New Agtivist: Edith Floyd is making a Detroit urban farm, empty lot by empty lot

Photo by Patrick Crouch.

28 lots, $3,000 — that’s a lot of work.

By Patrick Crouch
Grist
Dec 8, 2011
Patrick Crouch manages a 2.5 acre organic farm which is part of a soup kitchen in Detroit. He also serves on the Detroit Food Policy Council and blogs at Little House on the Urban Prairie.

Excerpt:

Edith Floyd is the real deal. With little in the way of funding or organizational infrastructure, she runs Growing Joy Community Garden on the northeast side of Detroit. Not many folks bother to venture out to her neighborhood, but Edith has been inspiring me for years. I caught up with her on a cold rainy November afternoon. While we talked in the dining room, her husband Henry watched their grandkids.

Q. You haven’t always been an urban farmer. What did you do before this?

A. I worked at Detroit Public Schools. I started out with the Head Start Center and then I went to the middle school, to the Ed Tech, [which is] now the Computer Lab. I started farming because they laid me off and didn’t call me back. Farming is not making a living, it’s just keeping food in my freezer. I try to sell some so I can get some more equipment, so it will be easier for me to farm.

Read the complete article here.

See Little House on the Urban Prairie here.