Down (Town) on the Farm

Seattle’s P-Patch garden management system, which oversees 73 P-Patches distributed throughout the city, equals approximately 23 acres and serves about 2,000 households.

Urban farming entrepreneurs spread their seeds

By Ashley Deforest
Sustainable Industries
Sept. 1, 2010
Ashley Deforest is Community Relations Planner at King County Department of Transportation and a Director at Woonerfs Consulting.

Excerpt:

Skeptics are quick to note that, in the current economic climate, where many developable properties remain fallow, urban agriculture presents itself as an attractive interim use. But, as Kalin of Virtually Green notes, as the economy improves urban farms may be dislocated and left to the wayside unless the green building movement can absorb these farms and produce a similar level of food.

Kalin is putting his energy toward what he considers a more sustainable solution. In nearby Concord, Calif., a city of about 125,000 people located just 31 miles east of San Francisco, Kalin, through the Sustainable Commercial Urban Farm Incubator (SCUFI), is trying to create a commercially viable urban farm model that can be replicated elsewhere.

Like other business incubators, SCUFI is setting out to equip the next generation of urban farmers with access to capital, solid business skills, shared resources and a support network. But where it differs is that it also provides new farmers with education around sustainable farming skills.

Virtually Green, which also gives virtual tours of green buildings through www.virtuallygreen.com, is partnering with California Farm Link, the Monument Community partnership and the Michael Chavez Center for Economic Opportunity to set up a comprehensive support network for new urban farmers. Among the programs being instituted are a micro-financing program for start-up capital, a shared tool and equipment library and an urban farm-co-op.

“Successful farmers have one eye on the morning farm report and another eye on the spreadsheet,” Kalin says. “The SCUFI program teaches a lot more than setting up beds to grow veggies.” Kalin says he hopes SCUFI can cultivate the urban agriculture movement so it can be sustained over the long term.”

Read the complete article here.