Young Urban Farmers CSA
Young Urban Farmers CSA is an independent, non-profit organization with the goal of turning Toronto’s backyards into a sustainable source of fresh, organic food for its urban inhabitants. www.yufcsa.com
While our primary operation of running neighbourhood-based community shared agriculture programs are self-sustaining, we have worked with other community organizations on a variety of other projects. These include collaborations with Volunteer Toronto, Madison Community Services, The Stop Community Food Centre and Hillesum Farms, Meal Exchange, and the Canadian Association of Girls in Science
Young Urban Farmers CSA is a non-profit organization with the goal of turning Toronto’s backyards into a sustainable source of fresh, organic food for its urban inhabitants. Fuelled by a passion for healthy living, local organic produce, and environmental responsibility, we hope to spark a new revolution in sustainable urban living by providing the freshest, tastiest, urban-grown produce to GTA residents.
Started in 2009, YUF CSA operates a community shared agriculture program in 3 neighbourhoods across the City of Toronto: Lawrence Park North, Wychwood, and Riverdale. Homeowners donate their yard (front and/or back) for us to convert into an organic vegetable garden. Our team of enthusiastic volunteers then takes care of managing the garden doing everything from the planning and prep to the digging and planting, through to the watering and harvesting of the delicious produce. The veggies are then shared with local community members. Urban vegetable gardens support our cities and our climate by reducing the distance food has to travel from food to plate, reduces greenhouse gas emissions. increase plant biodiversity, reduces the urban heat island effect, engages the community in a social project, and allows people to enjoy fresh, delicious produce right from a local neighbourhood backyard.
Growing food in an urban environment reduces greenhouse gas emissions by minimizing the distance food has to travel from field to plate. In 2010, our participants traveled an average of 2.65km for their weekly food pickup. To put this in perspective, a 2005 study by Foodshare reported locally sourced food traveled an average of 101km versus 5,346km for imported foods to Toronto, and emitted 100 times less greenhouse gas emissions. By growing hyper-locally, we virtually eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with vehicles shipping food from farm to grocery store, the need for temporary storage, and the energy used to refrigerate and store the produce before it gets to the average Torontonian's plate.
In addition, we do not use any packaging, saving an average of 120 pieces of packaging each week, therefore reducing the energy use from manufacturing and disposal of temporary packaging - the majority of which is petroleum based, and not easily recyclable or compostable. Finally, our gardens in each neighbourhood are often next door to each other and easily accessible by public transit. This enables our volunteers to bicycle, take public transit, or even walk to the gardens, eliminating the need for a motorized vehicle. Together, our collective efforts reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we generate, reduce smog-causing emissions from motor vehicles and inspire others to take on similar initiatives.
One of the major issues surrounding large cities with regards to smog and climate change is the urban heat island effect, where the average temperature within an urban area is significantly higher than in nearby rural areas. This is due to the high concentration of pavement and concrete within cities that absorb solar radiation, and release it as heat, contributing to smog and increased energy consumption. As the temperatures are higher in the city, cities become more reliant on energy-intensive artificial cooling, which in turn emit greenhouse gases, raise temperatures and contribute to climate change. Gardens, on the other hand, absorb solar radiation and carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, and convert it into plant matter and in our case, nutritious food. Similarly, plants and soil absorb rainfall that would otherwise run off and strain the sewer system, while utilizing pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus to reduce smog in the city.
Finally, gardens increase plant biodiversity and preserve heirloom and open-pollinated varieties of vegetables that could be threatened by climate change if not continually grown and diversified. We install rain barrels in our gardens (which can save an average of 31,000L of rain in Toronto, or 450L per average rainfall, or 6.2kg of CO2 per year), create compost piles in each of our yards, practice low-till gardening, and actively work to improve the condition and fertility of the soil which improves the vitality of the Earth and local environment. YUF CSA is centered around building a community of people who are passionate about these issues in order, and create spaces to share ideas, collaborate on new initiatives, and promote urban agriculture.
As a result of these initiatives, we anticipate Toronto to become a greener, cleaner, and more smog-free city, with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and more people educated about these topics.
