Posts from — February 2011

Steve Rapasky, director of the Burgh Bees community apiary on Susequanna Street, poses for a portrait inside the apiary Monday. Rapasky lives in Dormont. Photo by Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette.

Horses and pigs are not considered pets under the city code. Under the new rules, a person with under 3 acres must seek special permission to have either animal.

By Joe Smydo
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
February 08, 2011

Excerpt:

The city of Pittsburgh has new regulations for the increasingly popular practice of urban agriculture, such as the raising of honeybees and chickens, but time will tell whether the rules are the bee’s knees or something to squawk about.

Council approved the guidelines last week. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s office had proposed most of the changes to complement other greening initiatives — and to make sure people and animals peacefully co-exist in city neighborhoods.

[Read more →]

Isolde.

Since this is our first season, our rewards so far have been purely visual

By Lydia Strand
Urban Farm Hub Team
February 8th, 2011

Excerpt:

When I tell people that my husband and I keep sheep in the city, some giggle, some are shocked, and almost all want to know how? why? what? So here’s a little background.

[Read more →]

A guide for planning urban agriculture programs in secondary schools using Illinois core curriculum materials

By Paul Hemp, Roger Courson, Jim Ethridge
Dept. of Vocational and Technical Education
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
1981

Abstract:

Urban agriculture may be defined as those areas of agriculture that are practiced in metropolitan settings, plus knowledge and skills in agricultural subject areas which lead to vocational proficiency and improved quality of life or effective citizenship. Agriculture areas that are especially significant in urban settings include ornamental horticulture, companion animals, food processing, conservation and ecology, agricultural marketing and gardening.

[Read more →]

Veuillez trouver ci-joint le numéro 1 du Bulletin d’information « Villes Agricoles » édité par le Bureau Agriculture Urbaine de l’IAGU.

Fanta CISSAO
Secrétaire de Direction
Bureau Agriculture Urbaine
de l’Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine (IAGU-BAU)
BP : 104 Tél : (226) 20 98 16 54
Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
Email : iagu.aup@iagu.org

See the 10 page bulletin here (3MB).

A farmer, eh? Master of your own time, down to the city for a spree. Y’know, I’ve always wanted to break away and have a little farm in the country.”

[This article first appeared in American Mercury (November 1937).

I used to be a timid, thin man. I never got on very well in the city. When I was talking to people, they tended to drift away, or they turned to someone else and said: "Having nice weather, aren't we?" I didn't see in my job any of the heroic aspects my superiors were always glorying in, so probably I wasn't very good at it.

For a while I turned to poetry and wrote a beauty about the song of the hermit thrush, but everybody in the office thought it was la-di-da. I didn't like noise or smoke or subways or hurrying or playing golf or getting drunk Saturday nights, so I began to think there must be something wrong.

I went to a psychoanalyst who told me I disliked everything too much. For this I took a great dislike to the psychoanalyst. I refused to pay five bucks for this new hate, and the psychoanalyst ended by hating me. So I decided to "get away from it all" — to move from the city to the great quiet of the country and simplify my life. I bought a farm far up in New England, and I bought a cow, too. I had always wanted to own a cow and watch it cropping my grass while I dreamed the days away.

[Read more →]

Last years Growing Green Awards winners.

Huffington Post a big supporter of City Farming

By Jonathan Kaplan
Senior policy specialist, Natural Resources Defense Council
Huffington Post
February 5, 2011

Excerpts:

Based on the entries for this year’s Growing Green Awards — NRDC’s annual award series for sustainable food leaders — the victory garden may be making a comeback. When we created the awards in 2009, we received a single nomination for a rooftop farm. Now in our third awards cycle, the application pile is teeming with up-and-coming urban farmers.

The job of selecting NRDC’s 2011 Growing Green Awards winners is looking harder than ever, given so many impressive nominations. This year we received 265 applicants in our categories of Food Producer, Business Leader, Knowledge Leader and Young Food Leader. While there are only four awards, I can tell you that dozens of these food leaders are qualified to win.

