Posts from — December 2011

Rick visits the 41st annual Canadian Western Agribition in Regina, Saskatchewan

Richard Vincent “Rick” Mercer is a Canadian comedian, television personality, political satirist, and blogger.

See more of Ric on his website here.

And Wikipedia here.

“City farm vegetables are fresh, nutritious and safe, grown in a responsible way”

Why are LEDs extremely suitable for city farms:

With LED lighting it is possible to provide exactly the wavelengths which are useful for growth and development of the crop. Contrary to the sun, traditional assimilation lighting and TL lighting, LED only omits one color of light. No energy is wasted with light spectra that are not used or less used by the plant. This means that LEDs provide exactly the colors which the plant needs for photosynthesis. Plants mainly need blue and red light for photosynthesis and far-red, a color not even visible to the human eye but visible to the plant.

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Safe soil. About this photo: Kids in South Providence have limited access to safe places to play, grow and imagine. SCLT’s Childrens Garden offers a magical oasis where neighborhood youth have a chance to get their hands dirty and fill their bellies with delicious produce they’ve grown themselves.

Four gift cards

These gorgeous 5×8″ glossy photo cards will inspire the food grower in everyone! This is a way to make a donation in someone’s name as a holiday gift. When you purchase a card in someone’s name, just choose the amount you’d like to give. Or order one for yourself. We’ll mail the photo card to you or the recipient with a special message on the back.

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Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) introduced the bill. Kaptur visits with master gardener Rob McCreary, left, of Toledo and Mike Szuberla of the Toledo Grows nonprofit group during the plant sale at Toledo Botanical Garden. Photo by Jetta Fraser.

Quick Summary of H.R. 3225, the Community Agriculture Development and Jobs Act

The Community Agriculture Development and Jobs Act will help create the next generation of farmers in our nation’s cities, reduce foreign agricultural imports, work to eliminate food deserts, strengthen local food systems and increase marketing opportunities for small farmers while improving seniors’ nutrition.

Next Generation of Farmers and Reducing Foreign Agricultural Imports
Economic challenges and land use changes have created vacant land throughout the nation’s cities. These areas could be transformed into greenhouses or community gardens by agricultural entrepreneurs but many of these individuals likely never thought an agricultural related small business was possible in a metro area and USDA has not traditionally engaged these communities.

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Craigslist Los Angeles

2011-12-08
Craigslist
Reply to: kivicasting@gmail.com

Brownstone Entertainment is currently seeking an URBAN FARMING EXPERT for a new documentary-style project.

We’re looking for someone who knows how to plant and care for various fruit and vegetable plants, as well as being able to handle and care for small farm animals including chickens and pygmy goats. Also, a background in simple construction (i.e. chicken coops, planters) would be ideal.

Ideally, our urban farming expert will have a ranch-handy vibe to him. Someone with a sense of authority, but can still be a guy’s guy who kicks back and enjoys a beer after a hard day of urban gardening.

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Save A University Farm from Development

The University of Nevada’s University Farm, a working farm used to teach college students about farming and agriculture, is under attack. The University’s Board of Regents recently voted to have part of the farm rezoned to a light industrial/commercial site. Unless the City Council or University Regents reverse this decision, the 112-year-old farm could be destroyed by commercial development.

The University of Nevada’s College of Agriculture is one of the few colleges in America where students can learn at a working farm on campus. With local, sustainable, urban farms just starting to crop up in cities across America, the country desperately needs collegiate agricultural programs like that which could be offered by University Farm.

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1901 poster declares “Milwaukee Feeds and Supplies the World”.

International team recognizes Milwaukee’s ‘high potential’ to improve access to healthy food, revitalize neighborhoods and create jobs

By Karen Herzog
Journal Sentinel
Sept. 19, 2011

Excerpts:

Milwaukee could become more economically viable and help the world feed itself through urban agriculture and aquaponics – water-efficient systems that can transform abandoned factories and vacant lots into urban farms that raise fish and vegetables, a report released Monday says.

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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?

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Majora Carter talks to these young farmers about what the experience has taught them about a hard day’s work — and about eating hard-earned produce. By Thepromisedland 2004.

A Food project in Manhattan, NY by Juliette LaMontagne

BREAKER is a 12-week program that mobilizes interdisciplinary teams of young, creative collaborators to design solutions to big challenges – in this case, Urban Micro Agriculture. Community gardens, local organic farming, and rooftop farms are a more prevalent part of our lives as we become more conscious of the food industry’s impact on our health, the economy, and the environment. So far, these gardens and farms have been wonderful sources for connecting people to food and to each other, but their impact remains small-scale, benefiting those who can afford to pay a premium for fresh food.

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Market-cargo. Urban farmers riding down Main Street to the market, carrying tent, tables, produce and flowers from south Vancouver. Photo by By Bhlubarber, David Niddrie.

While urban farmers may have gotten some of the answers they were looking for at the forum, it appears they may have actually gotten more questions!

Vancouver Urban Farmers Newsletter
Dec 2011

Excerpts:

The Urban Farming Forum took place on November 25 and 26th, 2011 at Boneta restaurant and SFU Woodwards in Vancouver. Both days were well attended by an enthusiastic crowd of urban farmers, food security advocates, NGO representatives, and consumers.

