Mayor Ed Lee signs new legislation allowing for the sale, pick- up and donation of fresh food and horticultural products. Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle.

“We’re going to make this legal!”

By John Coté, Michael Cabanatuan, Heather Knight, Will Kane
San Francisco Chronicle
April 21, 2011

Excerpt:

It’s no longer illegal to grow Swiss chard in your backyard and sell it to the corner restaurant.

Mayor Ed Lee on Wednesday signed legislation that allows for “urban agriculture” throughout the city, including the sale of garden produce.

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Officials aim to turn over 10 vacant acres to farmers

By Julie Scharper
The Baltimore Sun
April 20, 2011

Excerpt:

Baltimore officials are working to make urban farming more familiar to the city. Baltimore’s food czar, the health department and the Office of Sustainability hope to turn 10 acres of city-owned vacant lots into farmland. They now are seeking farmers to tend the plots.

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Urban Farmers: Left, Sue Reddington with Victoria Burgess-Hall, a 17-year-old on work experience. Photo by Mark Bickerdike.

“Some people were afraid we were introducing a lot of hippies into Meanwood.”

Yorkshire Post
Apr. 18, 2011

Excerpt:

Thirty years ago this July, the Lord Mayor of Leeds officially opened the Meanwood Valley Urban Farm – one of the first of its kind. It seemed like a good time to ask how the books are balanced.

The front-of-house hens, which wander freely, are backed up by a couple of hundred standard hybrids laying eggs in a deep-litter barn with access to the outdoors – but not quite enough space to be called free-range. The market garden is run on organic lines but without a Soil Association certificate, which is too expensive for the turnover, and it supplies fruit and veg to a smart Leeds restaurant, The Cross Keys on Water Lane, as well as the farm’s own shop. Bees chip in honey. Two little Dexter cows used to get bulled by arrangement and produce a calf each for the market for hobby cattle, but are now semi-retired.

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Jesse Payne grows vegetables in a collection of Ottawa backyards. Photo by Heather Heagney/Post Media News.

Real motivation is apparent – flavour

By Shelagh McNally,
Postmedia News
April 21, 2011

Excerpt:

This summer Jesse Payne will be digging up lawns in Ottawa to plant vegetable gardens in place of grass. He doesn’t actually own the land -owners have willingly handed over their property to his company in exchange for veggies.

“Vegetable Patch is an agribusiness that gets people who don’t have time to garden to share their backyards. In exchange for the use of their space, homeowners receive baskets of vegetables throughout the growing season,” says Payne. “We are starting our fourth year and currently have 12 gardens just outside the downtown region of Ottawa.”

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