Category — Entrepreneurs

Stanford Daily – ‘Breaking News from the Farm since 1892’

By Graciela Watrous
The Stanford Daily
May 9, 2013

Excerpts:

Unlikely as it sounds, Detroit has no real shortage of small-scale urban farms. In the last couple of years it has been estimated that there are as many as 355 urban agricultural farms and gardens in the city. Most of them are small, and many of them are non-profit community gardens. Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, for example, runs one of the more successful community gardens within the city limits. It hosts a 1.5-acre vegetable garden and an apple orchard. Several other NGOs have sprung up in the last couple of years, like Greening of Detroit, which has given the urban agricultural movement in Detroit legitimacy and force.

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Urban farming jewelry by le FabShop.

FabJam event theme: ‘Urban Farming’

Projects such as:

Veggiecoaster:
Garden planted in a wagon which can be shared between neighbours via balconies / windows plants seeded in eco flower pots made from ironed plastic bags.

FabLab Farm:
Bee-hive-shaped automated window farming for fish, herbs, veggies.

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Ron Finley practices what he preaches at home in Los Angeles. Photo by Emily Berl.

“I want to turn shipping containers into healthy cafes where customers can pick their salad and juice off the trees.”

By David Hochman
New York Times
May 3, 2013

Excerpt:

The talk show host Carson Daly, the actress Rashida Jones and the celebrated Danish chef René Redzepi were among hundreds of new admirers issuing shout-outs on Twitter.

Alice Waters stopped by Mr. Finley’s house, Russell Brand put him on his late-night talk show, and corporations like Reebok, Disney, Stihl and Toms Shoes had collaboration ideas. A graduate student asked to write a dissertation about Mr. Finley, who, to his credit, has kept an eyebrow arched over his newfound fame.

“All the attention in the world won’t do my dishes,” he said.

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Interview with Will Allen

By Lynne Rossetto Kasper
The Splendid Table
May 2, 2013

Excerpt:

LRK: But instead you ended up producing 40 tons of food a year from those 3 acres.

WA: You could quantify it in a number of different ways. We grow enough food there to feed about 10,000 people in a very intense and integrated food system. We grow about 150 different crops in an unusual way.

We started out as a for-profit for the first 2 years. I was working with kids in the neighborhood, teaching them about where their food came from. Some of my friends said, “Why don’t you start a nonprofit?” I said, “No, I like working with kids. If we start doing this nonprofit piece, I would need help.” They volunteered to be the first board and do the administrative piece, because I said, “I don’t want to sit in the office and write grants.” That’s how we got started back in 1995.

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“Chickens are a symbol of urban nirvana, their coops backyard shrines to a locavore movement.”

By Michaeleen Doucleff
NPR
May 01, 2013

Excerpt:

When Julie Baker’s backyard birds started spending more time inside, it was tough to keep them clean. So she got innovative.

She sewed up a cloth diaper — chicken-sized, of course — added a few buttons and strapped it onto her little lady.

One thing led to another, and eventually, a business was born.

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49 Myrtle Street in Somerville

Each unit has two 4 by 8 raised bed/imported-clean-soil garden beds. At this time no one is raising chickens and or beekeeping. I am very open to this happening and am willing to help pay for any infrastructure that will stay-with-the-house. Any chicken or beekeeping needs to be approved prior to installation.

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SoilWeb App.

Who Let the Bugs Out, SoilWeb app, ID Weeds app, Growing Degree Days app

By Frank Gublo
Michigan State University Extension and MSU Product Cente
April 27, 2013

Excerpt:

Technology can help the urban grower manage their market gardens

Technology has become increasingly important in agriculture production in recent years. With the advent of portable devices, technology can be taken to the field and used for a various production management functions with regard to weed and insect management, growing degree days, and soils characteristics. Mobile applications on smart phones and other devices are another tool to aid in a grower’s decision-making process.

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One advantage of using a Crop Crate over planting vegetables directly into your yard is that much of the local soil may be contaminated.

By Elyse Andrews
Sommerville Beat
April 30 2013

Excerpt:

Crop Crates are orchard-style crates used to grow vegetables, herbs or flowers. The company builds them in two sizes, 4-feet by 5-feet or 2-feet by 3-feet (both are about 36-inches high), then delivers them to your house, school or business and fills them with organic material.

