Garden plots coming to Surrey campus

KSA brings green options for green thumbs.

Slowly but surely, spring is coming. And like many a gardener getting ready for growing season, the Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) is mulling the idea of putting garden boxes on Surrey campus. They held an open house on Feb. 12 to gauge interest in the idea. If all goes according to plan, students could soon see the first of what the KSA hopes will be several garden plots on Surrey campus.

Eric Wirshing, Science and Horticulture representative and member of the KSA’s special committee on environmental sustainability, says the response to the project so far has been positive.

“I’ve had a few requests by email for plots, some people were asking me for more than one plot,” he says.

The garden boxes will be located in the Cedar building courtyard, across from the lounge on the east side of the building, a location Wirshing says will increase the visibility of the project to the campus community.

Wirshing says the idea for the project came from a July 2014 visit to Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus by delegates from the KSA, who met with the Sustainable SFU student group. One project caught the KSA’s eye in particular: temporary garden boxes on the future site of a new student union building.

“It’s easier for the university to say yes to something like that, as opposed to a permanent installation, so that idea resonated with us, so we decided to try it out here,” he says.

Shifting Growth will be providing garden boxes the KSA plans to install on Surrey campus. The charity previously supplied garden boxes for the SFU project, and has established over a thousand temporary community gardens on vacant lots and other locations since its inception in 2011.

Community agriculture on campus

The garden boxes are but one of several community agriculture initiatives being undertaken at KPU.

According to Wirshing, the Langley campus, home to KPU’s Horticulture program, has community garden space – with room to grow. “There’s been a move within the Urban Ecosystems program to have another large space, on the campus side of the highway, dedicated to a community garden,” he says.

Currently, there are garden plots located near the greenhouses across the Langley Bypass from the main Langley campus buildings. The planned expansion will see garden plots tilled between the West Building and the Brewing building, currently under construction.

Wirshing also says that a research farm is also planned for the Garden City lands – “a largely untouched, 55-hectare (136-acres) parcel of open space on the edge of Richmond City Centre,” according to a June 2014 press release released by the City of Richmond after it had adopted a master plan for the site – adjacent to the Richmond campus.

The Garden City lands, located along Garden City Road between Alderbridge Way and Westminster Highway is located within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

Reaching out

The KSA is also reaching out to the community at large to promote community agriculture more generally, with plans for a farmers’ market on Surrey campus, jointly organized with KPU, which also holds the Langley Community Farmers Market on Langley campus – something the university has done since 2009.

The KSA is also hosting discussions on the topic with community groups such as the Surrey/White Rock Food Action Coalition, as part of the KSA Ideas speaker series. One such discussion, Food Matters: An Imperative Dialogue, was held on Surrey campus on March 10.

Wirshing says the discussion broached upon a number of challenges facing food production both locally and globally, such as climate change, the unsustainability of the “industrial food paradigm,” and the threat to agricultural land by speculators.

But more importantly, Wirshing says it was a forum for discussing solutions to these challenges, and alternatives to the current food system.

“It’s meant to be a dialogue around [where] our food systems are right now and how we can act to change things, how we can encourage policymakers to change things for the better,” he says.