Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson, Steve Aujla of Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre, and Sharon Slack City Farmer’s head gardener at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. Note: City’s backyard compost bin and worm bin on display. Photo by Michael Levenston

Vancouver allows food waste into yard trimming containers for pickup

Gerry Bellett,
Vancouver Sun
April 21, 2010

Excerpt:

Vancouver is marking Earth Day, Thursday, by allowing homeowners to put food waste into their yard trimming containers.

Mayor Gregor Robertson said, Wednesday, that the curbside pickup service for 110,000 households is the beginning of an attempt to reduce the city’s landfill waste by 40 per cent by 2020.

The food waste will be turned into compost-based soil by a Richmond company, Harvest and Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre.

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Eric Haley, Jennifer Nelkin, and Viraj Puri, on the future site of Gotham Green’s first garden. Photograph: Jennifer Nelkin

Gotham Greens, New York’s first commercial rooftop hydroponics operation

By Kunani – J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
Budez.com
April 20, 2010

Excerpt:

Jennifer Nelkin believes that the future of high-end, boutique-quality farming is not in California, sunny Florida, or even the fertile soils of the Hudson Valley. It’s right under our noses. Or more accurately, right above our noses.

As co-founder of Gotham Greens, New York’s first commercial rooftop hydroponics operation, Jenn’s got a lot riding on that future. “I really hope that rooftop gardening is a successful venture, because we’ve borrowed $1.4 million to try and find out.”

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Farming Is Cultural As Well As Agricultural

From Gene Logsdon Blog
The Contrary Farmer
April 20, 2010

Gene and Carol Logsdon have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio. Gene is the author of numerous books and magazine articles on farm-related issues, and believes sustainable pastoral farming is the solution for a stressed agricultural system.

Excerpts:

I think urban farming is one of the most hopeful developments to come down the street in a long time. First of all, it encourages the practical economic advantages and benefits of raising and consuming food locally. But its importance goes beyond that for me. I am sometimes asked why I spend my time writing about farming and gardening when, it is suggested, there are more important topics to which to apply my talents. That, in one sentence, indicates one of the most troublesome cultural problems that modern society faces today: the notion that food-getting is not an important enough subject to merit the close attention of all of us.

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Difference between the Cuban and American political and economic systems

By Andy Fisher
Civil Eats
April 21st, 2010
Andy Fisher is a Fellow with the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Food and Society Fellows and Co-Founder/Executive Director for Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC).

Excerpt:

Yet, Cuban urban agriculture, no matter how inspiring, is largely irrelevant to Americans. The state is pervasive throughout Cuba and controls virtually all aspects of the official economy. The government can mobilize quickly and massively around its priorities through an array of powerful policy tools at its disposal. After 50 years of socialist rule, Cuban institutions, as well as the mentality and expectations of the Cuban public, differ vastly from those in the U.S. By way of example, the ruling motto of Cuban urban agriculture states, “We must decentralize only up to a point where control is not lost, and centralize only up to a point where initiative is not killed” embodies the vast differences between their planned economy and our free market system.

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See video report here.

Vegetable Patch grows gardens

CBC News
April 21, 2010

A non-profit company in Ottawa that turns people’s lawns into small urban farms that supply organic vegetables to local residents is in its second year and growing quickly.

On Tuesday, Vegetable Patch broke ground on four of an estimated 10 to 15 urban lots where its volunteers will plant and tend to squash, tomatoes and other veggies.

In 2009, its first year of operation, it planted on just five properties.

The yards are lent out by homeowners like Carryl Potter.

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