Covid-19 and Outdoor Spaces
Covid-19 had a major impact on Canadians in a number of ways most notably having to spend more time at home due to government health and travel restrictions. The Canadian home space, whatever form that might take, is required to serve as a home, an office, and a recreation space. Canadians are looking at their residential space in an entirely different way, seeking functionality in every square metre. According to a Yahoo article (2021), a new poll by Scotiabank found over half of respondents said they plan to renovate their homes. It found homeowners are more likely to renovate their current home than to sell and buy a new one. The poll also found six in 10 homeowners plan to renovate within the next two years. Further, the poll found the top three renovation plans are for backyards (33 percent), bathrooms (30 percent), and kitchens (28 percent).
Travel restrictions have also had an impact on the trend toward home improvements. Canadians being denied travel meant more time at home, and as a result, this added to their desire to fix up their homes. But fixing up their homes did not stop with interior renovations. Canadians renovated their exterior spaces as well. Exterior spaces became an extended living area and many Canadians spent money on renovations of these spaces, and as the survey above details, backyard renovations are at the top of survey participants’ plans. A Forbes article(2021), on the trends of the pandemic: “it feels like this pandemic has opened a lot of eyes on the importance of having a usable and comfortable outdoor space.”
But enhancing the space is only part of the outdoor space movement triggered by the Covid-19 lockdowns, according to an article in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (2021) “support for positive health benefits of spending time in a garden — though associations may be bidirectional — and suggest that domestic gardens could be a potential health resource during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Alessandro Ossola, Associate Professor UC Davis wrote in The Conversation: “If anything, the pandemic showed how gardens serve a public health need — that they’re not only places of beauty or sources of food, but also conduits for healing.” He went on to say that gardening provided “very real health benefits, from lowered stress to better sleep and improved memory, that venturing into nature can offer.”
Canadians were not alone in seeking garden spaces and gardening projects. According to an article in the Boston Globe, citing research done by Brenda Lin, 39 countries were studied using Google Trends and searches for the word ‘gardening’, found: “ The gardening trend wasn’t limited to Western nations, or those places hit first by the pandemic. “I think that’s just a clear indication that there was this real interest during that time.”
But making the space more beautiful, as well as functional, and offering all of the amenities that homeowners might want, whether their outdoor space is an urban deck, or a full garden space was not the only thing people looked for during the pandemic. People were looking at adding a gardening component to their outdoor spaces. Raising food was a result of a feeling of food scarcity and increasing cost as Sylvain Charlebois detailed in a 2020 research study. In fact, he reports that “A total of 67% of new gardeners in 2020 agree that the pandemic influenced their decision to start growing food at home. The survey also shows that most home food gardeners have a university degree/certificate/diploma.”
Given the context and the findings, working through the 5 whys, gets us closer to understanding the problem that people might be experiencing with their outdoor spaces as a result of Covid-19.
Empathy for End Users
Canadians want to be independent, and shortages in certain products have made everyone feel a little uneasy about supply chain issues, brought to light during the pandemic. Food shortages and rising food costs are also top of mind for most Canadians. Finding ways to save money have provided incentives for some Canadians, but there are also Canadians who decided to learn how to bake, cook or garden since they were now working from home.
Home gardening is a way to produce food independently that is fresh, safe, healthy, and far less costly than buying it from a grocery store. But, those Canadians who are new to gardening, might not know where to start. They might like the idea of raising vegetables or fruit, or for that matter, cut flowers, but they lack the knowledge and the experience to know how to set themselves up for success.
From the research study performed by The Agri-Foods Analytics Lab (2020), • 41% of new gardeners do not have children, versus 29.9% of long-time gardeners (for a total of 32% childless gardeners)
• 55.5% of home food gardeners consider gardening to be good exercise while 69% find gardening relaxing
• 51.8% of long-time home gardeners agree that they grow food at home because it is safer than what they can buy in store. For those who started growing food during the pandemic, only 42.9% agree that food safety was a factor in their decision to garden
• Dietary preferences and requirements do not have any significant impact on home food growing. A total of 79.7% of home food gardeners have no dietary preferences. 4.4% of home food growers are some form of vegetarian or vegan versus 5.2% of non-gardeners.
If Canadians have a desire to become more independent and to raise some of their own edibles or flowers, whether because they are at home and feel that they can manage the time required to successfully maintain the garden, or the rising costs of perishable foods which could be offset by raising some at home, then the solution needs to be easy in order to encourage them to do it.
End User Persona
By using some of the findings, the persona for “Jake and Sabrina” has been developed. Whether individually or as a couple, these are independent career driven 30–35-year-olds, that are now required to work from home as a result of Covid-19. They take pride in their homes and find that they need to renovate their exterior space to make it more usable, comfortable and functional and could be a persona interested in adding a garden element to their outdoor space.
What does the empathy map and the persona of the working professional couple, Jake and Sabrina tell us?
