Category — Events

The Prince has turned his Château de la Bourdaisière in Touraine into a high-end destination with its National Conservatory of Tomatoes (650 varieties) and historical vegetable and medicinal gardens.

The Prince Gardener Louis Albert de Broglie
Monday, May 2 at 7pm, 2011
Part of a series “Art de Vivre: Gardens for Gourmets”
by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF)

Founder of the luxury garden brand Le Prince Jardinier and owner of the renowned natural science institution Deyrolle, de Broglie will discuss the rise of garden tourism and biodiversity in 21st-century gardens. He will appear in conversation with Roger Doiron, head of Kitchen Gardeners International and a lead activist behind Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden at the White House. FIAF Members, $20, Non-Members $25.

Excerpt about the Prince:

The recent story of Louis Albert de Broglie is very much linked with his interaction with the Château de la Bourdaisière that he bought with his brother in 1991.

[Read more →]

“You’ve been awarded a Best of Green Award in our Food & Health category!”

See the award page here.

Early issues of Organic Gardening Magazine.

OG Magazine wins TreeHugger “Reader’s Choice” Award 1st place. City Farmer 2nd.

Started in 1942, Organic Gardening’s hard-copy magazine has a circulation today of over a quarter of a million. Founded by J.I Rodale, Rodale’s magazines reach more than 45 million readers in more than 50 countries around the world. The publisher of Men’s Health, Prevention, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Running Times, Bicycling, Mountain Bike, and Organic Gardening, Rodale is the leader in providing actionable, authoritative, and engaging health and wellness content.

[Read more →]

April 7, 8, 2011, Seixal County, 20km from Lisbon

The congress will take place at Municipal Auditorium of Seixal County, on 7 and 8 April. Seixal is a county on the south bank of the Tagus River, about 20km from Lisbon

April 7 (Thursday)

8:30 – Reception
9:00 – Opening Session
Presidente da Câmara Municipal do Seixal, Alfredo Monteiro / Vereador do Pelouro do Ambiente e Serviços Urbanos, Joaquim Tavares/ Ministério da Agricultura, do Desenvolvimento Rural e das Pescas / Quercus – Associação Nacional de Conservação da Natureza

Panel 1 – Public Policies and Planning
Moderador: Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles (Arquitecto Paisagista)
Relator: Giovanni Allegretti (Arquitecto, Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra)

[Read more →]

Du 15 au 19 août 2011 à Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal (Canada)

Pour une troisième année consécutive le Collectif de recherche sur l’aménagement paysager et l’agriculture urbaine durable (CRAPAUD), en association avec l’Institut des sciences de l’environnement, vous convie à cinq jours de formation sur l’agriculture urbaine (AU) et ses différentes facettes. Cette école se veut un creuset multidisciplinaire à l’émergence de l’agriculture urbaine. Il se veut un lieu et moment de rencontre entre les différents acteurs de l’agriculture urbaine au Québec, mais aussi d’ailleurs.

[Read more →]

Ecocity 2011 – Montréal (Québec, Canada), August 2011

Call for papers for the theme : Urban Agriculture
The deadline for proposal submission is January 31, 2011

Biodiversity, green spaces and urban agriculture are inter-related concepts which contribute (directly and indirectly) to our general well-being: to health, the environment, and the quality of our lives and that of the landscape around us. Over the past few years, science has made possible many advances in indentifying the social, economic and ecological importance of biodiversity and urban agriculture. Among these are solar shading and the reduction of urban heat islands, increasing urban surface permeability and rainwater capture, removing atmospheric pollutants, and food production.

[Read more →]

Event: Urban Agriculture: Growing Healthy, Sustainable Places (S461)

Paper: The role of urban agriculture in building resilient cities in developing countries

Event: American Planning Assoc. National Planning Conference
in Boston, MA from April 9-April 12, 2011

Urban Agriculture: Growing Healthy, Sustainable Places (S461)

Description:
Urban agriculture is a key component of the emerging practice area of community and regional food systems planning. Explore the forms, types, dimensions and prerequisites for urban agriculture and consider the policies and public planning mechanisms used to support it.

[Read more →]

The Garden of Eden, December 30, 1978. Photo by Harvey Wang

Adam Purple and the Garden of Eden – Photographs by Harvey Wang

Harvey Wang, Photographer
January 4, 2011

NEW YORK: January 8, 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the destruction of The Garden of Eden, an earthwork created by Adam Purple that once spanned five city lots on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This selection of Harvey Wang’s photographs, for the most part unpublished and on display for the first time, documents the expansion of the Garden from 1978 to 1985. Rare prints of a few of Adam’s 1975-76 negatives will also be shown.

In 1975, Adam Purple set out to plant a garden behind his tenement building at a time when the Lower East Side was a crime-ridden wasteland. It was a massive undertaking – the site had been buried in rubble from the demolition of two other tenements. While clearing nearly 5,000 cubic feet of debris using only simple tools and raw muscle power, Adam began to create his own topsoil from materials he found at the site and around the city.

[Read more →]

Peri-urban vegetable farm in Burkina Faso. Photo by Timothy J. Krupnik.

City-planners must make urban horticulture an integral part of their development and planning strategies to meet the challenges of improving nutrition and feeding a growing population in the face of rapid urbanization, FAO Assistant Director-General Modibo Traoré told a symposium on urban and peri-urban horticulture in Dakar, Senegal.

