The Financial Times published two urban agriculture stories

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The Financial Times has a combined print and online average daily readership of 1.9 million people worldwide

The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organisations, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing essential news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community, the newspaper, printed at 24 print sites across the globe, has a daily circulation of 376,564 (ABC figures August 2010), while FT.com has over 2.7 million registered users and 149,047 digital subscribers. The FT’s combined print and paid digital circulation is 563,026 (Deloitte assured, July 2010) and it has a combined print and online average daily readership of 1.9 million people worldwide (PwC assured, November 2009)

See urban agriculture stories on multi-storey farms and Seattle’s Year of urban agriculture on next page.

Urban agriculture: Multi-storey farms in a city centre near you

By Jane Bird
October 1 2010

Excerpt:

With agricultural land under pressure from climate change, soil erosion and population increase, the solution is to create “vertical farms”, high rise buildings in or near cities that could be used to grow food.

This is the view of Dickson Despommier, professor emeritus of public health at Columbia University, New York, who invented the concept in 1999.

He argues that it would enable year-round crop production safe from droughts, floods and pests, make efficient use of water, and reduce fossil fuel consumption by avoiding the need for heavy machinery and transport. Rural land could be returned to nature.

But when he asked his students to design some prototypes, the results were discouraging. To feed 50,000, the building would need to be the size of a football stadium and 30 storeys high, the students concluded – clearly impractical for many cities.

More recently, Prof Despommier has designed smaller farms that could be constructed incrementally. “They might start in research departments of universities with sponsorship from local government, gradually integrating with schools, hospitals and apartments in a series of smaller iterations that would spread out throughout the city,” he says.

Read the complete article here.

Case study: The Year of Urban Agriculture in Seattle

By Jane Bird
October 1 2010

Excerpt:

More than a century since cattle were banned from grazing in downtown Seattle, the city council has permitted households to keep pigmy goats and up to eight chickens.

The new rules are part of Seattle’s 2010: The Year of Urban Agriculture campaign, and are designed to encourage food production in areas previously designated residential, industrial and commercial zones.

Land use zoning was introduced to keep rural things out of town, says Richard Conlin, president of Seattle City Council, “but now we’re changing the zoning codes to develop a more integrated ecological approach to the city.

“We also have a couple of horse farms, and I wouldn’t rule out cows, although probably not on the streets.”

In addition to legalising livestock, the new regulations encourage the growing, selling and donation of fruit and vegetables. Seattle has one of the US’s largest community garden programmes with 2,500 plots, and a further 1,000 due to become available this year.

Read the complete article here.