Elaine Howarth is a graduate from Trent University in the environmental and political studies program. She is the head of operations: planning, coordinating, and overseeing all of our backyard gardens. She is a skilled and experienced gardener having worked in community gardens such as Trent University's green roof, Trent's half acre plot, and the Green Oasis Community Garden. She has a passion for food security and urban agriculture, and has contributed to local organizations such as Local Food Plus and the Riverdale Food Working Group.
Christopher Wong is a graduate of the Queen’s University commerce program and brings a strong entrepreneurial and sales background to the team. He is the sales manager for YUF CSA, a co-founder of Young Urban Famers Limited, a member of the Toronto Food Policy Council, and has spent time at a major consumer packaged goods organization in their foodservice sales and marketing team. He is highly involved in the local food scene and has been a guest speaker for local food organizations such as FoodShare and Food Forward.
Stella Woo is a graduate from the University of Toronto, majoring in Human Biology and Economics. She is the marketing and technology manager, drawing upon her skills in graphic design, marketing communications, website development, and consumer behaviour.
Andrea Chan is a passionate supporter of the local food movement. She is an enthusiastic internship coordinator and splits her down time between reading, playing taiko, and baking desserts with Ontario blueberries.
From the enthusiastic response from our participants, volunteers, the broader community, and the media, we believe our project will be self supporting within five years. CSA programs have proven to be a profitable and a financially stable business and non-profit model, with over 250 programs in Ontario alone. As we work towards financial stability and adapting our model to an urban environment, we have developed the following strategies for ensuring the long term stability and success of our program.
i. Create or increase revenue streams. These revenue opportunities arise as a result of our existing CSA operations and require minimal management and oversight. This includes selling surplus seedlings at farmers markets, selling surplus produce at a farmers market, and accepting donations from individuals and organizations.
ii. Increase efficiency of our general operations. By refining our growing techniques, adding organic soil amendments to boost the nutrients and fertility of the soil, we can raise our share prices, minimize overhead costs, and invest in capital equipment to lower operational costs,
Comments
Thanks for your comments
Thanks for your comments/questions slyder. In terms of outreach, we table at a number of food and environment trade shows and events to educate and inform the community of our initiative. This is in addition to knocking on doors in the neighbourhoods we already have gardens to solicit homeowners to donate their land for us to farm in as well. By forming these personal relationships with potential land-sharers, we have developed excellent relationships with our participants and removed any reservations they may have had in allowing us onto their property.
Currently, the land-sharers receive a portion of the produce that we grow. This is similar to a barter system, where in our case acces to land is being exchanged for vegetables.
relationships with other backyard farmers
I think it would be important to establish working relationships with the other organizations doing backyard gardens, mainly the YIMBY project run out of The Stop, City Seed Farms, and Fresh City Farms. If you all could find a way to tackle specific neighbourhoods and not step on each others toes by seeking out the same farmers markets or restaurants to supply your food to, this is obviously an amazing idea that all cities need more of!
local food plus
I would also suggest Local Food Plus as an ally. I don't have any experience with them beyond chatting with employees at booths, but I imagine they would be interested in partnering.
re: local food plus
Great suggestions. LFP doesn't have any guidelines for urban farming, though they did mention our project has started to push them to think about creating standards for urban farmers
re: relationships with other backyard farmers
Hi About Face Collective. We have already established strong and positive relationships with other local food organizations. In fact, we are a partner in the Stop's YIMBY program. We also acted as consultants and advisors with the founders of both City Seed Farms and Fresh City Farms before they launhed their respctive ventures this year. Before we started our venture, we spoke with some folks at Backyard Bounty and Vegetable Patch in Guelph and Ottawa respectively as well. So yes, collaboration and relationships with other backyard farmers is part of who we are.
Turning it into food
This is an excellent idea. I particularly like the fact that you use no packaging. It is maddening that a lot of the time even products that are claming to be eco-friendly or environmentaly beneficial still come in plastic bottles or wrap. This is also a fantastic tool for community cohesion. People that either do not have the skill, time or ability to tend to their own gardens can still have the benefits of a garden while also giving to the wider community.
