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Welcome to The Backyard Urban Farm Company, or BUFCO, your Organic Vegetable Garden Specialists – a one-stop shop for edible garden design, installation, planning, planting, maintenance, and consultation, serving the Greater Toronto Area.

We are on a mission is to inspire, educate, and empower urbanites to grow their own food and to help them reconnect with nature. We are also on a mission to develop and elevate committed, self-motivated nature-lovers who are building careers in the organic land care industry.

The Owners

After three successful decades working in the motion picture industry, husband and wife team Marc Green and Arlene Hazzan Green co-founded The Backyard Urban Farm Company (BUFCO). The Company was established as a response to their growing awareness of, and resulting unease with their own contribution to climate change and their need to find a meaningful solution. 2023 marks BUFCO’s 14th anniversary.

Arlene Hazzan Green

CEO; VP Gardening Division; Garden Designer

Arlene (she/her) is an avid gardener and life-long learner who loves to share her knowledge. She is an Organic Master Gardener, an Accredited Organic Land Care Practitioner with SOUL (Society for Organic Urban Landcare), and has a Diploma in Organic Land Care from Gaia College. Arlene is also an Emmy award winning television director and writer. (Photograph: Brianna-Roye)

Marc Green

VP Operations, Installations

Marc (he/him) is a meticulous project manager with a focus on customer service excellence and is driven by his desire to deliver product and services that meet or surpass the highest expectations. Marc is an avid outdoors enthusiast, loves wilderness camping, canoeing, and fishing. He also has a deep connection with music, spending his spare time playing guitar and piano. “Nature is medicine for the spirit. Music is medicine for the soul.”


Meet the BUFCO Team

The Owners

After three successful decades working in the motion picture industry, husband and wife team Marc Green and Arlene Hazzan Green co-founded The Backyard Urban Farm Company (BUFCO). The Company was established as a response to their growing awareness of, and resulting unease with their own contribution to climate change and their need to find a meaningful solution. 2022 marks BUFCO’s 13th anniversary.

Arlene Hazzan Green

CEO; VP Gardening Division, Garden Designer

Arlene (she/her) is an avid gardener and life-long learner who loves to share her knowledge. She is an Organic Master Gardener and Accredited Organic Land Care Practitioner with SOUL (Society for Organic Urban Landcare). Arlene is also an Emmy award winning television director and writer.

Marc Green

VP Operations, Installations

Marc (he/him) is a meticulous project manager with a focus on customer service excellence and is driven by his desire to deliver product and services that meet or surpass the highest expectations. Marc is an avid outdoors enthusiast, loves wilderness camping, canoeing, and fishing. He also has a deep connection with music, spending his spare time playing guitar and piano. “Nature is medicine for the spirit. Music is medicine for the soul.”

The Team

Debbie Lo

Administration Manager;
Garden Manager & Designer

Debbie (she/her) is an engineering graduate from University of Toronto and has a Diploma in Organic Land Care from Gaia College. She endeavours to combine her technical skills with BUFCO’s vision to encourage mutually uplifting relationships between the earth and its inhabitants. She enjoys feeding garden scraps to her bunny, feeding bunny poo to her worms, then feeding worm poo back to her garden.

Julia Stephens

Garden Supervisor

Julia (they/them) graduated from Queen’s University in printmaking and art history and has a Diploma in Organic Land Care from Gaia College. Julia joined the BUFCO team after working at organic grocery stores and farmer’s markets, building rammed earth houses, and designing vegetable gardens. In their spare time, Julia can be found tending their own backyard veggie patch, playing music and cooking for friends.

Luisa Martinez

Gardener Technician

Luisa (she/her) is an Organic Master Gardener and problem solver, who enjoys learning from life’s challenges. Merging her love for science and art, she studied Architectural Technology and Permaculture Design before working in ornamental gardening. She joined BUFCO with the goal to extend the joy gardens give her beyond aesthetics. When not covered in dirt, you can find her dancing salsa, biking, and tattooing.

Bryce Beckett

Installations Supervisor

Bryce (he/him) has worked for many years in construction as a mason and a carpenter while side hustling as a multidisciplinary sport coach using sport and circus as a setting and catalyst to plant seeds in the minds of his clients about their own empowerment to navigate choice and challenge. “Abundance is all around us when we turn our minds from the fear of scarcity.”

Matthew Weston

Yard Supervisor

Matt (he/him) is an Organic Master Gardener who spends every possible minute he can outdoors. When not outdoors, he’s inside planning ways to be outdoors. Matt’s dream is to live off the land and be as self reliant as possible. He is always eager to learn something new.

Victoria Maclean

Administration Assistant

Victoria (she/her) grew up in Argentina surrounded by pastures and surreal sunsets; a setting that spurred her love for nature. After working as an elementary school teacher in Buenos Aires, she migrated to Toronto with her family and is now an Organic Master Gardener. She is transforming every room in her home into makeshift greenhouses populated with plants, that is, when she is not camping on the great Canadian shield.

