In California, an estimated 2.5 million agricultural acres are located within one-third mile of an urbanized area. Above, in south Salinas a landscaped driveway faces irrigated fields.

California communities deal with conflict and adjustment at the urban-agricultural edge

By Alvin Sokolow, UC Davis
Sonja Varea Hammond, UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE)
Maxwell V. Norton, UCCE Merced County
Evan E. Schmidt, UC Davis
California Agriculture, Vol. 64, No. 3
July-September 2010

Conversions and edges: How much farmland is affected?

Close to 40,000 acres of agricultural land — a little more than one-tenth of 1% of California’s total — are converted to urban uses annually (CDC 2006). Far more farm acres, however, are located in close proximity to residential neighbors. An estimated 2.5 million agricultural acres throughout California are within one-third mile of urban edges (Sokolow 2003). In 2004, this estimate was updated based on a calculation in that year of 12,137 edge miles statewide where agricultural land bordered residential and other urban land; cropland edges totaled 7,886 miles. These numbers actually underestimate the true extent of edges, since they are based on the state definition of “urban and built-up” land as six or more structures per 10 acres and do not account for separated, single residences in rural areas.

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The bees’ honey is largely organic because pesticide use has been banned in Tokyo city parks and gardens. Photo: by Chris Hondros

It’s effective in changing people’s mindsets

(AFP)
21 July 2010

TOKYO — Tokyo’s Ginza district is usually abuzz with shoppers and office workers, but high above its skyscrapers nature-lovers have created a home for real busy bees — the ones that make honey.

It’s part of a project to bring a slice of natural life back to the centre of the world’s largest urban sprawl, a cityscape home to more than 30 million people that stretches far beyond the horizon.

Eleven storeys above the heart of the Tokyo concrete jungle — with its beehive office partitions and swarms of suit-clad worker-bees — enthusiasts have stacked up beehives dripping with golden honey.

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