Posts from — December 2010

This year the sales of the produce generated $3,000 in profits

Mr. Brown Thumb
Chicago Garden
09.09.10

Excerpts:

Gardens are great equalizers; they’re also places where people can get a second chance. Today was the annual harvest festival and graduation ceremony at the Cook County Jail’s garden. Really, they need to start calling it an urban farm, a working urban farm. As I blogged about last year, the jail garden constructed a greenhouse and moved ahead with plans to sell produce grown at the jail garden. Charlie Trotter’s and The Publican are two local restaurants that purchased produce grown at the jail garden this year. The bulk of the edible plants grown at the Cook County jail garden were started by detainees from seeds donated by Renee’s Garden, who sells culinary herb and vegetable seeds.

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Mr. Oki at his farm in Tosuka ward in Yokohama, Japan.

The City of Yokohama officially approved Oki’s farming methods in 2005

By CityNet Blog
Nov 25, 2010

Excerpt:

Currently in Japan, it is difficult to grow 100 percent organic vegetables, especially in urban areas as chemicals surround us – such as in our groundwater and air. Despite this, Toshiyuki Oki, has found a way to come as close as possible to truly organic vegetables in the urban centre of Yokohama. Oki, a retired businessman had a simple wish to grow safe vegetables and together with a special net to eliminate the need for pesticides and careful farming methods, he is making it happen.

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Zimbabwean Herbert Nyahanana digs out weeds in a maize field on the outskirts of the capital Harare. Photo by Howard Burditt.

“I have been depending on urban farming for a long time but I can no longer do the farming because houses have taken over.”

By Fungi Kwaramba
The Zimbabwean
08 December 2010

CHITUNGWIZA – Despite the country being soaked with December rains, one feature has disappeared from the face of the ever-expanding town of Chitungwiza – maize fields.

New houses have taken over and urban farming has consequently vanished. Not so long ago people used open spaces in urban areas as mini-fields, but that has gone as urban expansion is increasing at neck breaking pace.

While for some urban farming was a hobby, there are many who relied on it heavily and even had barns in their yards.

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Membership is open to any person that is engaged in farming in Canada

December 8th, 2010

Saskatoon, Sask – National Farmers Union (NFU) membership is now open to urban farmers, according to a resolution passed at the NFU’s 41st Annual Convention, held from December 2-4 in Saskatoon. The NFU constitution, states that, membership is open to any person that is engaged in farming in Canada.

Newly elected, NFU Youth Vice-President, Paul Slomp stated that “young and new farmers are supporting themselves and feeding their communities by producing fruits, vegetables, grains and some cases livestock on lands within city boundaries.” Paul, a livestock farmer from Eastern Ontario, went on to say, “These farmers tend to be well-educated and innovative in their efforts to reclaim unused acreage. The NFU is very inclusive and our members have diverse operations. It makes sense to include urban farmers in the organization.

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Global culinary superstar Jamie Oliver and Toronto anti-poverty activist Nick Saul of the Stop Community Food Centre share ideas in the greenhouse at the Stop’s Green Barn. Photo by Colin McConnell.

“I wish my kids could come to a place like this,” declared Oliver

By Jennifer Bain
The Toronto Star
Nov 26, 2010

Excerpt:

Jamie Oliver brought his food revolution to town last week and left Toronto a fan of Nick Saul’s crew at The Stop Community Food Centre.

Twenty kids from The Stop’s after-school program gathered at the Green Barn on Friday to meet the chef-turned-food advocate. Clad in immaculate white aprons and deftly handling knives, the children — aged 8 to 13 — split into five groups and prepped pancakes with tropical yogurt, chopped salad, fruit salad and chicken nuggets with honey-mustard dipping sauce under the watchful eye of Andrea Maldonado and her volunteers.

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Peri-urban vegetable farm in Burkina Faso. Photo by Timothy J. Krupnik.

City-planners must make urban horticulture an integral part of their development and planning strategies to meet the challenges of improving nutrition and feeding a growing population in the face of rapid urbanization, FAO Assistant Director-General Modibo Traoré told a symposium on urban and peri-urban horticulture in Dakar, Senegal.

Written by Adeleke Mainasara
Africa Science News
07 December 2010

Excerpt:

“It is time to act to ensure urban and peri-urban horticulture finds its rightful place in greener cities development policies and that it will be synonymous with opportunities and hope for the inhabitants,” he said.

More than half the world’s population, 3.3 billion people, now lives in urban areas, one billion of them residing in slums, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. As the global population increases three billion more city dwellers are expected by 2050.

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Photo by Robert Monaghan.

Detroit Demolition Contractor, GB Utilities offers low fees to city and property owners for derelict garage demolition.

Press Release
Emailwire
December 08, 2010

Excerpt:

Arson, rape, kidnapping, assaults, drugs: these crimes and much more harmful activities are taking place in Detroit’s abandoned and derelict buildings.

