A team of volunteer students from Concordia produced a large number of seedlings in the Concordia Greenhouse. The seedlings were distributed freely to collective gardens around Montréal in exchange for free technical classes and technical support that helped the students produce these seedlings.

Part of these seedlings were used to green the Concordia campus and promote food security and urban agriculture among Concordia students and local residents.

Members of collective gardens and community organizations gave a series of free technical classes on different topics and will provide students with support, advice and guidance throughout the duration of the project. The first series of classes focused on the production of seedlings (organic fertilizers and pesticides, calendars of production, soils and plant needs, etc.)Once the seedling production was started and well under way, members of the collective gardens addressed other themes related to urban agriculture such as pest management and urban gardens. In exchange for all these free classes, Concordia students provided free seedlings to participating collective gardens. Students participating in the project also received free seedlings and were able to start their own personal urban gardens using the knowledge and technical experience they gained through the project.

Some of the seedlings produced were used for a collective garden on the Concordia downtown campus.  Vert ta Ville aims to develop a partnership with a downtown organization working in the field of food security in order to care for the garden and share its harvest. Students of Concordia will be invited to care for this garden during the summer which will allow them to gain knowledge and technical experience concerning garden management and maintenance. Concordia students will also be invited to visit the collective gardens of the partnering organizations and will have the chance to meet the people who benefit from the seedlings they will have produced during the summer. This will further deepen their understanding of food security and urban agriculture as a means to address this issue.

Finally, some of the seedlings were also to be sold to students of Concordia and citizens in general in order to further encourage the development of urban agriculture in Montreal as a citizen initiative. The revenues from this sale will also help fund part of the project.

Years funded: 2009-10, 2010-11

Amount allocated: 

2010-11: $4,617.89

2009-10: $15,000.00

Project leader: Laurence Fauteux

E-mail: verttaville@gmail.com