Customer Leslie Porto, of Snyder, watches as Janice and Mark Stevens, and their daughter Jerusha, 9, pull beets and onions at their urban farm. Photo by John Hickey / Buffalo News.

The Stevenses built a two-acre garden on city land last spring, and now they’re known across the East Side for their produce

By Maki Becker
Buffalo News
July 04, 2010

Excerpt:

Former farmers who had moved to the East Side from rural Wyoming County, the Stevenses and their seven children wanted their own farm to grow their own food without the use of pesticides and other chemicals while also providing fresh produce to their community.

City Hall initially was resistant, saying the land had been set aside to build new houses. City officials didn’t want to sell the land but were willing to lease it. However, the city wanted to maintain the right to sell the land with just 30 days notice.

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Geographical distribution of UA practitioners in South Africa, 2007

Assessing the Role of Urban Agriculture in Addressing Poverty in South Africa

By Phillippe Burger, JP Geldenhuys1, Jan Cloete, Lochner Marais and Alexander Thornton

GDN Working Paper Series
Working Paper No. 28
October 2009

Abstract

The overall aim of this report is to profile UA and to investigate what role urban agriculture plays in addressing poverty in South Africa. Methodologically, the paper is based on the annual South African household survey. Two approaches are followed. First, the profile of urban agriculturalists in 2007 was compared with the profile of urban agriculturalists in 2002. Second, a control group of urban agriculturalists with income of less than R10 000 has also been established in order to compare the results of agriculturalists and non-agriculturalists across a range of criteria. The paper is contextualized against the background of rising food prices in South Africa (also world-wide) and international literature on this topic.

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Victor and Rhonda Lavado tend to their garden at Szegda Farm in Columbia on Wednesday night. This is the second year they have planted vegetables in the community garden, which also features walking trails. Photo by John Woike, Hartford Courant

Come visit a place where a town has not only saved its land, but also its agricultural heritage as well. Columbia, CT.

By Peter Marteka
Hartford Courant
July 2, 2010

Excerpt:

Bravo, Columbia. You get it and you did it.

While dozens of open space parcels have been purchased across the state over the years, many sit unused with no parking areas or trails blazed through them. This is not the case with the 135-acre Szegda Farm in the heart of this northeast Connecticut town.

It has not one, but two large gravel parking areas. There is a community garden. An old-fashioned hand pump stands nearby — bringing back memories of a simpler time. There are two loop trails blazed by Eagle Scouts into the woodlands and across rock ledges, with plans for more in the future. A local farmer still cuts grass for hay in a nearby field.

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