City councillors supporting the $350,000 initiative
By Diego Flammini, Farms.com
In an effort to provide residents of Hamilton’s McQuesten neighbourhood with a destination for fresh food, the city is on board for a $350,000 construction project to break ground on the new McQuesten Urban Farm.
The neighbourhood’s boundaries are the Red Hill Valley to the east, Queenston on the south, Parkdale in the west and the train tracks between Barton and Burlington St. to the north.
The farm would be situated on a site near Melvin and Woodward avenues that’s about 1.2 hectares in size and owned by the city. Construction could start later this summer.
A website dedicated to the urban farm describes the neighbourhood as a “food desert” and having “a large population living below the poverty level”.
The farm will supply residents of the McQuesten neighbourhood, who get by on limited incomes, with fresh foods as there aren’t many grocery stores in the area.
Aside from the food supply, the farm will encourage employment opportunities, improve food security, enhance neighbourhood health, stimulate local economic development and open doors to training opportunities with the University of Guelph among others.
The city will soon start considering proposals for the project, which will include grading the field, planting various trees, shrubs and medicinal plants traditional to the aboriginal community, a storage space, picnic area and teaching garden.
If construction starts in late summer or early fall, there’s a chance the farm would be ready for the 2016 growing season.
Tell us your thoughts about McQuesten Urban Farm and the kinds of impact it will have on the surrounding community.