Rooftop to Tabletop: Urban Farming Spreads Roots in Chicago

Mike Repkin envisions a series of rooftop farms in Chicago, like this one that he planted and maintains. Photo by Robert Thornton.

50 feet from farm to market and much of that distance is vertical

By Shanti Menon
One Earth
November 9, 2010

Excerpt:

Repkin started his farm in 2006 with Urban Habitat Chicago, a nonprofit group he helped found. The plants and soil sit atop a green roof system made of multiple layers of filtering and insulating materials. Repkin uses no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers and chooses each plant carefully to benefit the rooftop ecosystem. The cover crop of white clover, for example, produces a fibrous root system that defends against invaders and fixes nitrogen to help fertilize the soil. He’s got native prairie plants to bring in beneficial insects. Herbs like basil fetch a good price at the market — a profit incentive for urban farmers and building owners.

“But basil doesn’t keep people alive,” Repkin says. That’s why you’ll find him growing hard red winter wheat on his latest rooftop project, leased from a residential building owner who has agreed to donate some of the produce to the needy, in addition to selling at farmer’s markets. “Our wheat can’t compete on price with 50-pound sacks from Kansas, but it’s critical from a self-sufficiency perspective,” Repkins says. “We could easily make enough rooftop bread to feed someone for a year.”

Repkin has studied the load-bearing strength of other rooftops near True Nature, on either side of the El’s Red Line tracks, and found about 65 acres of potential rooftop farmland. (His lightweight growing system is suitable for most Chicago buildings.) This little slice of urban farms alone could provide about 1,000 jobs, Repkin estimates, and bring in revenues of about $1 per square foot each month – the equivalent of a highly productive organic farm on land.

While Repkin’s roofs are focused on food production, they have numerous environmental benefits. Like a typical green roof, his farm filters and retains stormwater, sequesters carbon dioxide, removes particulate pollution from the air, and insulates and cools the building. It also creates wildlife habitat. Butterflies, birds and honeybees are frequent visitors on this rooftop. Some birds even nest among the clover, plucking straw from the nearby buckwheat and oats to build their nests.

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