Urban Farming Grows on Vancouver

“Mark Bomford, program coordinator of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC, has quantified the capacity of urban agriculture to feed Vancouver residents. While the city contains about 11,500 hectares of land, the total arable land is estimated to be about 4,400 hectares. However only 81 hectares of public land have urban agriculture capability, according to a 2006 inventory. On the other hand, using a “bio-intensive” method which claims high yields in a small scale, the amount of land required to sustain the population of Vancouver with a nutritionally complete vegan diet for one year would be close to 29,000 hectares.”