Dixie Hazzan Green

Urban Farm Dog

Dixie (she/her) is an extremely well trained Australian Shepherd who has been BUFCO’s official mascot since joining the Hazzan Green household in the early days of the company’s history. She’s a graduate of nowhere in particular, and aspires to eat, sleep, chase squirrels from the BUFCO gardens, and occasionally play. At somewhat over 11 years old, she is a little under 12 years old.

  • Debbie Lo

    (she/her)
    Administration Manager;
    Garden Manager & Designer

  • Julia Stephens

    (they/them)
    Garden Supervisor

  • Luisa Martinez

    (she/her)
    Gardener Technician

  • Bryce Beckett

    (he/him)
    Installations Supervisor

  • Matthew Weston

    (he/him)
    Yard Supervisor

  • Victoria Maclean

    (she/her)
    Administration Assistant

  • Dixie Hazzan Green

    (she/her)
    Urban Farm Dog

    Our Values in Action: We want to INSPIRE you to Garden

    Imagine Nurture Nature Sow Seeds of Positive Change Plant and Play Investigate & Innovate Rest & Relax Eat!
    Imagine picking an exquisitely mouth-watering tomato that you grew yourself in your own backyard. Caring for plants and the earth stirs something deep within us, connects us to those who came before us and reminds us we are part of something larger than ourselves. Gardens provide a wealth of joy, knowledge and opportunity that grows when these riches are shared among us all. Dig in and get dirty! Gardens are gathering places where family, friends and neighbours can let loose and have fun. Challenge and wonder awaits a curious gardener looking for solutions. A quiet garden invites us to slow down, turn off, and tune in to nature’s rhythms. Feast your eyes on abundant and heathy harvests to share with family and friends.
    Our Vision
    Our Values

    Our Values in Action: We want to INSPIRE you to Garden

    magine

    picking an exquisitely mouth-watering tomato that you grew yourself in your own backyard.

    urture Nature

    Caring for plants and the earth stirs something deep within us, connects us to those who came before us and reminds us we are part of something larger than ourselves.   

    ow Seeds of Positive Change

    Gardens provide a wealth of joy, knowledge and opportunity that grows when these riches are shared among us all.

    lant and Play

    Dig in and get dirty! Gardens are gathering places where family, friends and neighbours can let loose and have fun.

    nvestigate & Innovate

    Challenge and wonder awaits a curious gardener looking for solutions.

    est & Relax

    A quiet garden invites us to slow down, turn off, and tune in to nature’s rhythms.

    at!

    Feast your eyes on abundant and heathy harvests to share with family and friends.

    Our Vision

    Our Values in Action: We want to INSPIRE you to Garden

    magine

    picking an exquisitely mouth-watering tomato that you grew yourself in your own backyard.

    urture Nature

    Caring for plants and the earth stirs something deep within us, connects us to those who came before us and reminds us we are part of something larger than ourselves.   

    ow Seeds of Positive Change

    Gardens provide a wealth of joy, knowledge and opportunity that grows when these riches are shared among us all.

    lant and Play

    Dig in and get dirty! Gardens are gathering places where family, friends and neighbours can let loose and have fun.

    nvestigate & Innovate

    Challenge and wonder awaits a curious gardener looking for solutions.

    est & Relax

    A quiet garden invites us to slow down, turn off, and tune in to nature’s rhythms.

    at!

    Feast your eyes on abundant and heathy harvests to share with family and friends.

    Our Vision

    Our Values in Action: We want to INSPIRE you to Garden

    magine

    picking an exquisitely mouth-watering tomato that you grew yourself in your own backyard.

    Nurture Nature

    Caring for plants and the earth stirs something deep within us, connects us to those who came before us and reminds us we are part of something larger than ourselves.   

    Sow Seeds of Positive Change

    Gardens provide a wealth of joy, knowledge and opportunity that grows when these riches are shared among us all.

    Plant and Play

    Dig in and get dirty! Gardens are gathering places where family, friends and neighbours can let loose and have fun.

    nvestigate & Innovate

    Challenge and wonder awaits a curious gardener looking for solutions.

    Rest & Relax

    A quiet garden invites us to slow down, turn off, and tune in to nature’s rhythms.

    Eat!

    Feast your eyes on abundant and heathy harvests to share with family and friends.

    Our Vision

    An Edible Garden in every yard.

    Delicious, local food on every table.

    A healthy, peaceful planet in every heart

    Land Acknowledgment and Anti-Racism Equity Statement

    We gratefully acknowledge the privilege we have to be working on land that is the traditional territory of many nations including, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Huron Wendat peoples. Toronto is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Mètis peoples from across Turtle Island. This sacred territory has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years and was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. We recognize the violence and loss of culture that makes our presence on this land possible. We also recognize our responsibility to confront the violence in which we are complicit and to work to dismantle the structures that perpetuate it. 

    We are actively working to recognize our own contributions to the systemic inequities that exist in our society. We are committed to doing the hard work required to uproot racism in all its forms and to amplify and support the voices of those who experience racism on a daily basis.

    We strive every day, in every action, to nurture and maintain an equitable working environment; to provide a path forward to a more fair, prosperous and hopeful future for all, and to welcome people of all genders, races, religions, nationalities, cultures, sexual identities, languages, and abilities so they can feel comfortable, respected, and valued.

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