Community farm building bridges between newcomers and First Nations

On a former construction site in southeast Calgary, an urban farm provides newcomers access to land to grow food and build meaningful relationships with the Indigenous community. (Drew Miller/CTV News Edmonton)

On a former construction site in southeast Calgary, an urban farm provides newcomers access to land not only to grow food but to build meaningful relationships with the Indigenous community.

Rod Olson is now an urban farmer but he was once a refugee settlement counsellor and founded Land of Dreams after seeing some newcomers struggle with city life.

“I saw a lot of people with agriculture backgrounds coming into the city, and we put them in the urban environment, and we hope that they’re going to do well, and a lot of them struggle because their identity is as farmers,” he says.

“Typically they’re told, ‘Well, that’s too hard to do in Canada.’ So we feel like we’re making an opportunity for them to actually become farmers.”

When Land of Dreams began, it was just about providing space for people to grow food for their own consumption, but that changed last year after teaming up with Blue Planet.

“They’re bringing some of their waste product, which, mixed with our heavy clay soil in Calgary has made things much more productive, and so we’ve got excess and so we’re going to experiment with a social enterprise, which means we’re selling some of our produce to some restaurants in Calgary, to some local community associations,” says Olson.

Olson says interest in the urban farm has increased over the years but finds the burgeoning relationship between the Indigenous community and the newcomers most rewarding as they work together to rehabilitate the land.

“There’s way more in common than people might think,” says Olson.

“We had no idea that was going to be one of the surprises that we found here and so I think there’s a real sense of life and joy and love that seems to be emerging because we’re treating the land in a good way.”

Land of Dreams has been operating since 2019 and is located at 6525 – 84 Street SE.