“Living in the city, I’ve always wanted to have my own garden and wasn’t able to do that,” said Chris Nicholl, Crop Crate founder and Arlington resident. Nicholl has find memories of being a kid in Medford growing vegetables with his family in their yard. He wanted to bring that same experience to people living in the city today, so The Crop Crate Company was born.

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“This charming coop is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to easily move their flock’s residence around to different locations in the yard. Just lift with the wheelbarrow-style handles, and roll it to a new site!”

The company sells some 90 varieties of chickens; the multitude of colors, feather patterns, statures, shapes and sizes of the birds is breathtaking.

By Marty Jerome
Entrepreneur
April 22, 2013

Excerpt:

Selling pet chickens by mail may sound like a business scheme that isn’t fully incubated, but for married couple Derek Sasaki and Traci Torres of Monroe, Conn., it has turned into a multimillion-dollar venture, My Pet Chicken (MPC). And why not? Chickens make antic companions–less needy than dogs, less judgmental than cats–and you’ll always have eggs for breakfast.

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Community gardens in San Francisco that will seamlessly roams from one vacant lot to the next

By Stephanie Houston
Good
Apr 18, 2003

Excerpts:

NOMAD’s first site is well-positioned along what will be a retail corridor, in a lot currently slated as a park. The layout includes both a shared community plot as well as over 200 individual plots. A service zone provides a rinse and compost station, rainwater storage collection, and shipping containers that can be used for tool storage. The location of the shipping containers also provides a branding and artistic opportunity to the street-facing side.

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Consumers are encouraged to start their own juice carton herb gardens by cutting off the bottom portion of their Happy Planet 1.89 L juice carton and planting seeds.

Win a year’s worth of fresh organic produce delivery service

Press Release: Happy Planet Launches Grow For Good Campaign to inspire the urban farmers of tomorrow. On Earth Day, April 22, Happy Planet is launching the “Grow For Good” campaign and online photo contest. The contest is designed to encourage consumers to ‘grow’ a greater appreciation for fresh food and for the younger generation to develop a curiosity about where food comes from – by starting their own Happy Planet juice carton herb garden.

“We are looking to inspire younger generations to ask questions about what they eat and where it comes from,” said Happy Planet founder Randal Ius. “Creating a ‘Grow for Good’ juice carton herb garden is a fun and creative activity that will also help foster an enthusiasm for fresh food; inspiring both the urban farmers – and consumers – of tomorrow.”

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Above: This spring marks the first anniversary of a city ordinance that lets residents keep chickens, goats and bees in their backyards. The relaxed homesteading rules have had a major impact on business at City Farmers Nursery in City Heights. Video by Brian Myers.

He visits the grocery story just once every three months, relying instead on the nursery for 98 percent of his food.

By Brian Myers
KPBS
April 17, 2013

Excerpt:

Bill Tall, whom neighborhood residents adoringly call “Farmer Bill,” said he’s seen an increase in sales as he’s adapted his business to fill a niche created by the new rules.

“Before the new changes in the ordinances, we had a lot of people that were interested in raising their own food, having their own chickens, bees, goats and stuff,” Tall said. “They would do it kind of stealth. They would come in and get a few baby chicks that we sold, but we didn’t sell feed and feeders and all. Now people are able to do it legally, with certain parameters. It’s really grown.”

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Bill Bezuk, owner of the Eugene Backyard Farmer in Oregon, has opened what he believes is the first chicken hotel in the country. Photo by Bill Bezuk.

When it comes to chickens the ‘cluck’ stops here

By Isolde Raftery
NBC News
April 11, 2013

Excerpt:

Chicken owners often take to urban farming blogs with this lament: Where to house the ladies when they leave town?

Bill Bezuk, owner of Eugene Backyard Farmer in Eugene, Ore., used to offer a chicken sitting service, but biking around town before and after work proved onerous, so he came up with another idea: a luxury chicken hotel.

Bezuk named it The Nest, and for now there are two suites next to Bezuk’s urban farming supply store: The Blue Andalusian and the Gold Campine. (The former is named for a rare breed with black or mottled feathers; the former is a haughty show chicken with a perky chest.)

