invites students, professors, and community members to explore Montreal’s urban agriculture movement through advocacy and human engagement. The lesson MUSE instills in its followers is that urban agriculture is not just an environmental initiative but “an act of community revitalization and collective efficacy” that connects people to their food and land.
The People’s Potato, located in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, is a neighborhood collective providing garden and greenhouse space for community members. The project encourages volunteer participation to grow and distribute organic produce to the surrounding community. Next to the garden is a food bank serving vegan lunches. The People’s Potato maintains an educational program in the form of monthly workshops and an affordable Good Food Box program.
Santropol Roulant, which means “Santropol on Wheels” after the founder’s original café, is a nonprofit organization that utilizes local food culture “as a vehicle to break social and economic isolation between generations and cultures” in urban Montreal. Beginning as a rooftop garden, the group expanded to three gardens that now provide nutritious vegetables to their local projects: Meals-on-Wheels, Fresh Basket Program, and various neighborhood markets.