In addition I would like to see some collaboration with cooking courses for instance, and education on food and nutrition. It would be fantastic if a course was offered once a month to give ideas of healthy recepies that can be prepared from the food that is due to be harvested.
re: Turning it into food
Thanks Dallsim. We have put on a number of interactive/educational workshops including canning and preserving. We were able to put these workshops on due to a few grants we have received, however as funding is never guaranteed, we must assess the workshops and courses we are able to provide based on the grants we may or may not receive
Lots of wins.
Great concept with lots of wins all around - making productive use of space, labour in cities, and producing food.
Use of rain barrels and composting is great. This could perhaps be expanded by using food refuse from nearby stores, e.g. The Big Carrot in Riverdale.
Downplay the heat island effect, since this proposal does not convert paving into gardens and may compete with shade trees.
A tie into education on food growing/ urban agriculture would add value to the volunteer experience.
Marketing plan can perhaps target seniors who as a group, may need yard maintenance help.
Reduction of heat island effect makes sense
I would probably disagree with the idea of removing the heat island effect as a source of emissions reduction as the gardens are probably not displacing large shade trees, but are additions to underutilized pieces of land and in theory could be built on top of cement and/or ashphalt as well (their website says that they are raised beds)...on a widescale that would be huge. In terms of emission reduction the compost piles also eliminate the need for City trucks to pick up compost (or trash, if that’s where the homeowner puts their compostables) and wheel it away.
re: Reduction of heat island effect makes sense
Good point about the shade trees as being another factor in reducing the heat island effect. I like your idea about the reduced emissions from building our own compost piles and reducing the city's need to drive around and pick it up
Compost management
Building your own compost piles does reduce emissions if it's managed properly, but done improperly it can create methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
It would be good to emphasize (and control) that compost piles are managed in a way to reduce emissions.
volunteer burn-out
The CSA model is well-proven and there is a lot of interest in local food so this is very appealing. I wonder if there is a way to tap the "neighbourhood" energy by making the acitivity visible and associated with a key issue of concern - remember "Victory Gardens" during war time - is there anything that could rally the neighbourhood to boost participation? That said, I am understanding that the gardening labour comes from volunteers - is this an impediment to growth - the gardening labour is potentially one of the costly inputs and will the volunteer energy be sustained? Could it be supplemented by recruiting high schoolers looking for volunteer credits or by connecting with seniors who may have gardening knowledge but no space?
re: volunteer burn-out
To our pleasant surprise, we've had really great interest from a variety of community sectors to volunteer their time and energy with us, including high school students, university students, recent grads, and even seniors. As our program grows, yes volunteer burnout might be a bigger challenge and obstacle to overcome and thus we are in the process of looking into developing a program specifically targeted to high school students.
Perennials?
Volunteer fatigue is a great point, Mary.
Any chance of exploring perennial food plants? Fruits are an obvious choice, but perennial nuts and vegetables are also possible. They require less yearly investment since the plants don't have to be re-generated and removed each season. That is better for soil stability, as well. There are native and non-invasive options available. And many can provide landscape structure your community volunteers might appreciate in their gardens - a hazelnut hedge, or a patch of sorrel peaking through the snow, for example.
Another Grouping Besides the Neighbourhood
I think there needs to be a community garden before you start into the backyard thought.
Have you considered co-religionists or people of the same faith as a way of generating interest. there are a number of organizations in the GTA doing CSA, but organized on religious as well as neighbourhood lines. I've tried getting one of them interested in climatespark.. Perhaps you would want to reach out
re: Another Grouping Besides the Neighbourhood
Thanks for your comment winegust. As a community organization, we want to be open to people of all backgrounds, religious/political beliefs, and opinions so we haven't made an active effort to target people of a specific religion or faith. These things may naturally occur due to the word of mouth marketing from our volunteers and participants, though it hasn't been something we are purposely pursuing at the moment.
pre-existing groups
Winegust is on to something. Religious groups are one type of group where people sign up to volunteer in peer groups -- for example in the Out-of-the-Cold program, one church may host the program, while neighbouring churches send batches of volunteers on particular nights. This leverages pre-existing relationships -- people like to do things with their friends.
