Wes Regan is a founding board member and current Treasurer of the Vancouver Urban Farming Society and partner at Urban Stream, a local food systems technology startup.

I asked him about the market size of urban farming in Vancouver. He said:

-about 30-40 “hands in the dirt” urban farmers (making a commercial business out of it)

-about 100 people in Vancouver involved in the Vancouver Urban Farming Society who are related to urban farming in other ways (like food systems and food security)

-make distinction between urban farmers (who are doing it as a business) vs gardeners (do it for recreation)

-Often these businesses are non-traditional. some do it for barter and other non-money transactions

What are the major challenges facing vancovuer urban farmers?

-access to land/space is a number one concern

-land quality is also a big concern (eg soil contamination, microbial ecosystem health)

-also land tenure (getting kicked off after a few years)

-many current urban farmers are farming other people’s yards, but there is not any predominant way that urban farmers currently connect with land-owners when they are looking for space. many simply go door-to-door

-many use the list-serve message boards of the Vancouver Urban Farming Society

-Another problem is burn-out of keen young urban farmers who don’t know how to manage a busness or a project. Don’t know how to manage inventory or other small business skills. -software could offer valuable business management support

City Farmer is a well established non-profit group supporting urban farming in Vancouver. They are partners with a service called Sharing Backyards which is essentially the same as my concept for the eFarmony service.

Mike did not have a technology background and couldn’t tell me very much about the Sharing Backyards service but did offer some other good ideas and insights into urban farming. I will contact Sharing Backyards directly next.

— Jan 27 Update —

Some insights into urban farming Mike shared:

Space is the limiting factor in Vacnouver. The biggest problem for gardeners or urban farmers is having access to enough land.

Vancouver offers a big tax break to companies that convert some of their land into urban farming space. Urban farming start-ups have struck deals with those companies to do all the work to set up and operate an urban farm and then take a cut of the tax break. Example: SOLEfood

I saw this news article and thought I love puns. If they’re not going to use the name, I will!

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