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See urban faming network at minute eight of the video.

Tastes Like Cricket: Designing A Delicious, Insect-Based Food System

By Patrick James
Fastcoexist
Apr 9, 2013

Excerpt:

“If you roast wax worms, which are these little caterpillars that eat only honey,” says Aguirre-Bielschowski, “they taste pretty much like pistachios. Locusts, they’re very nutty, kind of like walnuts. Crickets are different, actually very meaty. So if you pan fry them, they taste a bit like sausages. And obviously I think the first time you try them, you associate them with a lot of things that are already familiar to you. But as you eat them more and more you start recognizing their own flavors.”

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Lost No Labor by Soft Cat donates proceeds to Whitelock Community Farms in Baltimore, MD

In February of 2013, Soft Cat returns with Lost No Labor, an album that marks a step forward in Soft Cat’s sound pushing the delicateness of arrangements and the richness of tones to a much more mature level. With the live formation constantly rotating from members traveling in-between cities, Soft Cat at its core has become Neil Sanzgiri, Kate Barutha and Brendan Sullivan and features members of other Baltimore bands such as Secret Mountains, Small Sur, Strange Fur, Wing Dam, and Weekends. Drawing upon that flux in geography, Soft Cat’s Lost No Labor attests to the band’s scale and warmth and marks and shows a steady progression towards a follow up to Wildspace that has taken nearly two years.

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Many public parks prohibit or at least restrict foraging. New York City parks adopted a non-foraging stance.

By Marti Maguire
Reuters
CARRBORO, N.C., March 23

No arugula could be found in the salad mix for sale this month at a new outdoor food market in North Carolina. Instead, tiny purple nettle flowers were scattered among the familiar pointed oval leaves of the chickweed plant.

Familiar, that is, because the plant grows wild in yards, fields and pavement cracks in the town of Carrboro, North Carolina, and across much of North America.

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Kickstarter vacant lot project

By Robert Hohne

Excerpt:

If you drive around New Orleans you’ll notice that there are tons of vacant lots–especially in certain neighborhoods. So a few months back I thought it would be an awesome idea to turn one of them into a productive farm that could grow everything from micro greens to beets to okra. Well maybe not everything. But there is plenty that can be grown in the city, which actually presents several advantages over farming in a more rural environment.

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The Urban Farm Company Of Colorado builds the gardens

By Bryant Mason
Stapleton Denver
March 4, 2013

Excerpt:

My business, The Urban Farm Company of Colorado, will be installing high-yield, organic, vegetable gardens at the new Stapleton Visitor Center as an example of how vegetable production can be sewn beautifully into new landscaping. Think ripe heirloom tomatoes hanging five feet above the ground on a trellis. Many of Stapleton’s homebuilders will also be displaying small, raised-bed gardens at their model homes (so watch out for them). Additionally, I will be teaching gardening classes and visiting the gardens throughout the season. Plus, I will always be available to answer questions and help homeowners launch their own gardens.

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(Must see. Mike)

GrowShare is an online resource committed to helping citizens find jobs, clean up their community, decrease crime, and beautify their neighborhood.

By Juliana Reyes
Technically Philly
March 8, 2013

Excerpt:

GrowShare, an urban farming marketplace built by Temple University‘s Urban Apps and Maps Studio, was named a runner-up in the global Google Places API Developer Challenge.

The app, which has not officially launched yet, lets users find vacant lots for urban farms, track those in progress and exchange resources for these projects. The project was led by Temple professor Justin Shi, one of the heads of the Urban Apps and Maps Studio, which aims to train students to build civic-minded startups.

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Brooklyn start-up Bitponics makes urban farming a bit more convenient with its smart device and website that helps you manage your greens from a remote location.

By Bob Wiebes
Popupcity
March 6, 2013

Excerpt:

In the past we have featured similar initiatives such as Farmhopping, which connects real-world farmers to virtual ones where the real-world farmers would help their virtual counterparts to take decisions on their farm and together manage it as best as possible, combining both their knowledge and exploiting it to the fullest. Bitponics makes all this remote farming a bit more real though, as there are no virtual crops or plants involved with their ‘real-life Farmhopping’.

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