UBC FARM - The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm

Surrounded by a 90-year old coastal hemlock forest, the UBC Farm encompasses a 24-hectare landscape, forming a rich mosaic of cultivated field areas, hedgerows, orchards, and successional forest stands. The diversity of the landscape provides valuable habitat for a range of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles not found elsewhere in the city. The gently sloping southern aspect of the site and moderate maritime climate allow for cultivation of a wide variety of crops year-round, and 250 varieties of annual and perennial crops are grown on site.

In this idyllic setting, the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm provides students, faculty and the broader community the opportunity to learn hands-on about how changes in the way food is produced and distributed are a key piece in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating global climate change, and in creating healthy local communities and economies.

Innovative programming offered at the UBC Farm includes elementary school garden projects, an urban Aboriginal community kitchen, a student-run farmer's market, apprenticeships in organic agriculture, and a diverse array of research projects and courses.

Despite being a valuable academic and community resource, the future of UBC Farm is under threat. This fall, options for development on campus will be presented for public input which will propose eliminating, downsizing, or moving the farm from soils it has built over 40 years.

You can help save the farm!

• Write a letter to the Board of Governors about the importance of preserving the farm at its current size and location
• Speak out at this fall's upcoming public forums against proposals which remove, shrink or move the UBC Farm
• Join Friends of the UBC Farm to become actively engaged in our efforts to save this one-of-a-kind asset to UBC, Vancouver and the region. Friends of the UBC Farm are encouraging UBC to strategically densify to meet their population goals rather than sprawling onto agricultural land. (contact: friendsoftheubcfarm@gmail)
  

Some Recent Accomplishments:

• In 2007, 2,250 students were actively engaged at the farm and over 20,000 community members visited the site.
• The farm's research program saw 35 active projects in 2007. 14 out of 26 of UBC's Faculties, Schools and Colleges were involved with the site.
• We were honoured to receive the UBC's Helen Macrae award for service for students in March 2007.
• Our programs have continued to receive widespread media attention, including features on CBC radio and television, articles in the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, the Province, the
• Utne Reader, the New York Times and GQ magazine. We received a "Best of Vancouver" award in the Georgia Straight in 2006 and a "What's Hot" designation from Maclean's magazine's 2006 survey of Universities.