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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

YOUNG URBAN FARMERS COMMUNITY SHARED AGRICULTURE TO BREAK GROUND FOR ITS INAUGURAL GROWING SEASON ON APRIL 11^TH, 2010

Community members will be able to share in the harvest of heirloom vegetable crops throughout the summer

Toronto, ON – April 5, 2010 – Young Urban Farmers Community Shared Agriculture (YUFCSA) has announced that it will begin its inaugural growing season with a groundbreaking ceremony in the Wychwood area (Christie/St. Clair) on Sunday April 11^th, 2010. The launch of this program will give Toronto residents access to fresh, locally grown produce as well as education about the growing process. The location of our ground breaking ceremony will be in the backyards of 100 and 102 Atlas Avenue from 9am to 4pm

Come and join us to learn and see how garden beds are setup in an urban setting. We will be demonstrating how to till the land, practice the double digging method of gardening, and building trellis structures for our large and climbing plants.

YUFCSA is transforming backyards in the Wychwood, Lawrence Park North and East Riverdale areas into vegetable gardens where members of the community are able to come together, learn about the origins of locally grown organic produce and meet other members of the community. “There’s a really big disconnect between what we eat and where it comes from” says, Chris Wong, the co-founder of YUFCSA, “Young Urban Farmers CSA is really trying to foster community relationships while educating people on nutrition and fresh produce.”

Volunteers who lend their backyards for gardening will receive weekly shares of vegetables without having to do any work. Young Urban Farmers will lay down a vegetable bed, preserving existing grass, and plant weekly rotations of vegetable plants, many of them exotic and hard to find in grocery stores. Elaine Howarth, VP of Operations, has planned gardening cycles of vegetable plots with over three dozen varieties, including vibrant varieties of peas, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions, and spinach.

The birth of YUFCSA allows volunteers to experience running a non-profit organization first-hand, including hurdles such as funding, communication, and advertisement. By encouraging its participants to get involved and learn more about urban gardening, YUFCSA aims to increase the number of backyard gardens in Toronto and the number of people supported by them.

About YUFCSA
YUFCSA was started in the autumn of 2009 with a mission to provide fresh food to the urban community, while fostering leadership and education by engaging and connecting the community in the rediscovery of local food. The program is entirely volunteer-run, which allows young adults to experience the joy of gardening in an urban setting. The program is designed to supplement weekly vegetable intake with fresh, ripe, in-season vegetables during the (approximate) 18 week CSA program. The cost for participa­tion is on a sliding scale from $350-$450 according to financial ability.

Press Contact:
Chris Wong
416-238-5715
chris@yufcsa.com

Jing Loh
jing@yufcsa.com

Elaine Howarth
elaine@yufcsa.com

CBC Here and Now

Young Urban Farmers CSA was recently featured on CBC Radio’s “Here and Now” on 99.1 FM! Interviewed by food columnist Sarah Elton, here’s your chance to learn more about what we’re doing this upcoming 2010 season! Please click here for the link to our audio file or watch below!

Here is an excerpt from the program:

” Urban agriculture is really starting to capture the imagination of Torontonians. In neighbourhoods across the city, people are figuring out different ways of producing food here. There are people tapping maple trees to make syrup, community gardens are becoming more and more popular, and now a group of young people are getting really creative with food in the city.

Our food columnist Sarah Elton is here to tell us about the exciting new project called Young Urban Farmers’ CSA (community shared agriculture), a group of people in their twenties who are dedicating themselves to growing food in the city to feed people by planting vegetable beds in backyards across the city.

But not their own backyards, they are borrowing backyards from people who want to help out and invigorate urban agriculture in Toronto. So the Young Urban Farmers will grow food for their members, as well as for the people who own the land, because if you donate your backyard, you are also given a share of the food that is grown “

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