But as Joe St. Lawrence pointed out when he studied the Field to Table site for his masters' thesis, the Building Code presents another hurdle for rooftop gardeners. In his thesis, St. Lawrence identifies the cost of installing such a railing as a drawback to a rooftop farm, but Annex Organics has ignored the regulation. There's a whole kind of conservatism here in North America that you have to challenge. Sean Cosgrove, an urban planner at the Toronto Food Policy Council, a sub-committee of the Toronto Board of Health, said the challenge facing Annex Organics isn't logistical, but rather a matter of competition. He says the railing regulation is a minor inconvenience compared to the threat from traditional farming.
Urban agriculture faces the entire supported macro economy.
But frontiers get pushed back. Consumer tastes are changing, says Cecil Bradley, manager of policy and research at the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. The market for organic products has been growing, and you can see why farmers operating from an urban base have an advantage in terms of getting their product to the consumer quickly. Baker admits rooftop farming is ambitious. Maybe it can't be done.