“When this old world starts getting me down. And people are just too much for me to face. I climb way up to the top of the stairs. And all my cares just drift right into space.”
The lyrics to the song, penned by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, popped into my head when I saw the recent newspaper headline about the Boston Medical Center’s rooftop garden and how they’re using their produce to feed patients in the hospital and beyond. One of my biggest gripes about hospitals where I had been a very infrequent patient was the blandness of the food. Come on, get healthy!
“Food is medicine. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing,” says David Maffeo, the hospital’s senior director of support services.
As I read the article, my mind wandered into thoughts of ‘what if’. What a boon food farming reaching the skies would be in our own little corner of the world. Across this province and across the country are bare roof tops of hospitals, nursing homes, apartment complexes for seniors and others. Then there are all those commercial buildings that house many office workers and others. How many have roofs that would be compatible with food growing. The impact on those experiencing food insecurity would be huge.
Roof-top gardening has benefits beyond the kale, lettuce, carrots and radishes. It will bring people together; all types of different personalities meshing together for a common goal — enhancing what’s on their dinner plate or in their breakfast bowl, putting there what’s missing.
Joe Nasr, with the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University in Toronto, says projects like these are part of a larger trend toward expanding food production in cities. "Rooftops will be part of the mix of urban spaces that will be increasingly used to 'scale up' urban agriculture.”
Key, given our climate, is determining the how, when and where of various garden growing projects. There are so many possibilities with this type of project that can be rolled over into other projects - like cooking classes, recipe swapping; food/produce sharing to organize group meals. Building communities within the community with the goal being to improve physicial, emotional, mental and spiritual health.
Could the initiative undertaken at Boston Medical Center work at hospitals in our province? Those with the resources to explore the options have work to do, places to go and people to see so that they and we will learn. Just talking about it doesn’t get it done. Everyone needs to eat, and those from the very young to the very old could be included in the people connections required to help the gardens grow. For the young, it may well inspire career paths that they never even thought about before.
At the Boston roof garden, with its organic vegetable garden, there’s enough food to feed patients, staff and the poor. More than a hundred volunteers tend the garden, which includes kale, collard greens, bok choy, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, beans, squash and a wide variety of herbs, with crops being grown in organic soil in recycled milk crates. They’re pollinated by two onsite beehives that provide honey as well. They produce between 5,000 and 7,000 pounds of food per year. Wow!
As a “safety net” hospital, BMC mostly serves low-income and elderly patients. It offers free gardening, cooking and nutrition classes, and free food to low-income families. Could the same systems of food production not work in this province and others across Canada, breaking into the social problem of food insecurity? Imagine impact it could make on our youth, on single mothers trying to make ends meet, for seniors on fixed income whose nutrition is compromised by lack of funds each month. Win, win, win, win!
Proper nutrition and healthy housing are the prime contributors to individual health. Stablity in those two areas of daily living will significantly enhance physical health and mental health, concurrently reducing strain on health care system with unnecessary/repeat ER visits and hospital admissions.
Here in New Brunswick, more gardening projects could be developed that would not just feed the stomach, but also feed the soul. Mental health initiatives would benefit from roof top gardening, bringing together people for the common purpose of sharing the joy of growing things beyond vegetables. Community gardens, whether rooftop or other configurations, would contribute to alleviating food insecurity, which is a huge concern across the province and the country.
The New Brunswick Food Security Action Network connects people with people and would be a great place to start, to learn about existing gardens and meet those of like mind to find a roof or two or ten — to get plantin’!
Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, NB with her geriatric Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca
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