Sudbury urban farm in the works for Flour Mill area

Morning North7:15Plans for Sudbury's first urban community farm

An urban community farm is being planned for the city of Greater Sudbury. It will be located in the Flour Mill area. Joseph Leblanc, the executive director of the Social Planning Council joined us in studio to talk about the project.

Sudbury is looking to start the city's first urban community farm in the Flour Mill area and the organizing committee is now asking residents for their input on what they want to see.

Organizer JosephLeBlancsays the farm would give locals more grocery options. He saysthe Flour Mill is an ideal farm location because residents say the neighbourhood needs more support and development.

• Low-income housing tenants dig in to community gardening
• Lo-Ellen students experiment with aquaponics to grow food indoors

"O'Connor Park is their primary area of interest, largely because it's central and a lot of green space and an opportunity to really build something in that place," he told CBC News.

Stuart McCall, an organic farmer and also part of the organizing committee, said he hopes the farm will provide services to teach residents how to be healthier.

"Maybe build a community kitchen at some point. Maybe courses on gardening, courses on food preparation. You know, all of these things are possible," he said.

McCall noted it's important that people learn how to grow their own food to reduce their consumption of processed foods.

"I think it's really important that people get back to basics in terms of growing some of their own food and preparing meals that are made from raw foods instead of all this processed food and everything which is really very unhealthy," he said.

Residents can give their input on the urban community farm this Sunday at the Grace Family Church from 3 to 6 p.m.