New Stories From 'Urban Agriculture Notes'

“I don’t like the goal of self-sufficiency, I think it’s a fool’s errand to chase that goal.”

Filmed by Johnny Sanphillippo
FairCompanies.com
May 20, 2013
(Must See. Mike.)

Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne have been farming their yard in Los Angeles for over a decade. In addition to a mini orchard and extensive veggie garden, they have all the instruments of an urban homestead: chickens, bees, rainwater capture, DIY greywater, solar fruit preserver, humanure toilet, rocket stove, adobe oven. But they don’t like to talk about sustainability of self-sufficiency, instead they prefer the term self-reliance.

“I don’t like the goal of self-sufficiency, I think it’s a fool’s errand to chase that goal,” explains Knutzen. “I think we live in communities, human beings are meant to live, and trade and work together. I think self-reliance is okay, in other words, knowing how to do things.”

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We operate our commercial aquaponics farm in Hawaii, and teach you how to feed yourself by building and operating your own aquaponics systems

When: Sunday May 26, 830 am – 530 pm
Where: the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street
How much: $40-100, no one turned away.
contact: gavin@plantingjustice.org for more info.

“Friendly Aquaponics has trained thousands of people at their certified organic commercial aquaponics farm in Hawaii, and now they’re coming to Oakland to share their tried and true practices of growing an incredible amount of food in small spaces with 90% less water than conventional agriculture. Perfect for paved lots and urban agriculture where
soils are nonexistent or too toxic! Hope to see you there.”

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Eat The Yard co-founder James Jeffers (left) and a group of volunteers recently planted a rooftop garden on at Mecca Design. Watermelon seedlings, spinach and cucumbers were planted in repurposed buckets. Photo by Mona Reeder.

The work ethic instilled by the military makes vets a good fit for farming, advocates say.

By Marc Ramirez
Dallas News
May 19, 2013

An assemblage of soil-filled plastic buckets stood at the ready, and Operation Rooftop was officially underway. For former soldiers Steve Smith and James Jeffers, it was just another mission in their quest to change Dallas’ eating habits through an urban farming enterprise they call Eat The Yard.

With the aid of a winch, a scissor lift and a half-dozen volunteers, they hoisted buckets of soil 30 feet up through an opening in the ceiling of a West Dallas design studio. There, on the roof, the buckets would be dotted with the starts of watermelons, lemon cucumbers and Malabar climbing spinach.

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Donovan Eason, 11, of Brightmoor asks if his plant is root bound while planting tomatoes at the Brightmoor Youth garden in Detroit. The garden is a part of the Brightmoor Farmway, a neighborhood development project that encourages neighbors to turn vacant land into food-bearing gardens. The youth garden has a stand at the Northwest Detroit Farmer’s Market. Photo by Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press.

“A sense of accomplishment in a community that has seen so much divestment.”

By Megha
Detroit Free Press
May 20, 2013

Excerpt:

n front yards, backyards and on vacant land where nothing but weeds and debris used to be, an urban farm belt is forming, bringing neighbors back to the earth where just a few years ago, no one would come outside.

“In 2006, there was nobody on these streets. Some people had lived here for 30 years and were utterly discouraged,” said Riet Schumack, the woman at the center of the farmway taking over the area near Fenkell and Eliza Howell Park.

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Pete sings “Turn, Turn, Turn”

Video shot by John Rokosny and Andriette Redmon.
Produced by WingFlix.Com
Published on May 2, 2013

Happy 94th Birthday to Pete Seeger at the New York City Community Garden Coalition’s “Stand for the Land” Forum, April 27, 2013 at the Great Hall at Cooper Union. Pete is presented the Hammer of Justice by Haja Worley.

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1881 gardening catalogue.

Will create clarity and predictability for urban farmers

Boston Redevelopment Authority
May 13, 2013

Since January 2012, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the Mayor’s Office of Food Initiatives, and the Mayor’s Urban Agriculture Rezoning Working Group have been meeting monthly to draft new zoning to open up new urban agriculture opportunities in Boston. Article 89 of the zoning code will create clarity and predictability for anyone interested in commercial food growing and creating farms in Boston. A draft of the new zoning article is now finalized and available online.

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Gardening, Gleaning, and Farming for Food Banks in the U.S.