They would like to enjoy their outdoor space, and raising some food or flowers would be nice, because the food is fresh and would save money, and shopping time, but they need assurances that they would be successful at it and that it would not take too much effort or time to look after.
If there are other personas out there like Jake and Sabrina, then the following “How might we” questions might drive more thought around Canadian outdoor spaces and what the problem statement might be.
Who needs to be involved:
Beyond the chosen personas, any Canadian who has an outdoor space should be involved in the decision to garden or not. However, with local municipal involvement and support, anyone should have the opportunity to be involved in gardening through community gardening programs. The other stakeholders might also include anyone interested in forming food-growing cooperatives. Seniors, in particular, should be included in accessing this opportunity due to the rewards inherent in gardening.
The Canadian and Provincial agricultural food departments might play a role along with other educators in providing and supporting training.
Partnering opportunities for seed producers, or other plant-related suppliers who may see this as an additional growth opportunity.
The Problem Statement:
Covid-19 has caused Canadians to be concerned about fresh food costs and availability and would like to be able to produce at least some of what they require annually, in their outdoor spaces.
How might we:
How might we get more Canadians to add gardens to their homes whether on urban decks or full residential garden spaces
How might we get Canadians to feel comfortable and confident in choosing to plant a garden
How might we create garden planter design alternatives that are easy to install that could be permanent, or temporary
How might we make various levels of service available to those people who would like to garden
How might we encourage Canadians to make their outdoor spaces beautiful and offer the therapeutic and mental health benefits of gardening
How might we encourage Canadians to look toward food sustainability during food shortage and supply issues experienced during the pandemic
How might we encourage Canadians to grow extra food which can be donated to charity
How might we train and educate Canadians to grow food effectively
How might we educate Canadians to safely produce food products from their vegetable and fruit crops to extend their usage beyond use as fresh produce or fruit
How might we make it easy to set up garden planters for all Canadians including multifamily residential complexes where rooftop communal gardens may be effective
How might we use gardening as a way to connect families, friends, and the elderly for all of the benefits that working in the garden produce
How might we introduce gardening as a life skill within the school system
Environment
Covid-19 had supply chain issues that affected food prices as detailed in an article by the International Food Policy and Research Institute (2022). However, food scarcity and price increases are now expected to rise as a result of the war in Ukraine. They maintain that: Food prices are skyrocketing around the world. In January, international prices for major food items climbed to a level near the heights of the global food price crises of 2007–08 and 2010–11, according to the FAO Food Price Index (Figure 1). The spike has raised concerns over the potential for another global food crisis, increasing hunger among the poor, and, possibly, social unrest around the world.
Area of opportunity or end of pandemic novelty?
Sylvain Charlebois suggested that Canadians should be resurveyed now that the Covid-19 lockdowns have been removed, and most Canadians have been vaccinated: “to discover if as many Canadians are still growing food at home and if more have joined the movement.”
Given the uncertain economic situation caused in a large part due to the war in Ukraine, a nation that is a major supplier of grain and fertilizer, there are indications that a major global food crisis is looming, according to a report issued by the UN and reported by BBC News (2022). This could drive more Canadians to consider gardening themselves in the future.
One could only imagine a headline produced as a result of Instructor Kris Hans ‘Reframe your problem’ worksheet: “Canadian home gardeners lead the world in home garden harvesting, and all of the food-related products produced as a result of their gardening efforts.” Wouldn’t that be amazing?
References:
Agri-Food Analytics Labs. (2020, October 7). Home food gardening during covid 19. https://www.dal.ca/sites/agri-food/research/home-food-gardening-during-covid-19.html
Corley, Janie et al. (2021, February). Home garden use during covid-19. Journal of Environmental Psychology. Volume 73. 101545
DIY Toolkit: Problem Definition. (2014). Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://vimeo.com/91934378
Gold, Jamie. (2020, June 23). Coronavirus drives residential outdoor living demand and trends. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiegold/2020/06/23/coronavirus-drives-residential-outdoor-living-demand-and-trends/?sh=34b1c0fb3e45
Hans, Kris. (2022) Reframe your problem worksheet. University of Calgary Continuing Education COR 628 Lecture material.
Laher, Suhal. (2020, September 25). Impact of covid-19 on garden design outdoor living spaces. Total Landscape Care. https://www.totallandscapecare.com/design-build/article/15042646/impact-of-covid-19-on-garden-design-outdoor-living-spaces
Murphy, Matt. (2022, May 19). Ukraine invasion could cause global food crisis UN warns. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61503049
Preston, Elizabeth. (2021, November 26). Covid-inspired gardening was a worldwide phenomenon. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/26/opinion/covid-inspired-gardening-was-worldwide-phenomenon/
Vos, Rob et al. (2022, February 22). Covid-19 and rising global food prices what’s really happening. International Food Policy and Research Institute. https://www.ifpri.org/blog/covid-19-and-rising-global-food-prices-whats-really-happening
