Growing Food in the City - Urban Rooftop Farm in Downtown Toronto

So many people are interested in local and organic food these days, but students from X University in Toronto have taken the movement one step further by converting a green roof on campus into an urban rooftop farm! As of 2017 they were producing 10,000 lbs of fresh fruits and veggies on their green roof.

They sell the produce at a farmer's market, to CSA (community supported agriculture) customers, and they give some to the campus food room, which is a place where students can have access to free food.

In addition to growing food on the rooftop, they also have a variety of programs and workshops available to help educate students, faculty, staff, and community members about how to grow food, including a 10-week market garden program.

A multitude of different people are interested in this project, from nutrition and urban planning students, to community members who want to learn how to grow food in their own yards and balconies, to other universities who want to replicate the project on their own campus.

You can follow Ryerson Urban Farm here:

To learn more about the City of Toronto's green roof by-law:

A special thank you to Saba Zubair, Jayne Miles and Arlene Throness for sharing their connection to the Ryerson Urban Farm (RUF) with us, and to Kate Davies for the farm photos.

The Ryerson Urban Farm is located on the Andrew & Valerie Pringle Environmental Green Roof, on the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre.

Thanks for watching!

Mat & Danielle

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VIDEO CREDITS
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Music & Song Credits:
All music in this video was composed, performed, and recorded by Mat of Exploring Alternatives.

Editing Credits:
Mat and Danielle of Exploring Alternatives

Filming Credits:
Mat of Exploring Alternatives

Photo Credits:
Kate Davies

[HayleyTief]

This is the kind of thing that gets me excited. So much you see on the news can be so depressing, but the knowledge that forward thinking ideas are being implemented is so uplifting. Thanks for the video! Maybe someone who sees it will be inspired to push for this in their city.

[treehugger]

Green roof by-law - what a great idea. Good ol' Toronto. Very cool to see the garden with all the buildings behind it

[katnipu]

Holy cow, I'm in Toronto and I had no idea this was going on! So great and encouraging! I'll be looking into this more now. BTW, my condo building management has let a few of us garden around our building for some 5 years now (complementing other professional lanscaping), so .. there is hope in urban settings for many edible gardens to pop up! However, we do have issues with rascal squirrels and raccoons, and STUPID inconsiderate tenants, who let their dogs relieve themselves in our garden beds .. very discouraging to continue growing greens and herbs anymore (tomatoes seem to be still fine and the dogs don't seem to go to zucchini and squash bushes, but ..) after you witness this kind of behaviour .. ..
Rooftop gardening would solve the critter problems, that's for sure!

[PermacultureHomestead]

if we hope to have any type of future, permaculture and urban gardening will have to be a part of it.

[altanautical]

Great video.everyone should be part of a community garden or atleast grow some of their own chemical free food. 🌿💚

[debbieboring]

Thanks for the video I am so glad to see more and more of these options being worked on in many areas.

[kodeywhitewolf]

So glad to see people using availability space for growing food

[howardbrooks]

This Will happen more and more as wages stagnate and inflation eats away remaining purchasing power, besides that people are making health decisions of growing their own food to have pesticide and herbicide free food .
😎

[kinimediagroup]

Back to the future!!! This is inevitable and I LOVE it! 👍👍👍

[matthewpankau]

Love it! So many roofs with so much light utilization, it just makes sense. Personally, I feel as though vertical aeroponic style growing would be more ideal for rooftops. Less weight on the structure with longer root growth potential. There’s a company in France that does exactly this🌱🌱🌱

[MimiTheGreatest]

We need this everywhere ➕ used as PTSD therapy for new and old Canadians.
Nature heals, food security heals, see what works in remote hills of China.
Grow herbs healing mind and body

[familybuzzconnections]

What a great project! It looks like the beds are full size too. I wonder if there’s issue with the amount of sun due to the surrounding buildings. It will always be a great sight from those buildings.

[LungsOutJem]

This is very cool, but you could probably get ten times the yield using virtical planters on some of them. Lettuce doesn't even need soil.

[thestreamoflife]

Amazing. Toronto is a very progressive city

[NewDimension]

Yeay.. Nice influence for me
Thanks for sharing
Yuhui.. Back to garden

[izzyyellowhair]

Tbh tho this gardening will give me ideas in my Front yard and Back yard of my home, wanna be a green thump person making mother earth green

[celestemarie]

Friendly heads up, I shared this video on fb and the thumbnail did not upload. This is such an amazing concept I hope my friends will be enticed to click the link purely by the title/my recommendation. Love your content keep up the great work!

[WillowsGreenPermaculture]

This should be mandatory in all urban areas. And for regular homes, solar panels integrated into roofing tiles, apparently this tech exists in Japan.

[marie-andreehould]

This is amazing. It should be mandatory everywhere!

What a great way to learn, to use the otherwise wasted space and to make sure that we have access to local produce.

Would love to see this kind of project implemented in more cities!

[unoriginal]

Love toronto! This is so cool, I might buy from here sometime.