2025/01/01 by Richard Bloomfield, Kassie Miedema, Deishin Lee +2 · 2 voices
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact #Organic Food and Agriculture #Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
paper · pdf · doi:10.5304/jafscd.2025.151.009
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/11/07 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/17
Urban agriculture (UA) is gaining momentum across Canada in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, with growing public interest and municipal responses such as the City of London, Ontario’s 2017 London Urban Agriculture Strategy (LUAS). This paper examines the implementation and impact of the LUAS, drawing on interviews and workshop insights from for-profit and nonprofit urban food producers, processors, and distributors. Building on a prior study by Miedema (2019) of the city’s Hamilton Road neighborhood, we analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of new and existing UA initiatives across the city. Three factors emerged as critical to UA’s success: municipal governance matters, community efficacy, and the rising cost of living compounded in a post-pandemic context. We assess how London’s strategy has enabled progress—such as bylaw amendments—but also where it falls short due to limited communication, persistent land access issues, jurisdictional misalignments, and a lack of proactive leadership. Our findings contribute new insight into the institutional barriers facing UA in midsized cities and identify three key knowledge and capacity gaps—leadership, technical guidance, and communication—that must be addressed to support sustained UA implementation. We offer recommendations for closing these gaps through coordinated efforts across municipal, private, and community sectors. Ultimately, this research advances the conversation on how cities can more effectively support inclusive, resilient, and culturally valued urban food systems rooted within a food justice framework.