The History and Future of Farmers' Markets in Calgary

When Annie Gale arrived in Calgary in 1912, she was shocked by what passed for fresh produce.

“I could not understand the poorness of the quality and the fearfully high price of vegetables,” Gale told the local newspaper. “We poor immigrants were compelled to pay a quarter for two or three mouldy carrots, a quarter for a miserable frost-bitten cabbage, which would only be fed to the cows in the old country.”

Calgary was booming, but local merchants were selling substandard imported produce at high prices with little, if any, produce offered from local farms.

Things haven’t changed much today for Calgary shoppers looking for fresh, sustainable, local foods, and many believe the answer is a permanent public farmer’s market.

That was Annie Gale’s answer. The feisty social reformer made it her business to organize a consumers’ league in Calgary and make a public market a public issue. The Calgary Herald of the day reported that “after 500 housewives attended a meeting and heckled the aldermanic candidates for four hours, the City Fathers decided a market was necessary.” By 1914, Calgary had its first permanent public market — a handsome brick building across the street from the old Cecil Hotel. (A replica of the market building now sits at the entrance to Heritage Park.)

Gale, who later became Calgary’s first female alderman, established the public market as a city utility, and championed the idea that Alberta could grow its own food, working with the Vacant Lots Garden Club to get vegetables growing on 2,000 city lots.

“I took on the work of establishing a municipal market where small producers could find purchasers for their products and be independent of the short-sighted merchant,” she said.

Fast-forward nearly a century, and similar issues are top-of-mind again in Calgary. Concerns about a local, sustainable food supply have prompted citizens to form a fledgling Food Policy Council, lobbying for the right to raise chickens in their backyards and campaigning for 2,011 community gardens or new growing spaces by 2011. The imminent relocation of the popular Calgary Farmers’ Market (CFM) at Currie Barracks has put additional onus on local government to again examine the urban-rural food gap.

City Council is now investigating its role in a sustainable food system — a discussion proponents hope will result in Calgary’s first municipal food policy, and perhaps even a central public farmer’s market.

The world has many famous markets — La Boqueria in Barcelona, Pike Place Market in Seattle, Les Halles Paul Bocuse in Lyon — where we’re lured for the sensory experience of culinary commerce, the sights and smells and the connections to culture and place.

Markets are at the heart of communities everywhere. Toronto has its historic St. Lawrence Market and the new Wychwood Barns. In Montreal, there’s the Jean-Talon and Atwater markets. Ottawa has the Byward Market, and Vancouver has Granville Island Public Market. The City of Saskatoon recently renovated a former electrical garage for an indoor farmer’s market and small business incubator to anchor its new River Landing redevelopment project, and Halifax has just opened a cutting-edge, green LEED-certified public farmer’s market building on the edge of its harbour.

Most are effectively publicly subsidized spaces — on municipal land or constructed with federal, provincial and municipal funds — offering non-profit, farmer-run co-ops permanent homes, at rents below big-city market value, where they can sell fresh, local foods direct to consumers.

Even Edmonton has a central market, the Old Strathcona Market in City-owned buildings rented to a vendors’ co-op for $1 a year. There is also a parking lot in the surrounding inner-city area that is free on weekends.

But since Annie Gale’s day, Calgary has never created this kind of space for its local farmers. Yes, we have a few temporary, seasonal farmers’ markets around town. And there are a few year-round private spaces including Crossroads, CFM and the new Kingsland Market. But the none of these function as spaces with a larger mission — spaces that are anchors of the community, bringing together groups that are working together not only to sell their products but to raise awareness about social issues such as food security, sustainability, health, poverty and promote arts and culture.

In the height of the summer produce season, with sweet local carrots and Taber corn piled high at CFM, it’s hard to get too worried about the lack of local food or access to it.

But the situation is about to change rather dramatically at the beginning of February, when the CFM must vacate its current location in Hangar 6 at Currie Barracks. At that time, the current collection of vendors at the market will go in different directions, officially splitting into two camps.

The rift is between vendors who raise or grow the products they sell and “resellers,” brokers who buy produce for resale, sometimes locally, but often not.

Organic beef farmer Tim Hoven didn’t rock the boat at the market, but he’s made other plans for the future. While the CFM has announced it will move to the former Heritage flea market building near Blackfoot Trail and Heritage Drive in February, asking vendors to pony up around $2.5 million of the required $5 million renovation budget, Hoven and several other Alberta farmers have opened their own market in Kingsland, in a former car dealership north of Macleod Trail and Heritage Drive. The Kingsland market is being financed by six private investors including Hoven, who is the president of the new Kingsland Farmers’ Market.

Their Kingsland Market began this July with outdoor vendors, but will soon include a full-time indoor market, all run according to official Alberta farm market rules as set out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. This means at least 80 percent of the products must be made in Alberta and sold (not re-sold) by Albertans. As well, it must operate with a non-profit, producer-represented board.

