SP0260: Campus Crops Sustainability 2020

Campus Crops has been serving the McGill student and staff community for over a decade. Gardening the community plot behind the School of Environment (3534 Rue. Universite), we provide fresh produce to over 30 students and staff each growing season. We also provide urban farming education for newcomers. We emphasize student-led mutual aid through skill-sharing and growth and access to healthy produce. Campus Crops prides ourselves in keeping financial costs low by putting an emphasis on reusing, repurposing, and sharing garden supplies or where necessary sourcing in-kind donations. We are a group that is dedicated to sustainability and efficiency. This project requires careful planning and skillful leadership from two yearly Campus Crops Coordinators. In the past, Campus Crops efficiency has suffered from relying on volunteer-only coordination. Over the past 1-2 years we have built relationships with SSMU Environment Commissioners to create two annual student positions to be financed entirely by the SSMU Green Fund from Summer 2021 and beyond.

These part-time positions starting 2021-2022 would take care of the Campus Crops bed as well as the SSMU courtyard garden. This solidification of paid positions will also allow the Coordinators more flexibility time to innovate educational workshops, host training sessions, and raise awareness on urban farming. These programmatic offerings were previously impossible as it was too much work for two students to do unpaid.

The money from the SPF for 2020-2021 will go towards financially supporting the two current Coordinators to ensure that all the planning and documentation can be done to enter into a viable contract between Campus Crops and SSMU for these recurring positions in the future. These positions will not just continue our mission in a more socially sustainable manner, but will also provide educators for the SSMU daycare children who would have weekly sessions learning about and tending to the garden. It will also let the future Coordinators have more time to devote to planning and maintenance of the garden to ensure higher crop yields and care for pollinators and wildlife.

Lastly, a part of this SPF application is for sustainable hardware. We want to purchase a drip irrigation system that could be installed for the 2021 growing season. Drip irrigation saves water and could be run on a timer to ensure consistency in watering and set to pre or post -dawn times to prevent even more water from being lost due to evaporation from watering when student gardeners are most often free: mid-day. The system is highly modular able to be removed and repositioned.