How victory gardens crop up during times of crisis

CBC

2 days ago

Amid high grocery prices and U.S. tariff threats, Bill Belsey is fighting back with seeds and soil in his small "victory garden."
"When Trump announced … what at least I interpreted as sort of economic warfare against Canada, it took me back to my parents' generation," Belsey told CBC Radio's Cost of Living from his home in Cochrane, Alta.
His father served in the Second World War, and his mother, like many Canadians left behind, contributed to the war effort by starting a victory garden.
"There was a sort of communal kind of feeling like, yes, we're in this together. And so they started planting, even though they weren't really farmers or gardeners," said Belsey.
"And I got thinking about that a little bit and it dawned on me that, look, I can't change world events, but there are things I could do, and this is one of those."
Victory gardens, promoted as a way to ease food shortages during the world wars, always crop up again in times of crisis, according to Debi Goodwin, author of A Victory Garden for Trying Times.
For some, they're now emerging as a tool to fight against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and threats to Canada's sovereignty.
"People have started them whenever they've seen something that scares them," said Goodwin.
Food as a 'way of fighting against your enemy'
The roots of the victory garden can be traced back to the First World War, when Britain encouraged citizens to turn their flower gardens into vegetable gardens in an effort to stave off food shortages.
But it was in the U.S. that "victory gardens really took off," Goodwin said.
American businessman Charles Lathrop Pack was key in promoting victory gardens, pushing the importance of self-sustainability of food supplies in the country and helping ship food to its allies.
After the war, the gardens largely disappeared until the Second World War led to their revival. At the time, an estimated 200,000 victory gardens were growing in Canada, according to Goodwin.
Governments gave people seeds, tools and instructions on how to yield plentiful crops.
"Food was seen as a way of fighting against your enemy," Goodwin said.
"It was creating a supply of food that would last a family of five through the summer and also carry you through the fall, if not the whole winter."
'A sense of control'
Manish Kushwaha, who owns Gaia Organic Seeds in Ottawa, has noticed a jump in sales and renewed interest from people looking to grow their own food. He says gardeners are usually done buying seeds in March, but he's had consistent orders since then.
"I correlate that 100 per cent to the tariffs."
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Manish Kushwaha, the owner of Gaia Organic Seeds in Riverside South, says March is usually when seed sales die off. But this year, his business has seen such an influx of orders they cannot keep up.
He has seen this before: "COVID happened, and my sales skyrocketed."
It's moments of uncertainty like that when people turn back to victory gardens, Goodwin said.
During the OPEC crisis of 1973, people tended their backyards and created public gardens, she said, also pointing to the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic, when seed companies couldn't keep up with the demand.
"It's not only a chance to beat the cost of rising food — which were both elements in those times — but it gives people a sense of control over their lives," Goodwin said.
"I think any time anybody has anxiety, they can look to their garden to create beauty or grow food."
Since the U.S. announced tariffs on Canadian goods, two of Canada's biggest packet seed companies, Ontario Seed and West Coast Seeds, told CBC they have seen a 20 per cent increase in sales compared to the same period last year.
In an email to Cost of Living, West Coast Seeds said, "Many of our customers are expressing their preference to buy from Canadian-owned and operated companies in response to the tariffs.
Back in Cochrane, Belsey is growing lettuce, radishes and carrots in his planter box.
"You can get a lot of food out of a little space," he said. "So much happens in the world, and we don't really know what we as individuals can do."
"It's one small [thing] that we as individuals, as Canadians, can do at a time when we're feeling really under the gun."