By Darrin Nordahl
Island Press (September 23, 2009)
200 pages

Public Produce makes a uniquely contemporary case not for central government intervention, but for local government involvement in shaping food policy. In what Darrin Nordahl calls “municipal agriculture,” elected officials, municipal planners, local policymakers, and public space designers are turning to the abundance of land under public control (parks, plazas, streets, city squares, parking lots, as well as the grounds around libraries, schools, government offices, and even jails) to grow food.

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Photo from RUAF, Anglophone West Africa.

By Juliet Torome
The Daily Star
October 31, 2009

When I met Eunice Wangari at a Nairobi coffee shop recently, I was surprised to hear her on her mobile phone, insistently asking her mother about the progress of a corn field in her home village, hours away from the big city. A nurse, Wangari counts on income from farming to raise money to buy more land – for more farming.

Even though Wangari lives in Kenya’s capital, she is able to reap hundreds of dollars a year in profits from cash crops grown with the help of relatives. 

Her initial stake – drawn from her nursing wages of about $350 a month – has long since been recovered.

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Photo by Michael Levenston

Farm brings dirt without hurt to gritty Eastside

By CTV British Columbia’s Peter Grainger
Sat Oct. 31 2009

A pilot farming project in Canada’s poorest area code is bringing dirt – without the hurt – to Vancouver’s gritty Downtown Eastside.

Volunteers worked tirelessly Saturday to build a community garden. Although urban community gardens are becoming common sights across Metro Vancouver, the East Hastings Street location is quite different because it will be a fully functional farm once completed.

“They’ll be growing vegetables that will be sold to restaurants and the like in the Downtown Eastside,” Projects in Place Society’s Bryce Gauthier told CTV News.

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