Community Composting for Food System 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 will be conducting a survey in 2025 to better understand how the community values and could support community composting. We are also interviewing 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.
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 remains a key challenge. The findings will be presented at the Community Composting Convergence in March 2025. The interviews also inspired a song and an accompanying music video.