At a company-wide meeting last month, GB Utilities workers rallied around the concept of “Urban Agriculture.” Cities also are encouraging urban agriculture through the planting of community gardens on vacant lots.

When garages are demolished, the lots left behind may be cleared and cleaned for the planting of gardens. In some neighborhoods, multiple plots may be put together to allow for larger agricultural plantings.

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Essentials of Home Production and Storage. 1978. Published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Salt Lake City, Utah. See the booklet here.

Mark Twain sees home food gardens in Salt Lake City in the 1860’s

From Roughing It by Mark Twain. Roughing It follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861–1867.

“Next day we strolled about everywhere through the broad, straight, level streets, and enjoyed the pleasant strangeness of a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants with no loafers perceptible in it; and no visible drunkards or noisy people; a limpid stream rippling and dancing through every street in place of a filthy gutter; block after block of trim dwellings, built of “frame” and sunburned brick–a great thriving orchard and garden behind every one of them, apparently–branches from the street stream winding and sparkling among the garden beds and fruit trees–and a grand general air of neatness, repair, thrift and comfort, around and about and over the whole.”

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Book to be launched January 12, 2011

From Nourishing the Planet: In just a few short weeks State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet will be launched! We’re excited to share with you a sneak preview of Chapter 1 entitled, “Charting a New Path to Eliminating Hunger,” authored by co-project directors Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg.

Excerpt:

And while most of the world’s poor and hungry remain in rural areas, hunger is often migrating as the world becomes more urban. Where people in cities have jobs and can afford their next meal, the food may come from far away. But for slum dwellers in Kenya and Ghana, the most reliable source of nourishment is often what they can grow themselves in patio gardens, on vacant lots, or on parcels of land near slums. At least 800 million people worldwide depend on urban agriculture for most of their food needs.

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Photo by Emad Badwan

What started as a project from fascination has developed into a relatively lucrative means of contributing to his family’s needs.

By Eva Bartlett
Uruknet.info
2 December 2010

Excerpt:

On the flat, square, cement roof of another Beit Hanoun home, Ahed Shabat, 42, looks after the plants and vegetables growing in tubs and cement planters amidst hung laundry and water tanks.

“We grow things we can use year round, like garlic and onions,” he says. “But also seasonal plants like spinach, parsley, radishes, eggplant, corn, okra and chili peppers.

“We also grow flowers and herbs to use in tea, like mint, mirimiyya and zaatar,” he adds. The latter two herbs, that commonly grow wild in the hills of the occupied West Bank, are a staple for most Palestinians’ tea, and have medicinal uses.

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Illustration: Caldecott, 1885.

Paper in the Journal of Community Practice

By Carrie Drapera; Darcy Freedman
Journal of Community Practice
Dec 1, 2010

Abstract

Community gardens have been a part of modern American culture since the late 19th century. Participation in community gardening has ebbed and flowed in response to changing socioeconomic conditions, and thus the current economic recession has reheightened public interest. In a review of the scholarly literature from 1999 to 2010, rigorous quantitative research studies on the effects of community gardens are found to be sparse; however, a larger body of qualitative data is available. Eleven themes related to the purposes, benefits of, and motivations for participating in community gardens are identified. Community gardens can serve as an effective tool for community-based practitioners in carrying out their roles within the arenas of organizing, development, and change.

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The children were first shown how to loosen the soil and clearing it of stones

Organic Conversations blog
Dec. 2010

Excerpts:

For the last couple of weeks, some of us at the Bangalore Terrace Gardens (BTG) group had been discussing the possibility of community farming with children and today we finally made a start.

It was interesting to watch the children in such a setting. They were keen to help, yet unsure of how to proceed. As one mother shared, ‘ They are so eager to help then why are they being so hesitant to step on the soil or make furrows, etc?” And as we realised, it holds an important learning for us – that the disconnect between today’s children and the earth around them is so real that unless we make efforts like this to familiarise them with it, they will fail to see any connection at all.

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Yohsuke and Kumiko Itoh, with their 5-year-old daughter, Fumi, at Mochida Farms. They say Fumi has begun eating vegetables since they got they began farming on the weekends. Photo by Kenji Hall, For The Times / December 5, 2010.

More city dwellers are renting plots of land in the city or in nearby rural areas, where they grow their own vegetables and fruit. Underlying the trend is the philosophy of jisan jisho, or ‘local food for local consumption.’

By Kenji Hall
Los Angeles Times
December 6, 2010

Excerpt:

The rise of the weekend farmers coincides with an urban agriculture craze that’s turning once-barren city rooftops and verandas into plush gardens.

Underlying the trend is the philosophy of jisan jisho. A Kyoto farm-rental company claims to have coined the phrase, often translated as “local food for local consumption,” which means to eat food that you grow yourself and has its roots in the local food movement.