By Domenic Vitiello, Jeane Ann Grisso, Rebecca Fischman, and Leah Whiteside
A report on research funded by the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives
2013

Excerpt:

Food banks have recently enlarged their distribution and promotion of fresh vegetables and fruit. Many food banks are accomplishing this through involvement in and connections to local agriculture, in a diverse range of gardening, farming, and eld gleaning programs. Many food banks are also playing expanded roles in building community food security, especially through programs that support gardeners and farmers. As more Americans need food assistance while, at the same time, state and federal funding for food relief is shrinking, scaling up and replicating programs that distribute and support production and consumption of fresh produce oers a vital opportunity to transform food relief systems.

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Terrace gardening with the Indian pioneer, Dr B.N Viswanath

Home and Decor
2013

Excerpt:

What inspired you to start a movement of Organic farming, especially on the terrace?

Dr. Vishwanath: It happened accidentally. I was travelling from Delhi to Bangalore in 1995, as the flight couldn’t land on time due to some technical reason and flew over Bangalore city for a while… that’s when I noticed immaculate terraces reflecting sunlight. That’s when the thought came in my mind, why the constant rise of temperatures in Bangalore? .Even though, Bangalore is known as “Air conditioned city” because of the pleasant weather.

It disturbed me to realize that the Garden City of India, Bangalore, has become a concrete jungle day by day. I didn’t bury that thought in me; I discussed with like minded people and friends and realized that in Bangalore every one used to have an ornamental garden in the front and vegetable garden at the back side of their house.

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The rearing of insects can be carried out in rural, peri-urban and urban areas. Insect consumption is a part of the diets of over 2 billion people worldwide!

By Arnold van Huis Joost Van Itterbeeck Harmke Klunder Esther Mertens Afton Halloran Giulia Muir and Paul Vantomme
Food And Agriculture Organization Of The United Nations
Rome, 2013

“Edible insects: future prospective for food and feed security” was launched on May 13th during the International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition. This publication describes the contribution of insects to food security. It shows the many traditional and potential new uses of insects for direct human consumption and the opportunities for and constraints to farming them for food and feed.

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Needing $50,000 to manufacture their product

Take the guesswork out of growing your own fresh, nutritious herbs and greens with Let’s Patch! Our lightweight, self-watering Patch Planters are user-friendly for kids, grownups and, well, everyone! After a soft launch with our local community and a bunch of elementary school classrooms, we have come up with the perfect formula for fresh, healthy herbs and greens every time. With your support we can go from beta to mega, bringing Patch Planters and a healthy, sustainable food source into more homes around the world.

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Developing an Urban Agriculture Master Plan for the City will lead to a sustainable urban system of food production and distribution

City of Omaha Website
May 10, 2013

Farms to Omaha will be the driving element of Omaha’s urban agricultural programming. The initiative will be farmer-based, with the goal of increasing access to local high-quality produce in our restaurants, grocery stores, and community at large. “The Farms to Omaha coalition will bring about important changes in our how our citizens access food,” said Mayor Jim Suttle. “This coalition of farmers, distributors, and restaurant owners will bring local grains and produce directly to individuals who lack access to local, nutritious food. This will promote healthy lifestyles, strengthen our neighborhoods, create jobs, and keep our food economy local.”

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60 concerned citizens rewrite the definition of an Urban Farm in Austin

By Dustin
East Side Compost Pedallers
05/09/2013

Excerpt:

In order for a property to be recognized by the city as an urban farm, it needs to meet the criteria set by the urban farm code. That makes sense. But what is so great about getting a certificate of occupancy as urban farm anyway? Couldn’t you just start growing food and forget about the title? It turns out that there are a number of benefits that come along with being recognized by the city as an urban farm.

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Jeremy Andrews, CEO Of Sprout Urban Farms with Employees Rebecca Spicer, Left, and Devon Gibson, Right, inside their Greenhouse in Battle Creek, Michigan. Photo by Erik Holladay.

“The average farmer today is 60 years old,” says Spicer. “We need to open up farming as an option for kids to consider when choosing a career.”

By Zinta Aistars
SouthWest Michigan
April 25, 2013

Excerpt:

Sprout Urban Farms grew quickly, and soon included all of these things.

Bright Star Farm became the one community garden. Compost Happens became the community compost project with a focus on youth engagement and environmental stewardship. Fresh on Wheels is the mobile market partnership between Sprout Urban Farms and the Battle Creek Community Foundation. The GreenFist Project is a gardening youth internship made up of youth, ages 16 to 23, from many of the school districts surrounding Battle Creek.

