NOVEMBER 2016 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC Urban farm seeks stable financial footing by PETER MITHAM


VANCOUVER – It’s the kind of help few farmers can expect to see: Vancity Community Foundation has bought $150,000 in startup financing that Vancouver urban farm operator SOLEfood Farm Inc. received from Vancity Credit Union in 2011.


“We own the loan. We’re able to restructure it in a somewhat more flexible way through the foundation,” explained Derek Gent, executive director of Vancity Community Foundation. “It removes the immediate payment burden.” SOLEfood originally launched in 2009 as an offshoot of United We Can, a social enterprise that works with binners and low-income residents on Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. It became the operating entity of Cultivate Canada Society, a separate registered charity chaired by Salt Spring Island farmer Michael Ableman, in March 2011.


SOLEfood sought and received funding for expansion from the Radcliffe Foundation, an initiative of mining magnate Frank Giustra, and Vancity, which provided a loan of $250,000. Over the past five years, it has also received more than $750,000 in financial support from other charities and issued receipts for more than $85,000 from donors, according to federal tax filings. It has also enjoyed access to municipal properties across Vancouver at favourable rents. (It pays the city $1 a year for its site at Main and Terminal, for example.) Nevertheless, long-term financial stability has escaped it. While it managed to accumulate financial


assets worth nearly


$110,000 by the end of 2015, wages for the 20 to 25 workers it employs are a key expense. Its charitable program has cost it $1.4 million since 2011.


To meet its operating expenses, SOLEfood has regularly


turned to the public for assistance.


A campaign in 2014 raised more than $32,000


towards a goal of $100,000. The funds


deliver SOLEfood the long-term financial stability it needs.


“They want to put the organization in a position where they’re not burdened by an annual fundraising campaign,” Gent said. “They’re aiming big at this point, and are going to try and raise as much as possible.” Gent has pledged to reduce the amount of SOLEfood’s debt for each dollar contributed; he said donors have already pledged tens of thousands.


“What we’ve basically said is, as the endowment grows – which sits as an asset of the foundation – we’re willing to write down the amount of the loan as an asset on our balance sheet,” Gent said. “We thought if we could remove the burden and at the same time increase the incentive for fundraising, that’s going to put the organization in a stronger position down the road.”


Gent said the jobs SOLEfood gives people who might not otherwise have work are part of its rationale for supporting the venture. “The objectives of that business are far beyond just growing food,” he said. “The best- case scenario is where the business model pays for all the social benefits but those are very hard to come by. It’s a tough business to make go just on a pure business basis. I think most farming is challenging these days.”


Tough row to hoe


SOLEfood isn’t the only urban farmer to find urban production a tough row to hoe. Alterrus Systems Inc. and its subsidiary, Local Garden


Growing growers


Statistics Canada reports that 59% of BC households grow fruits, herbs, vegetables or flowers for their own use. Now, the BC government is encouraging the practice with up to $250,000 in funding to be shared among 10


communities for projects that help residents grow their own food.


“The goal of Grow Local BC is to provide a deeper connection between BC food, BC communities and the people who live in them,” the government said in announcing the program at the Union of BC Municipalities conference.


aimed to support the launch of two retail operations designed to boost sales and generate added revenue. (It was donating excess food to the tune of $22,000 a year at the time.)


However, the plans fell short of expectations. “We opened the Granville Island Sole Food retail store in September of 2014 and closed it in July of 2015,” Ableman told Country Life in BC. “The overhead was killing us, the sales within the food court area where we were located were weak, and we did not see any way of resolving what were very foundational problems.”


Gent hopes a $10 million endowment fund that Vancity Community Foundation has launched in tandem with buying the loan will


“By encouraging British Columbians to grow their own fresh fruit and vegetables, they will help strengthen local food- supply security.”


Projects eligible for the funding include education initiatives that support home food production. This isn’t the first time the province has stepped in to encourage home food production. In 1974, at the height of the back- to-the-land movement, Victoria funded allotment gardens around the province to give people “the opportunity of getting on the land to grow their own vegetables.”


Vancouver Inc., declared bankruptcy in January 2014, 15 months after


launching a 6,000-square- foot


greenhouse at a city-owned parkade in downtown Vancouver. The liabilities of the two companies totalled $5.3 million, more than half of which was owed to


Vancity Capital Corp.


During the Pacific


Agriculture Show earlier this year,


speakers at the conference’s first-ever urban farming segment spoke of the challenges facing urban farmers who want to make a social impact. Nick Hermes, a permaculturist, said a culture of encouragement had developed that could celebrate even failed projects. “Celebrating failure – they’re really into that,” Hermes said of the growers he works alongside. However, Chris Thoreau, co-owner of Vancouver Food Pedalers Co-operative, has shown that success is possible through careful management. Thoreau, another beneficiary of Vancity funding, has parlayed the support he’s received into a greenhouse operation producing microgreens that rings up revenues of $200,000 a year. That’s enough to support wages for five people working seven hours a day.


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