Other charitable organizations target corporations to sign up volunteers in teams, again leveraging pre-existing social ties.
If you can leverage pre-existing groups in the community (businesses, schools, gardeners), rather than simply appealing to individuals, you'll have an added appeal.
Pilot Neighbourhood
There's definitely traction for this idea but the model is not convincing to me; incentive for participation "iffy". Strategy for success e.g. volunteers to meet potential demand?
A pilot neighbourhood of even a few blocks where most residents participate would provide valuable data towards making this model more compelling - the concentrated sense of community, social value and yes, inevitiable competition between neighbours would generate individual and media interest. One garden here, one garden there etc. may not be sustainable.
re: Pilot Neighbourhood
Hi Peter.
Could you clarify what you mean by the "incentive for participation 'iffy'" and what maybe even things you might suggest to increase the incentives (or reduce the barriers) of participation?
As to your idea for clustering participants together in specific neighbourhoods - we have taken a very similar approach by opening up 3 neighbourhood hubs in the city of Toronto. While we did get requests from residents all across the city, we focused our efforts on 3 areas, and were not able to serve all the requests from homeowners who wanted to participate and donate their land for our program. In terms of data from a pilot neighbourhood, what metrics would you be looking for to judge the success and sustainability of such a program?
Interested to hear more about your future plans
Hi-I like this idea insofar as it promises to deliver tastier produce to our plates. Now, having read your website, your proposal and all the Q & A above, I am confident that you're already doing quite well. You have no shortage of volunteers and partnerships to leverage off of. And you've done a great job of responding positively to most queries. I don't mean to be facetious, but what do you need funding for? How would you manage $500K and what are your plans to grow (or expand)?
re: Interested to hear more about your future plans
Hi Sandra,
Thank you for your confidence in our organization. While we have had very positive feedback from our participants, volunteers, and even the media in our venture to date, there are a number of things we do struggle with as an organization and a number of areas we could greatly use the funds to ensure the sustainability and lasting social impact of our programs and organization in the communities we serve.
1. Paid Staff. For the past two growing seasons, the success of our program has been largely a result of the passion and determination of our core group of volunteer executives who contribute not only their time, but expertise in things like marketing, website development, accounting, and operations. There are currently no paid staff members, and our contributions from our programs at our current scale does not generate enough revenues to fund a paid staff position. We believe that in order to ensure the ongoing success of our program, as well as to accelerate the growth and environmental impact of our organization, including things like training programs for our volunteers and newly created internship program, paid staff will be a key building block of this process.
2. Program growth and expansion in current and future neighbourhoods. As we look toward the future, growing food for the community should not be limited to the three existing neighbourhoods we currently serve. There are many communities who can benefit from the health, social, and environmental improvements our program provides. Scaling up our program will allow us to reach these communities and make a difference in the lives of our participants, volunteers, and community members. Expanding our program and opening up a new neighbourhood hub takes start-up capital and a grant from a program like ClimateSpark will help to accelerate this process
3. Executive training and development. An area of weakness within our organization is lack of executive training and development. While we have been able to get by with our committed executive team, we believe we are reaching a plateau in the growth and development of our programs and organization. Funding for training courses, coaching, or professional development for our executive team will allow us to be more effective in our roles and allow us to take the organization to the next level in terms of environmental, social, and community benefits.
These are just a few, but some of the most important areas where funding would be of great benefit to our organization and accelerate the growth, reach, and impact of our organization.
Great Idea
Strong idea.
Love your project
Idea itself is self evident and tangible. It would be great if you post some lovely pictures of activities.
When you get enough manpower involved in your project, you may think of going all the way that is to produce your own organic fertilizer. Go to www.humanurehandbook.com. It will give you fresh and provocative way of making organic fertilizer. It would be an ultimate green project one can think of.
re: Love your project
Hi oilnomore.
