On the Island of Montreal, more than one in five people (21%) struggles to get enough healthy food to eat. This is the highest rate in Quebec. Overall, 17% of Quebeckers are food insecure, a statistic that has increased since the pandemic started in 2020, when the rate was 11%.*
For people experiencing poverty, eating a healthy diet is a daily challenge, especially if they live in a food desert and have to travel kilometres to buy groceries and meet their needs.
A food desert is an urban area with limited or no access to fresh, affordable produce within walking distance.
The majority of Greater Montreal’s neighbourhoods are taking action to tackle access to fresh and affordable food in their territories. For many areas, the solution lies in deploying local food systems consisting of urban agriculture projects, neighbourhood markets, community grocery stores, and collective kitchens. These systems meet the needs of people living in poverty while also adhering to major sustainable development principles.
Effective local food systems need contributions from many partners (community agencies, municipalities, public health, citizens) to produce, process and distribute food and to implement good recycling and composting practices.
The neighbourhood roundtables supported by Centraide play a central role in deploying local food systems. They bring partners together, prompt them to collectively think of solutions, and support their actions.
The Collective Impact Project (CIP), coordinated by Centraide of Greater Montreal, supports seven neighbourhoods heavily engaged in improving access to healthy and affordable food:
Centre-Sud
Lachine
LaSalle
Mercier-Ouest
Saint-Michel
Verdun
Ville-Émard-Côte-Saint-Paul
While some neighbourhoods have everything in place, others are creating and organizing missing pieces to add to existing components.
The building blocks of local food systems
Gardens and greenhouses: for growing food
Markets and community grocery stores: for distributing food
Kitchens: for processing food
The benefits of local food systems go beyond access to fresh, affordable produce, as they help people to not only become food secure but also develop skills around market gardening or collective cooking. Food becomes an excellent way to build close connections between residents and build networks of mutual support.
This project was first conceived in 2016 by Karine Lévesque, a teacher at the École Louis-Joseph-Papineau School who helps students with severe dysphasia gain skills to enter the work force. The idea was to create a huge vegetable garden on the school grounds to give her students a positive experience and feed people in Saint-Michel, a neighbourhood with many disadvantaged areas.
Supported by the Vivre Saint-Michel en santé neighbourhood roundtable, LesJardins des patriotes was launched the following year with the support of the Collective Impact Project (CIP), and the initiative has continued to evolve. In 2018, a 167-m2 greenhouse was added to the large garden. In September 2020, the École Louis-Joseph Papineau School welcomed its first cohort of 25 students to the Programme EAU, an environmental and urban agriculture option that is unique in Quebec.
On top of getting students to participate in educational activities, the school’s gardens and greenhouse provide the neighbourhood with affordable fresh fruits and vegetables.
Harvested foods are sent to community agencies, processed at collective kitchens, and sold at the Marché solidaire Saint-Michel.
When the students are on vacation in the summer, volunteers take over to continue production and maintenance at the gardens and greenhouse.
This innovative project was made possible through close cooperation between community agencies in Saint-Michel, the involvement of the École Louis-Joseph-Papineau, and the participation of the École des métiers de l’horticulture de Montréal.
Between April 2021 and March 2022, 1556 kg of fruits, vegetables and herbs were harvested from the greenhouse and production garden. A total of 16 varieties of vegetables were grown to benefit thousands of people in the neighbourhood.
In summer 2018, community agencies in Lachine got together as part of the Collective Impact Project (CIP) to set up weekly fruit and vegetable stands in Lachine sectors that are considered food deserts.
This was the first initiative of the Groupe de travail en sécurité alimentaire de Lachine (GTSAL), in collaboration with the Concert’Action neighbourhood roundtable, to implement Lachine’s food system.
Four years later, Les P’tits marchés de Lachine, which have since acquired a refrigerated truck, move fresh fruit and vegetables to six locations each week to reach vulnerable populations. They stop near community agencies and in parks.
One of these mini-markets has set up shop on the terrace of COVIQ at Duff-Court, which is considered one of Canada’s largest low-cost housing projects with about 400 units in nine buildings.
This housing complex is also home to LaFerme Urbaine Duff-Court, a growing urban agriculture project also managed by COVIQ that provides part of the produce sold at the weekly mini-markets. The other part comes from Le Jardin du Triangle Fleuri, a collective garden in Saint-Pierre, and from some organic farms not far from Montreal.
In addition to addressing urgent food security needs, this urban agriculture project fosters civic engagement and a sense of pride in Duff Court residents. Just like the P’tits marchés, they also serve as meet-up spaces for neighbours and friends.
In 2021-2022, 1,626 people purchased food from the mobile mini-markets in Lachine and Saint-Pierre.
Community agencies that are part of the Concertation Ville-Émard-Côte-St-Paul neighbourhood roundtable are on a mission to implement a local food system. A core component of this mission is the Épicerie Solidaire Paule et Émard, a unique, warm and friendly locale set up in the former garage of La Maison d’entraide Saint-Paul et Émard on Drake Street just a block or two away from Jolicoeur metro.
Paule et Émard is open to everyone. By shopping there, local citizens contribute to a neighbourhood project to help reduce food insecurity in their community.
This grocery store offers products at a lower cost compared to supermarkets and convenience stores in the area. In addition to fresh fruits and vegetables, it also sells bulk products, spices, frozen meat, processed foods, and more.
One day a week, access is reserved for households that are members of the “P’tit marché” subsidized grocery program. A coupon system has also been set up for the community grocery store in partnership with many neighbourhood agencies and institutions to allow many households that use the services of other agencies to benefit from food assistance.
The community grocery store addresses all barriers to access: economic, thanks to low prices; cultural, through diverse products that meet the needs of various communities; and geographic, with proximity to people living in poverty.
It is also a place for neighbourhood residents to meet up and talk and get information and referrals to other resources. Overcoming isolation can be the primary motivation for going there.
The food system in Ville-Émard–Côte-St-Paul also consists of community gardens, garden boxes, community kitchens, mobile markets, fruit and vegetable basket deliveries, as well as awareness and information activities.
*Data: Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), Fall 2021.
