Small is Beautiful

Community Composting for Food System Circularity and Resilience

Together with Making Agriculture Sustainable in the Hazeltons (MASH), we received a Partnership Engage Grant to examine how community composting contributes to food system resilience, as well as identify challenges and opportunities. This project is also supported by the Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) Graduate Research Fellowship.

Why are we doing this research?

Healthy soils are crucial for food production. After over a century of intensive agriculture, a lot of the soil in Canada has been depleted of organic matter and nutrients, which are important for maintaining healthy soils. Many farmers depend on fertilizers to improve their soil quality. Chemical fertilizer prices have skyrocketed in recent years. Compost is a nutrient-rich amendment that helps build healthy soil by restoring organic matter and nutrients. Many northern and remote communities do not have local sources of compost, which hinders efforts to increase local food production and add resilience to the food system. Community composting can reduce reliance on importing soil amendment and fertilizer by producing compost locally. However, community composting is not commonplace in Canada, especially in rural areas.

How are we doing this research?

MASH piloted a community composting program from June to November 2024 in response to community demand for local soil amendment. They collected food scraps from seven local businesses and organic materials from residential drop offs to process into compost at a central hub. Food Systems Lab supported MASH with setting up data collection on their operations. In September 2024, we did the first ever waste composition study on garbage from the Hazelton Waste Management Facility. After the end of the pilot program, we interviewed 22 community members representing different perspectives (e.g., workplaces, residents, farmers) to gather feedback. We conducted a survey from May to July 2025 to better understand residents’ opinions about community composting and their willingness to participate. We interviewed 28 people involved in composting in other parts of rural British Columbia to characterize the state of composting in the province and how community composting could scale in rural communities. We also surveyed people from across Canada to collect their opinions about community composting.

What have we learned?

MASH produced a report about the pilot program that includes results from the operational data collection and waste composition study.

Preliminary findings from the interviews demonstrated positive community feedback and strong interest in continuing the program. However, the financial sustainability of the program remained a key challenge and it had to scale down. The findings were presented at the Community Composting Convergence in March 2025, at a focus group in April 2025, and at the 20th Annual Assembly of the Canadian Association for Food Studies in June 2025. The interviews inspired the Community Composting Hoedown song and an accompanying music video.

We presented our broader research on scaling community composting at the 2026 International Sustainability Transitions Conference in the form of found poetry titled “Transitions begin with the heart”.