Tending Cultural Landscapes and Food Citizenship in Toronto's Community Gardens^*

* Special thanks to all the gardeners who tirelessly accommodated my requests to document their gardening activities and who generously shared their stories and experiences. This project would not have been possible without the support of FoodShare Toronto, the student researchers, and the Urban Issues Program of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation.

Abstract

Scattered throughout the city of Toronto are more than no community gardens, sites of place‐based politics connected to the community food‐security movement. The gardens, spaces where passions for plants and food are shared, reflect the city's shifting cultural landscape and represent an everyday activity that is imbued with multiple meanings. Toronto's community food‐security movement uses gardens as one strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three garden case studies expand on the complexities of “food citizenship,” illustrating the importance of that concept to notions of food security. The gardens reveal the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces, the complex network of organizations working cooperatively and in partnership to implement these projects, and the way in which social and cultural pluralism are shaping the urban landscape.

• community food security
• community gardens
• food citizenship
• Toronto

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lauren E. Baker

Ms. Baker is a doctoral candidate in environmental studies at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J IP3.