Garden Plots at Manatawna Farm in USA

“Make no mistake, I am for urban farming, but not at Manatawna”

By Miriam Hill
Oct 21, 2010
Philadelphia Inquirer

Excerpt:

The City of Philadelphia had hoped to expand urban farming by offering five acres to people who wanted to grow produce on Manatawna Farm in Upper Roxborough.

But some neighbors opposed the plan, and on Wednesday a City Council committee handed them a victory. The Committee on Rules passed a bill that would bar commercial farming and the expansion of community gardens there.

The legislation requires full Council approval, so it’s still possible that the Department of Parks and Recreation could proceed with plans for urban farms there.

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Sophie Hahn’s backyard garden grows new legislation

Backyard Gardeners

By Zusha Elinson
The Bay Citizen
October 20, 2010

Excerpt:

Sophie Hahn famously said it was easier to grow and sell marijuana than vegetables in Berkeley.

Now, at the urging of Hahn, a Berkeley resident with a large garden, the city is moving to make changes to the law that would allow backyard farmers to easily sell their produce.

It’s another example of cities being forced to reckon with the growing urban agriculture and local-food movement. Many cities still have laws on the books from the post-war era that discouraged any type of commercial farming – and other dirty things — inside the city limits.

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Wayne Wadsworth with his aquaculture tank in the backyard of the Reversing Greenhouse House in Goonellabah.

His 1000 litre tank can hold 10-20 perch or 40-60 crayfish

By Liina Flynn
Northern Rivers Echo
21st October 2010

Excerpt:

Wayne believes if more people can produce food in urban areas then rural land could be used for growing large-scale grain crops, or crops to make products currently made out of oil such as bioplastics, or hemp for clothes.

In the backyard in his 1000 litre tank, Wayne currently has a few perch, but said it can hold 10-20 perch or 40-60 crayfish. There are plant pots sitting in the pipes running around the tank, which are watered with the nutrient rich tank water. Deep-rooted plants are planted in the garden to pick up nutrients deep in the soil and are even used in the tank to filter the water. He has created a biological cycle where everything is used: from food scraps which feed the worms, which in turn feed the garden and the chooks.

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Fruits Of Labour: Deepak Heilekar, another urban farming guru, on his terrace garden. Photograph by Apoorva Salkade.

Radish On The Rooftop

By Smita Mitra
Outlook India
October 2010

Excerpt:

For A.M. Malati, who runs her own detective agency in Chennai, as well as an organic farm and a bee farm to boot, it was a heaven-sent opportunity to share her expertise and meet other enthusiasts. Like Moonstar Kaur, for example. Hailing from Chandigarh, this Indie-filmmaker has been growing veggies at her joint-family homestead and also on a plot of land her family owns in the middle of the city. “I think I am the only city farmer in Chandigarh,” she says ruefully. But in nearby Ludhiana, she discovered fellow urban farming buffs, Dinesh and Meenakshi, who grew veggies in broken neon signs and wooden crates.

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