City wins IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant to develop urban farms

“We’re getting some really smart people to help us as we move our urban agriculture system to the next level”

By Karen Herzog
Journal Sentinel
March 9, 2011

Excerpt:

IBM will announce Wednesday that Milwaukee is among 24 cities worldwide to receive a Smarter Cities Challenge grant, which will give the city access to top IBM experts and technology to potentially expand local, cutting-edge urban agriculture efforts around the globe.

The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants, valued at about $400,000 apiece, are aimed at helping cities improve one aspect of city life. Issues addressed by winning cities include health care, education, safety, social services, transportation, communications, sustainability, budget management, energy and utilities.

More than 200 cities in 40 countries competed for the 24 grants. IBM plans to award a total of $50 million worth of technology and services to 100 municipalities worldwide over the next three years.

“We’re getting some really smart people to help us as we move our urban agriculture system to the next level,” Mayor Tom Barrett said Tuesday. “They’ll do a systems analysis as to how to grow this to a larger economic scale.”

The grant specifically will look at how water management and aquaculture intersect, and whether there’s a sustainable economic model in Sweet Water Organics, an urban fish and vegetable farm that mimics the Earth’s natural ecosystem in an industrial building in the Bay View neighborhood. Harnischfeger Industries once used the building to make mining cranes.

Read the complete article here.

See IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant website here.