Several other local producers, including Ron and Sheila Hamilton of Sunworks Farm, organic vegetable grower Gert Lund of Lund’s Organics and Duane and Debbie Mertin of Pearson’s saskatoon berry farm, announced early that they would be moving to Kingsland. By late spring, Hoven had signed more who fit the new market’s strict make/bake/grow guidelines, including Spragg’s free-range pork, Rustic Sourdough Bakery, Jammin’ It, local painters, goat ranchers, sausage makers and vegetable growers like Broxburn Farm of Lethbridge and Michelle’s Market Garden from Brooks.

Meanwhile, CFM manager Ken Aylesworth said the new Calgary Farmers’ Market will open in February with more than 80 vendors, including many Currie Barracks-location veterans, plus new additions. (CFM also operates as a sanctioned market based on Alberta government guidelines.)

“Eighty per cent of the existing vendors are joining us. Some people are not coming with us, for many reasons; a number of people are just retiring,” says Aylesworth.
Exactly how the local farmers’ market landscape will look once the dust settles is anyone’s guess. Many vendors seem paralyzed by the politics, hedging their bets with applications to both markets. Some are unsure where to hook their wagons. Others plan to move with the CFM.

“Absolutely, we are going with CFM,” says Elna Edgar of the Innisfail Growers, a group of five Alberta vegetable producers that sells at markets across the province.
But Darlene Hegel of Valta Bison says the experience at CFM has put her off big markets entirely. She’ll continue to sell her bison at the family’s retail store in Ramsay, and at smaller seasonal markets like the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmer’s Market.

Conflicts among vendors at farmers’ markets are not uncommon, but neither are they inevitable, and there are ways to do it right.

On a Saturday morning in the midtown-Toronto neighbourhood of Wychwood, there’s a palpable positive vibe at the bustling new Green Barn market. It’s a thriving community experiment set in historic transit barns in the heart of the city, a glowing example of how urban farm markets can succeed.

Gurth Pretty is standing beneath a Cheeses of Canada banner, sampling fresh Figaro cheese. Down a crowded aisle there are pale blue eggs from an Amish farm, next to Jonathan Forbes’ wild leeks and walnuts. A table is stacked with Armenian pickled turnips and cucumbers, the Armenian pickler offering tastes, while Bob Proracki explains how his colourful sweet potatoes flourish in southern Ontario’s former tobacco fields.

The weekly farmers’ market at the Wychwood Barns only opened last year and already it’s been dubbed Toronto’s best. Perhaps it’s simply the positive karma of the place — a true grassroots urban development that serves the local community in a LEED-certified, architectural gem.

But it wasn’t always this rosy at Wychwood. The community banded together to save the 100-year-old city streetcar repair barns from the wrecking ball, then worked for years to put the project together.

“It’s the heart and soul of the community,” says Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc, who helped spearhead the project with The Stop, the City’s longtime food bank, and Artscape, the City’s arm’s-length, non-profit property developer. “It’s about the social relationship around food, and it’s a community benefit like you wouldn’t believe.”
The five barns house artist live/work spaces, a community theatre, a gallery space and The Stop’s integrated food program.

The Stop runs the farmers’ market, too, because “dealing with hunger requires a holistic approach,” says food enterprise co-coordinator and chef Joshna Maharaj, who helps people stretch welfare dollars into nutritious meals while learning about growing food.
“We’re propagating seedlings for community gardens — callaloo, tomatillos, curry leaf and

Caribbean squash — just to show people that, even though things are from far away, they can thrive in our climate,” says Maharaj. “It’s our mandate — increasing people’s access to healthy food.”

That may soon be the mandate for Calgary City Hall, too, once it hammers out a sustainable food policy for the city. Aldermen Joe Ceci and Bob Hawksworth brought the food policy initiative forward last fall, and the City’s new sustainability department brought a report to council for discussion in June.

“I believe the municipality does have a role in food policy and food security,” says Ceci, who has toured the Wychwood Barns project and other successful markets across Canada. “I can see the local food issue becoming bigger and bigger, and the desire for local food stronger and stronger. It seems to me that a public market — a place to meet and greet and buy local food — is a public service.”

Still, the glaring missing piece of the sustainable-food puzzle in Calgary is the lack of a dedicated public market space for farmers, one that’s central and accessible to all.
So why is it so difficult to get a permanent central farm market going here? Downtown population density and Calgary’s suburban lifestyle are issues, as is the dearth of any remaining historic buildings in the core.

Some say it’s related to Calgary’s car culture — a sprawling city where any major market would need 1,000 parking spaces to make it work — though many other major cities have popular urban markets without giant parking lots. Perhaps free weekend parking in downtown city lots, or a market that’s near an LRT station, would solve this problem in Calgary.