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Photo by Neil Palmer (CIAT).

With traditional food production under threat from climate change, we should switch from agriculture to cell culture, says Lucía Atehortúa.

Lucía Atehortúa
Science and Development Network
2 December 2010 |

Excerpt:

If climate change begins to limit the global production of food and energy crops, it will be necessary to develop a new system of food production.

Imagine agriculture in small spaces, using high-tech tools such as photo-bioreactors, generating clean products 24 hours a day, every day, regardless of external climatic factors. Imagine that this would be free of pathogens and agrochemicals, independent of the seasons, and with the possibility of growing genetically modified crops without interacting with the environment or affecting existing biodiversity.

This is ‘urban biofarming’, a kind of high-tech agriculture primarily developed for big cities.

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Urban Leaves India
Dec 5, 2010

Early morning on 28th Nov 2010, saw enthusiastic members of the Park join Urban Leaves volunteers at the inaugural heap making day at Nana Nani Park. This is the second Community Urban Farm initiated in Mumbai city by the Urban Leaves Volunteers. The first being at Maharashtra Nature Park.

The project at the Nana Nani Park funded by the Nana Nani Foundation is aimed at providing a green activity of composting organic waste, growing herbal, medicinal plants and veggies in the Natueco way. This activity is mainly for the senior citizen members of the park.

See more photos here.

From The Earth To The Pot from The Paradigm Shift Project on Vimeo.

Video is 20 minutes long. Go to Vimeo to watch it in a larger format, which will make the subtitles easier to read.

From The Earth To The Pot

by The Paradigm Shift Project
Highly recommended. Mike

Among many of Lima’s slum neighborhoods, urban agriculture projects have increasingly become a strategy to improve food security and make communities safer and greener. Community gardening programs throughout Lima are generating greater access to fresh nutritious food, thereby helping to break cycles of poverty and hunger. For this film The Paradigm Shift Project interviewed non-profit organizations; several community garden members and urban farmers; researchers from local nutritional and agricultural institutes; as well as local municipal authorities.

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The New City Farm was launched in June 2010 by New City Public Schools with support from the city of Long Beach, California! It is a professionally managed working farm; we uses garden-based learning to improve academic achievement, promote healthy lifestyles, and encourage environmental stewardship and community involvement.

By Karen Cilento
ArchDaily
July 2010

Excerpt:

Our friends from Studio One Eleven have just broken ground on Long Beach’s newest urban farm. The design is an extension of the New City School, a charter campus within the Long Beach Unified School District, that will teach children important lessons about the environment and nutrition.”The need to grow locally, provide affordable organic foods, and reconnect people to the land is an issue we are very passionate about at Studio One Eleven.

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Historical: Long Beach Ostrich Farm, ca. 1900 By Benham Co.

It shouldn’t be up to your neighbors to decide.
Your happiness is just as important.

By Donna Marykwas, Ph.D.

The neighbors who complained about us are “within spitting distance” of our goat and hen yard, so says Animal Control. Well I can’t spit that far, and even if I could there is a tall wooden fence separating our yards, ensuring that my spit, our animals and any dirt that they generate stay on our side of the fence, not the neighbors’. These same neighbors have a VERY mean dog that they sometimes let out front unleashed. I love dogs, but their dog scares me. In addition, they have a semi-industrial machine shop in their renovated garage in their backyard. I can’t hear myself think over the sound of the power tools, yet they claim that my chickens and goats make too much noise. Listen for yourself . All recordings were taken from the same window that opens onto my animal yard.

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James Boatman, left, with his son Aaron, 12, who’s holding the family’s rooster. The Boatman family practices urban farming raising chickens and produce at their home within the city limits of Independence. Photo by Adam Vogler.

Boatman, who lives in western Independence, owns several dozen chickens – within city limits.

By Adrianne DeWeese
The Examiner
Dec 3, 2010

Excerpt:

Which came first: the chicken or the egg? For Independence resident James Boatman, it doesn’t matter because he has plenty of both.

Omelets, soufflés, quiche, scrambled – you name it, and it’s likely Boatman’s family has enjoyed the dish, featuring the fresh eggs they have each morning. Boatman, who lives on a 1-1/2 acre property on South Claremont Avenue in western Independence, owns several dozen chickens – within city limits. He is part of a nationwide trend of urban farming, a practice in which residents foster the growth of and distribute food in a city.

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US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends:

1. Survey the property and identify potential risks and contaminants for testing.

2. Test your soil. Consider likely environmental contaminants, pH, organic content, and soil nutrients needed for healthy plant growth.

3. Clean contaminants and add soil amendments to create a safe growing environment.

4. Consider garden design including location, crops, water, sunlight, lighting, and accessibility.

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