Display from City Slickers urban farm in Oakland.

Under no circumstances should a project proponent take any action that would put the health of urban farmers or the consumers of their produce at risk.

By Markus B. Niebanck
Brownfield Renewal
Markus B. Niebanck, PG is an environmental consultant and Brownfield practitioner working out of Oakland, California.

Excerpt:

Protective alternatives were considered and implemented, and included:

Excavation of shallow soil from property line to property line and the transportation of excavated material to an off-property facility (landfill) for disposal. This is the alternative often recommended by service providers or regulatory agencies that rely on the common residential-standard cookbook approach to site preparation. This approach is often prohibitively expensive.

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Farming Concrete NYC Informational Video from Valerie & Schenkman on Vimeo.

2010 data from NYC, 67 community gardens, 1.7 acres, 87,700 pounds of fresh produce, worth more than $200,000

Open Space Newsletter
Sept 23, 2011

Excerpt:

In 2010, a team of volunteers from Farming Concrete traveled to community gardens around the city, conducting outreach and recruiting city gardeners to participate in the study. Over the summer and fall growing seasons, 110 gardeners weighed all of their produce, mapped their garden beds and counted the total numbers of the crops that they planted. After analyzing the results, Farming Concrete found that in the 67 community gardens from which data was gathered, which make up a total area of just 1.7 acres, 87,700 pounds of fresh produce was grown and worth more than $200,000.

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