BK Farmyards

Strip Mall Farming

By Stacey Murphy Landmines Productions
for The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

BK Farmyard reconnects farmers and consumers as co-producers of the landscape and food culture. The strategy takes advantage of the existing urban fabric of Brooklyn neighborhoods to reclaim privately held green spaces as farms. Residents pay for a yard-farming service that delivers produce to their doors, while others without green space pay for produce cultivated in these farmyards. Additionally, some lots would be converted to Dinner Party structures, public spaces for community dinner parties

These structures would be the information hub for the current crops, canning seminars, and cooking lessons. BK Farmyards weaves farming into the fabric of the existing neighborhoods, eliminating the distance between farm and home for future urban generations. The integration of ‘farm’ and ‘yard’ also provides possible efficiencies in rainwater harvesting and compost collection. Clean, local produce has many advantages over agri-business including nutrient-rich foods, smaller carbon footprint, and an emphasis on local foods that create local culture.

BK Farmyards combines the production and distribution methods of existing food systems with a couple added benefits:

Locally grown items at real cost, full of nutrients (grocery stores do not necessarily provide real prices once environmental issues are factored in)

Local jobs

Maximum transparency in the production of food: eaters feel connected to the process

Convenience of food delivered to your door. This has an added benefit of reducing stress as there is too much choice at the grocery store and eaters are confused as to how to make an informed choice.

Dinner Party structures, a new typology, allow neighbors a place for communal eating and sharing.

Alternate models of food stamps could be pursued where someone could donate the produce grown in their yard to people in need.

BK Farmyard’s biggest challenge will be to offer these things at a price somewhere between the Farmers market and the supermarket. Many people trying to compare the artificially low price of food at the supermarkets with the real food prices at the farmers market would be willing to spend a little more in return for the availability of food at their home. BK Farmyard’s unique strategy de-centralizes farm land and relies on land owners to partner with farmers in the production of a foodscape. People will feel a pride associated with eating responsibly in a transparent, convenient system.

See more about BK Farmyards at The Buckminster Fuller Challenge website here.

See BK Farmyards website here.

Interview with Stacey Murphy – BK Farmyards