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Bountiful Backyards is an edible landscaping cooperative

Excerpt from Kickstarters

Bountiful Backyards is an edible landscaping cooperative based in Durham, North Carolina. In the last 5 years we’ve planted more than 1,500 fruit trees and berry bushes, thousands of useful plants, and dozens of organic vegetable gardens. We work throughout the Triangle with people at their homes, schools, community centers, and parks. Our mission is to help people to grow more of their own food where they live, work, and play.

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In this Nov. 15, 2011 photo, Zach Pickens, of Brooklyn, N.Y., manager of Riverpark Farm, tends to his crops, in New York. Instead of allowing stalled projects to become eyesores, some developers are coming up with creative ways to use them temporarily until construction can begin. In New York City, where open space is a precious commodity, just about anything goes. Photo by Richard Drew.

“The bottom line is that even as the economy improves, we’re still going to be stuck with some stalled development that doesn’t actually work with the community.”

By Meghan Barr
Associated Press
December 04, 2011

Excerpt:

NEW YORK — A remnant of the Great Recession is hiding behind a paint-splattered wall in Chinatown, in an empty lot where a building was supposed to rise into the sky.

The plywood barely conceals the mess behind it: a pile of cement blocks and tangled metal and empty bottles of beer. It is, in short, exactly the sort of place that draws the ire of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

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Urban Ag Study Highlights National Best Practices

Report by Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law
Authors:
By Mindy Goldstein Acting Director, Turner Environmental Law Clinic
Jennifer Bellis, Sarah Morse, Amelia Myers, and Elizabeth Ura
Student Attorneys, Turner Environmental Law Clinic
Nov. 2011

Excerpt from EcoWatch article Dec 12, 2011

This report represents one of the most comprehensive, objective presentations of current urban agriculture policies being implemented across the country. Some cities have reacted in a nimble manner, creating conditions that have allowed urban food production to thrive. Other cities are struggling to identify the best mechanisms to spur urban agriculture. What is evident is that there is no one-size fits all policy to address urban agriculture. Each community needs its own nuanced approach to balance the land it has available with the needs of its residents.

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The success of their mini-garden has inspired the Fresh from the Roof team to turn this flat roof into an urban field. In total their farm will cover 7,000 square meters, the size of a football pitch. By Frisch vom Dach.

“This is a gap in the market and we want to close it.”

By Jess Smee
Spiegel Online
Dec 5, 2011

Excerpt:

It is hardly a logical spot for a farm, but three Berliners have earmarked a massive former factory roof for an unusual urban agriculture venture. The sustainable set-up will produce both vegetables and fish for local residents and could be a model for future city farms as the world continues to urbanize.

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FarmRoof in O’ahu

By Laura Poirier
Green
Nov/Dec 2011

Excerpt:

Since each farm is community based, two important factors need to be met to get started: there has to be a business or organization willing to use their roof to grow food, and their must be a community demand for the weekly crop. FarmRoof’s first CSA in Waimanalo, on top of Sweet Home Waimanalo market and cafe, was so well received that every membership available for that particular location was swept up almost immediately. Using roofs owned by Kamehmeha Schools, their next CSA location, Kaka’ako, sprouted this fall, growing a combination of high-nutrient lettuces, kales mustards and herbs. Memberships for 2012 are still available to become part of this CSA location. From there, FarmRoof has plans to spread into Kailua and Waikiki.

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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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Hanayui’ by Takaya Hanayuishi is Eccentrically Grandiose

By Ana Lo
Trend Hunter
Nov 14, 2011

Eccentric headwear is never out of style, especially if this fashion is eco-friendly like the pieces from the collection titled ‘Hanayui’ by Takaya Hanayuishi. The Japanese artist Takaya Harayuishi used flowers and raw fruits to create beautiful adornments for the head.

Link to story.

Link to Takaya Hanayuishi’s website.

See the book here.

By Barbara Damrosch
The Washington Post
November 9, 2011

Writers Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman own and operate Four Season Farm, an experimental market garden in Harborside, Maine. The farm produces vegetables year-round and has become a nationally recognized model of small-scale sustainable agriculture.

Excerpt:

Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, proposed “using the federal tax code to promote gardening through a $1,000/household garden stimulus package.” My own two cents’ worth came in an address at Maine’s Common Ground Country Fair titled “It’s a Cute Little Movement, but Can It Feed the World?” I’d been provoked by a flood of articles declaring that only large-scale, industrial, biotech farms can save our increasingly overpopulated planet. That small farms and gardens cannot do that has become a mantra, self-replicating its merry way to pseudo-truth.

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Illustration by John Roman.

Can Dickson Despommier’s radical vision for urban agriculture take root in the United States

By David J. Craig
Columbia Magazine
Fall 2011

Excerpts:

Planning officials from a dozen American cities, including Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Newark, and Jersey City, have asked Despommier to advise them on how to create vertical farms. But the only major U.S. projects to have moved past the discussion stage are the one in Seattle, which is operated by the young company Civesca, and the farm in Chicago, run by the start-up 312 Aquaponics.

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