Montreal Gazette: Urban Agriculture Taking Root in Montreal Yards and Rooftops

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. From now until Earth Day, April 22, The Gazette will publish a series of stories about unheralded environmental ideas, groups and projects in Montreal. Bean stalks wending their way up a concrete wall at McGill University's downtown campus, tomato plants growing next to a community centre in Notre Dame de Grâce, basil and chard in the back yard of a St. Laurent duplex. They're all part of a wave of urban agriculture sweeping the island of Montreal. Montreal has always been a leader in the field, said Vikram Bhatt, an architecture professor at McGill University whose Minimum-Cost Housing Group at McGill has been involved in urban agriculture projects here and around the world since the 1970s.