Université du Québec à Montréal
IN-49: Innovation C

Since 2008, the CRAPAUD (The Collective for Research in Landscaping and Sustainable Urban Agriculture) has the mission of developing and promoting plural, accessible, creative and viable urban agriculture through experimentation, practice, self-management, research, dissemination and political action. This is a community of practice.

Denouncing the vegetal hegemony of the lawn, the polluting mechanization of landscape maintenance, the exorbitant environmental cost related to the transport of labor and the disposal of residual materials and the omnipresence of concrete spaces, the CRAPAUD tends to diversify the landscaping of institutional environments with native edible plants. Working at UQAM, CRAPAUD makes a point of hiring students for internships, research or paid employment.

Localization is at the heart of the project. This translates into the reduction of transport costs associated with agricultural production in the city, which makes it possible to stock up on local food products. Also mobilizing the surrounding community, CRAPAUD is open to the various partnership possibilities with non-profit organizations working in neighboring neighborhoods on environmental and social causes.

Here is a sample of the activities organized year after year by the CRAPAUD team: workshops on making seed bombs (guerilla gardening), herbarium, making ointments, integrating art into urban agriculture, introcduction on enthomophagy, on composting, on urban fruit trees, on mushroom picking, on making insect hotels, on herbalism and on medicinal flowers, from making the seedlings. Creation of tools for novice gardeners: sheet on seedlings, sheet on the autumn leaves uses. Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/crapauduqam

Collective gardening sessions are plan in the gardens of UQAM throughout spring, summer and fall, from seed to harvest.

The gardens are located in public spaces of UQAM. They are fully accessible to members of the university community within the University's opening hours, from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekends (https://sps.uqam.ca/heures-ouverture- access-pavilions/). The CRAPAUD is the promoter of the project and their team carries out a set of activities (https://www.facebook.com/pg/crapauduqam/events/?ref=page_internal) that the entire university community can participate and register, but also the population of the province of Quebec, because the activities of CRAPAUD are announced on the website of UQAM events wall which is accessible to everyone (https://evenements.uqam.ca/).

It should be noted that the city of Montreal now has approximately 1,800,000 inhabitants, but has only 8,200 units plots, which represents approximately 1 plot of 2 square meters for 220 inhabitants (Regroupement des Jardins Collectifs du Québec, 2007). In order to guarantee the food security of the Montreal population, several creative initiatives in urban agriculture will have to emerge in the coming years. In this sense, the university has a key role in developing alternatives that provide fertile ground for the research and development of innovative solutions.

All of the CRAPAUD gardens are accessible to the entire UQAM community, but also to the population of Quebec as well, as to tourists visiting the Montreal region.

Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/crapauduqam