Fruitful Beginnings: Urban Food Trees Across Canada

Urban food trees (UFTs) are increasingly present in cities and the urban forest through the establishment of community orchards, food forests, and edible landscaping. UFT sites are novel within Canadian cities and are planted for their multiple benefits such as food production, biodiversity, and aesthetics. Although beneficial to communities, little research has been conducted on the relevant policies, broader governance approach and their integration into urban forestry practice. Furthermore, as sites open to the public there is opportunity for urban populations to harvest and engage with UFTs, but little is known about the everyday accessibility of the sites, and ways that these novel sites develop human-nonhuman relationships. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to fill these gaps by exploring the governance, accessibility, and more-than-human relationships at multiple UFT sites in cities across Canada. To answer these research objectives semi-structured interviews were conducted with municipal actors, intercept and go-along walking interviews were conducted with site coordinators, volunteers, and foragers, and participant observation was conducted at individual sites in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Victoria. All the interviews were transcribed and coded in NVivo 12. The results indicate that UFTs are still marginal within the practice of urban forestry through the lack of resources, direct policies, and discourse primarily focused on potential risks over benefits, with some opportunities for co-governance of UFT sites. Furthermore, the results indicate that proximity and distribution of UFTs alone is not sufficiently accessible, with other considerations such as knowledge of and engagement with the decision-making process, as well as socio-economic factors. Finally, UFT sites provide an opportunity for urban populations to encounter and develop varied relationships with nonhumans, leading to opportunities for demonstrating care and learning. This dissertation provides an early look into UFT governance and on the ground practices at UFT sites. These findings are important because they can be applied to current and future iterations of UFT sites for further integration into current urban forestry practice and inform the development of more accessible and equitable sites for urban residents, both human and nonhuman. Further research is required to scale up the findings and understand Indigenous perspectives.

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