Calgary doesn’t have a lot of buildings that lend themselves to restoration for a public market, though many inner-city locations have been suggested, from both the East and West Village redevelopment areas to the old Calgary brewery site in Inglewood, or the Calgary Stampede lands, where a farm market could help celebrate the city’s agricultural past and become a major tourist attraction.

Bev Sandalack, research leader of the University of Calgary’s EVDS Urban Lab, says good cities have a strong “public realm infrastructure” and “a mix of uses that includes a market is a huge asset for a community.”

Locating a public market close to transit and other popular downtown amenities (like the river pathway system and parks) makes planning sense, she says, adding, “civic projects are great things for a city to be doing in tough economic times.

“The City is currently involved in both East Village and West Village developments — places where they own and control some land,” says Sandalack, who sits on the Calgary Urban Design Review Board. “This would be an excellent opportunity to integrate  a market, since both developments are intended to focus on more ‘urban’ qualities and include residential/mixed use.”

Still others argue our market woes are a chicken-and-egg issue — first, we need to enact policies to support young farmers and make it easier for them to compete against the cheap industrial food system and produce a lot more local food. More food flowing into the city from local farms would see markets grow spontaneously to fill the need, says Paul Hughes, a city artist and food policy advocate who is running in the current mayoralty race.

“Building capacity and getting local produce to local mouths, that’s where the challenge lies,” says Hughes. “I’m focused on creating that capacity, reducing barriers to level the playing field for local growers. It shocks me that we should have to talk about it.”

So how do other cities do it? Many successful Canadian markets are based on non-profit models, using fund-raising, public subsidies or cash from local foundations to help pay for start-up and ongoing market operations. Government involvement to incubate projects with help from local, provincial and federal sources is vital.
Toronto’s Wychwood Barns project is a perfect example of how derelict public spaces can be transformed to serve community needs. The City offered the property on a free, 35-year lease, and waived taxes for those 35 years. Cash came from federal and provincial government coffers and private fund-raising. Non-profit Artscape developed the property and offers it to other non-profit groups and artists at rates below market value.

Other successful farmers’ markets across Canada have similar provenance — urban renewal or historic preservation projects, supported at least in part by public money.
In Halifax, the federal, provincial and municipal governments contributed millions to develop the new Seaport Farmers’ Market, with a creative financing scheme to lure small investors with shares that offer long-term tax credits.

The result is a spectacular, state-of-the-art green building to house the country’s oldest farmers’ market, run by a for-profit, farmer-controlled co-op. The repurposed dockside warehouse has micro wind turbines to power its operations, and a green roof where market goers can gather. It’s a tourist attraction, too — the first thing visitors will see when their cruise ships dock next door.

“We got public support for the building because we fulfilled so many government policy goals for agriculture, the environment, sustainability, tourism, even new immigrants,” says market manager Fred Kilcup. “It falls on us to drive government to take action. These projects need to be driven by the people who are doing the work.”

Calgary chef and food activist Wade Sirois envisions that kind of project for Calgary, a purpose-built market, he says, that “is an economic, educational and social institution … a collaboration between all levels of government and the corporate sector.”

On his blog, attheroot.ca, Sirois muses about an architecturally designed green market building, using solar power, grey water collection and recycled materials.
“It even has a teaching garden on the roof along with a greenhouse that draws warm air off of the bakery,” he writes. It all meshes with the provincial government’s new Farmer Development Program, Sirois says, which is a vital part of the sustainable equation. The average age of Canadian farmers is 55, and desperate measures are needed to draw young farmers into local agriculture and help them succeed.

Farmers like Sunworks’ Ron Hamilton are confident the Kingsland Market will be a good interim home for local vendors, but Hamilton agrees there’s room for a broader vision.

“If we actually had someone from the City, working with people who want to develop a real farmers’ market for Calgary, it would be great,” says Hamilton. “It would take the right people, along with the farmers, to do it but that’s what needs to be done.

“Bring food producers and community groups and like-minded people together for a summit, and sit down and hammer out a common vision. There’s tons of government money out there if we can actually come together as a whole community and to the City as a group.”

Is Calgary finally ready for a public farmer’s market? Many proponents feel the time is right now to finally make it a reality.

Alderman Druh Farrell says the City has no immediate plans to build a public market, though council is open to hearing creative proposals. But there needs to be a single, coherent voice pressing for such a project, she says, ideally a vision including a wide variety of local farm and food policy players, environmental and even arts groups.

Ceci is hopeful council will start the process by adopting a Calgary Food Policy this year, and help bring together all of the various stakeholders interested in local, sustainable food. But it may take a paradigm shift for many aldermen.

“There’s this whole ethic around independence here in Calgary, that if you can’t cut it in business, you shouldn’t be in business,” Ceci says,
It’s all strangely reminiscent of the struggles Annie Gale had a century ago to give Calgarians easier access to farm fresh food, and prove Albertans could make, raise and grow their own food.

Nearly 100 years after Calgary aldermen first voted to build a public market for its citizens, the topic remains as relevant — and as complex — as ever.