Challenges to supporting social justice through food system governance: examples from two urban agriculture initiatives in Toronto

Abstract

Urban agriculture continues to gain traction in cities across North America. Many such efforts pursue social justice objectives with mixed success. This paper examines two urban agriculture projects in Toronto, Canada, to demonstrate the challenges of pursuing social justice goals via urban agriculture. Despite a long history of municipal and civil society support for urban agriculture in Toronto, stakeholders continually face bureaucratic obstacles that make growing food on public land inaccessible for groups without significant resources. Relying on Swyngedouw’s theories of the post-political condition, this paper finds that a seemingly depoliticized food governance focusing exclusively on processes of urban agriculture obscures questions about who benefits from such processes, which can pave the way for uneven development. This research contributes to literature on environmental justice and food governance by attending to municipal challenges to achieving social justice goals in urban agriculture projects.