[Read more →]

Video documenting the bio-intensive method at work in Kenya

GROW BIOINTENSIVE was developed by John Jeavons and Ecology Action. It has been successfully used in 142 countries around the world. This film was produced to further a global movement toward biologically intensive sustainable farming and the work of Ecology Action and G BIACK.

Link to John Jeavons work here.

Get out of the city and experience rural farming

We’re in our twenty-second year linking Canadian farmers with young folks wanting to work and learn on an organic farm using sustainable practices. Our goals are to encourage the growth of sustainable agriculture, expose potential apprentices to a rural lifestyle offering valuable hands-on learning to acquire the basic skills or even provide the basis for an agricultural career and to assist the farmer with the necessary support required to successfully run their organic operation. The farmers and farm community can also benefit greatly from the influx of new ideas, energy and enthusiasm of apprentices.

[Read more →]

The Disneyland of urban farming

By Alissa Walker
Good
Feb. 2, 2011

Excerpt:

No, Los Angeles still doesn’t have a football team, but a football stadium planned for its downtown just inched closer to reality. Yesterday, Mayor Villaraigosa, development company AEG, and Farmers Insurance announced the $700 million naming rights for a new stadium and convention center complex planned near existing Staples Center. In a few years our NFL team may be playing on Farmers Field.

There are obvious financial benefits, of course, to selling the naming rights so early for a project that has not been approved, for a team that does not exist (the stadium design hasn’t even been decided yet). But I think there’s another benefit to the name Farmers Field. It’s the perfect opportunity for Los Angeles to show its commitment to urban agriculture.

[Read more →]

Jac Smit Library of Urban Agriculture

Opens to the public on Tuesday 1 February 2011

Background and overview

The Toronto Urban Food and Agriculture Learning Centre (TUFALC), a joint venture of FoodShare Toronto and MetroAg – Alliance for Urban Agriculture, is now open to the public, providing resources to researchers, practitioners, advocates and others interested in urban food and agriculture matters in greater Toronto, as well as across North America and worldwide. Future plans include the development of a digital library that builds on our existing collections of publications, books, articles, periodicals, unpublished papers (including conference, seminar and workshop reports), computer files, photos, and recordings, to be accessed via the Web.

[Read more →]

Session Internationale De Formation
Processus Participatif De Planification Et De Formulation De Politiques (3pfp) En Agriculture Urbaine

Contexte de la Formation

Les dernières décennies ont été marquées par une augmentation sans précédent de la population urbaine. En Afrique, au Sud du Sahara, plus de 38% de la population vit dans les villes. A l’horizon 2030, il est prévu que près de la moitié de la population de l’Afrique au Sud du Sahara sera urbaine (UNS, 2007). Une telle urbanisation a eu comme corollaire l’exacerbation de la compétition pour l’accès aux biens et services (eau, assainissement, éducation, santé, habitat, etc.) et subséquemment une forte pression exercée sur les ressources disponibles de plus en plus limitées. Cette situation rend également l’accès aux aliments plus difficile.

[Read more →]

By The Huffington Post

The Fountain House, a working community for people with mental illness in New York City, has developed a program for its members to grow their own food using a unique hydroponic growing system.

The hydroponic garden has proved both therapeutic and healthy.

Link here.

High Value Vegetables in Southeast Asia: Production, Supply and Demand
24-26 January 2012 – Thailand

AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center is pleased to announce that registration is open for the Regional Symposium ”High Value Vegetables in Southeast Asia:  Production, Supply and Demand” to be held from 24 – 26 January 2012 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The symposium is jointly organized by the Department of Agriculture of Thailand (DOA), the ASEAN-AVRDC Regional Network (AARNET), the Vegetable Science International Network (VEGINET) and the Horticultural Science Society of Thailand at the occasion of the “Royal Flora Ratchaphruek” festival to commemorate three auspicious occasions for Thailand: the 84th Birthday Anniversary of His Majesty the King, the 80th Birthday Anniversary of Her Majesty the Queen and the 60th Birthday Anniversary of His Royal Higness the Crown Prince.

[Read more →]