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A study in peri-urban areas of Nepal’s Bhaktapur district showed the lack of technical know-how among farmers regarding preparation and use of farm yard manure and balanced application of chemical fertilizers.

By Sushil Thapa and Juni Maharjan
ag.sushilthapa@gmail.com
May 11, 2013

Nepal is endowed with diverse climatic conditions and agro-biodiversity which offer bundles of opportunity to grow rice and wheat. Though, in recent years especially in urban centers, farmers are motivated towards commercial vegetable production for getting better yield and economic return, rice-wheat based cropping system (RWCS) is still a major part of Nepalese agriculture.

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A beekeeper pulls a section of honeycomb from a hive. Photograph by Gianluca Colla, National Geographic.

Billions of dollars — and a way of life—ride on saving pollinators

Jennifer S. Holland
National Geographic News
Published May 10, 2013

Excerpts:

Bees are back in the news this spring, if not back in fields pollinating this summer’s crops. The European Union (EU) has announced that it will ban, for two years, the use of neonicotinoids, the much-maligned pesticide group often fingered in honeybee declines. The U.S. hasn’t followed suit, though this year a group of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups sued the EPA for not doing enough to protect bees from the pesticide onslaught.

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Campaigners ‘absolutely gutted’ over allotment decision.

UK gardens will be replaced by hospital and homes

By Adam Binnie
Waterford Observer
May 8, 2013

Excerpt:

An allotment campaign group has vowed to continue fighting to save a patch of West Watford allotments, after the Government has granted permission to build on it as part of the Watford Health Campus.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, announced today that he has approved building on the Farm Terrace allotments as part of project, which includes a new hospital and 600 homes.

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Food Field, sits on the old site of Peck Elementary in Detroit (formerly a convent).

Food Field is a new urban farm on four acres in Detroit’s Durfee neighborhood, between Boston-Edison and Highland Park. Since May 2011 we have harvested several thousand pounds of organic produce, built relationships with local chefs and neighbors, raised a large hoop house for year-round growing, and hired an intern and neighborhood teens. Our goal is to build a sustainable business feeding Detroit and create real alternatives to our corporate food system, while bringing jobs, resources and benefits back to our community.

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Harvesting bottle gourds at a farm settlement on the eastern bank of the Yamuna river, Delhi. Photo by Jeremy Hinsdale.

“There have been no policies which support agriculture in Delhi, so I don’t think they will last very long in this area.”

By Joseph Redwood-Martinez
Artist, writer, and filmmaker
Huffington Post
May 8, 2013

Excerpt:

The Yamuna River runs through the middle of Delhi — India’s second largest metropolis and home to a population of over 18 million inhabitants. But very few of this city’s residents or visitors know that along the banks of the Yamuna live thousands of urban farmers. Contrary to what one who learns of them might assume, these urban farmers are not recent migrants forcibly displaced from rural areas and only able to find work in Delhi as agricultural laborers. Rather, they have been cultivating vegetables along the banks of Yamuna for several generations. Yet still, since they are without government identification cards and do not own the property on which they farm, these farmers are among the most vulnerable population in urban Delhi — not only unknown, but also invisible.

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Stanford Daily – ‘Breaking News from the Farm since 1892’

By Graciela Watrous
The Stanford Daily
May 9, 2013

Excerpts:

Unlikely as it sounds, Detroit has no real shortage of small-scale urban farms. In the last couple of years it has been estimated that there are as many as 355 urban agricultural farms and gardens in the city. Most of them are small, and many of them are non-profit community gardens. Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, for example, runs one of the more successful community gardens within the city limits. It hosts a 1.5-acre vegetable garden and an apple orchard. Several other NGOs have sprung up in the last couple of years, like Greening of Detroit, which has given the urban agricultural movement in Detroit legitimacy and force.

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For the day-to-day needs of commercial urban farmers

Created by Cléa Lautrey
BDes. Industrial Design
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Vancouver BC 2013

“MOBIEL is designed to support the day-to-day needs of commercial urban farmers in Vancouver. The local urban farming community is comprised of a flourishing demographic of friendly, passionate people who seek more efficiency than community gardeners, yet do not require a tractor to get from one end of their farm to another.

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