We've thought about creating our own compost using extra green matter generated by our gardens, but haven't considered yet using the principles of humanure. What a fascinating concept and definitely the next step in closing the loop of inputs and outputs from our gardens and communities we serve!
Great idea
Great idea, well thought out and good details provided.
Partnering with TDSB, and the pool of volunteer opportunities for high school volunteer credits. Also as RK mentioned seniors should be considered as well. Though not "young" they may also offer young volunteers experience and expertise. Perhaps incorporate vacant city lots as well.
Financial Strategy: Bootstrapping and your Lead Customers
Please read below.
I’m excited to see so many entrepreneurial proposals on ClimateSpark. I especially like the model of social ventures that can sustain themselves by creating their own revenue and be less dependent on grants or gifts.
In my own experience starting and building several companies, I’ve often employed “bootstrapping” techniques so I’m not dependent on external capital (VCs, etc.). One technique I’ve used successfully is to recruit one or more “lead customers” who pay me up-front for a service (e.g., consulting or something they need right away), which gives me the capital to build my product or capability for them. The big advantages: cash up-front (or early); a real customer to help make sure my design is something they’ll want to buy; and a great partner to test ideas with as I’m getting off the ground.
What’s your bootstrapping strategy? Have you tried to develop “lead customers” for your product or service? Have you talked to potential customers ? What are you doing to get cashflow from them early, so your idea can gain traction?
re: Financial Strategy: Bootstrapping and your Lead Customers
Hi Deepak,
The way almost all CSA's work - ours included - is to have our shareholders purchase their share of the harvest at the beginning of the growing season. This provides us with cash in hand just as we purchase seeds, tools, and other materials for the start of the growing season. It also gives us a confirmed minimum budget to work from as we finalize our operations for the season. This is our "lead customer" strategy.
In terms of bootstrapping, we are very conscious about our cash flow and investing in assets and tools that generate value for our business (ex. flyers/marketing materials for trade shows, bike trailers, sturdy garden tools that can be used for many years). One area of improvement we know needs improvement is creating and implementing financial controls and this will tie into our overall bootstrapping strategy in the future
Sounds good to me!
I love what this group is doing; providing sustainable food solutions, improving our green spaces and building community. Food is central to our health, our culture and our happiness. We need more Young Urban Farmers to help connect us to our food!
Is there a way to involve schools in this project? Perhaps some school land could be used for YUF gardens? Or local students could help work on YUF gardens?
re: Sounds good to me!
Connecting with schools is something we haven't actively pursued in the past. Though, there are lots of ways to involve them in our project. While connecting with igh school students have been a challenge in the past and a bit of a learning experience, we hope that with a new approach and connections from our networks to key people in the system, we will have greater success in connecting to schools and students to work together with our program
Clearly expressing your business value – Mock Press Release
Each proposal in ClimateSpark is bringing a valuable community based idea forward to help with energy conservation and the reduction of carbon emissions
Centennial College, School of Communications Media & Design, Corporate Communications and Public Relations Class of 2012 will be working on a set of mock press releases, in anticipation of this proposal being one of the 20 to be selected on October 31 to continue to ClimateSpark Ignite Phase 2.
If you would like to be interviewed as part of the mock press release development process, please send a note to Professor Barry Waite, [email protected] by Friday October 21, 2011.
If you choose not to be interviewed, the mock press release will be developed based on Information currently posted in the description of your idea, as well as information gleaned from the various comment interactions.
Great Idea! Backyard gardens just make sense.
Talk about local and food security! This is a wonderful idea and Chris is just the person to head this up.
The ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge is a project of:
Our sponsors:
Great Idea, will it catch on?
I think this project tackles an important step in becoming a sustainable society. What sort of outreach will be conducted to convince people to donate their yard space? A strong brand will need to be developed, and I think the idea needs to be "normalized" - not everyone will be comfortable giving access to their property.
Is there any bonus for the land owner giving the donation? Do they receive food from the land, or proceeds from the sales?
My suggestions:
- A strategy for establishing an identity and familiarity with potential donors
- A clearer outline of how the project will be monetized, and what benefits donors will receive