Written by Adeleke Mainasara
Africa Science News
07 December 2010

Excerpt:

“It is time to act to ensure urban and peri-urban horticulture finds its rightful place in greener cities development policies and that it will be synonymous with opportunities and hope for the inhabitants,” he said.

More than half the world’s population, 3.3 billion people, now lives in urban areas, one billion of them residing in slums, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. As the global population increases three billion more city dwellers are expected by 2050.

[Read more →]

This issue profiles innovative urban agriculture policies and projects

Fall 2010
Vol. 12. No. 4

CitiesAlive will be in Vancouver from November 30th to December 3rd – the 8th Annual Green Roof and Wall Conference. See website here. A new course on Rooftop Urban Agriculture will be launched at CitiesAlive.

In this issue:

Urban Agriculture – Designing the edible building envelope

Seattle City Council, sponsor of the City’s new urban agriculture policy.

Farming for the City. From barren, unproductive rooftop to fertile agricultural oasis teeming with people, chickens and bees, Brooklyn’s Eagle Street Rooftop Farm is a catalyst for community and food security.

Diary of an Urban Apiarist. When bees go to collect nectar, they don’t use shopping carts. These and other lessons learned from the front-lines of rooftop pollinator pampering in New York City.

[Read more →]

Zellen. Life Science – Urban Farming lectures

Nov. 2010
In German

Excerpt:

Between workshops on harvesting, collecting seeds, the garden can be explored. The youth clubs of HAU present material they have worked on for several months, and die Helmis will show “Hans-Guck-in-die-Luft”. The mother of 19-year-old Hans is an outstanding tightrope walker, and his father a famous ornithologist. Hans is clumsy and living in his own world, but he is also a very talented draughtsman and bird voice imitator who has to cope with the conflict between an artist’s life and reality.

[Read more →]

Official unveiling of the Ranch on Nov. 12–13 with two days of special programs

Symposium: Bringing Home the Ranch
Nov 12, Friday

Bringing Home the Ranch will combine talks from experts covering a range of perspectives with a student poster session and garden tour. This one-day symposium will bring together academics and professionals interested in the future of urban agriculture and introduce the Huntington’s experimental urban agricultural station, the Ranch. Gary Paul Nabhan, world-renowned ethnobotanist, ecologist, writer, and grower of heritage food crops, will be the keynote speaker.

[Read more →]

Boy Thinning Beets to Give Room for Development, Fairview Garden School, Yonkers, N.Y. 1906

November 3, 2010 – Creative Action and Everyday Urban Agriculture

Panel: Laura DeLind, Eve Mosher, Tattfoo Tan, Domenic Vitiello
Moderator: Jean Gardner

Urban agriculture in the United States, as panelist Domenic Vitiello has written, takes the form of everyday urbanism, “largely disconnected from the world of professional design.” The role of creative action in urban agriculture practices is explored by an urban historian, anthropologist, architect, and two artists. What does it mean for individuals in communities engaged in creative practice to reconnect to their food, neighbors, and environment through urban agriculture? What is the significance of the resulting physical engagement with place that growing food requires?

[Read more →]

Going Green and Growing Health, Wealth, and Justice

November 19-21 at Brooklyn College. New York City. This November, the first annual conference to forge food, farming, and policy solutions for the Black Community will convene at Brooklyn College in New York City, convening farmers, gardeners, activists, students, and the community leaders from across the nation.

Why focus on food, farming and justice NOW?

The health and livelihoods of African Americans are in danger, and our increasing alienation from our food sources is to blame.

Our farmers are in peril:

In 1920, over 14% of U.S, farmers were African American.
In 2007, less than 2% of U.S. farmers are African American.
Only 110 of more than 56,000 farmers in New York State are African American.

[Read more →]

Engineering Society of Detroit and the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers present:

October 28, 2010
Rock Financial Showplace
Novi, Michigan

If you think urban farming is a Detroit issue or will impact those in the agriculture-related fields only, think again. If you are an engineer, a healthcare practitioner, an energy stewart, or work in the academic field, then you must attend this conference and find out how this slowly emerging industry will impact EVERYONE in the State of Michigan.

The conference will feature four panel presentations with renowned speakers, who will examine urban farming in other states, discuss controversial issues surrounding this field, and outline how urban agriculture can become a statewide initiative.

[Read more →]

How can we, as architects, interface with the flourishing food production movement in our City?

AIA|LA C.O.T.E. presents
URBAN FARMING: Why is LA a Hungry City
Thursday, October 28 (7:00pm)
AIA Los Angeles
AIA|LA COTE examines the worldwide environment and resource-availability of the natural built environments; addresses global issues; defines sustainable architecture and settlement planning.

The world’s population growth has stressed the food infrastructure not only in remote and unknown countries but also our own. Moreover the increased awareness of the relationship between food and health issues along with the proliferation of fast food venues have added to the urgency for solutions.

While much interest is focused on establishing agriculture as an urban pursuit, challenges to the reality of farming in the city still exist. What laws and policies interface with the possibility for growing food in Los Angeles and what are the constraints of moving food, distributing food, and accessing food? How can we, as architects, interface with the flourishing food production movement in our City?

[Read more →]

Below the Manhattan Bridge. Photo by Tony Shi. See larger version and more of the artist’s work here.

Living Concrete – Carrot City Series

October 13, 2010: Planning, Food and the Neighborhood – Spotlight on Solar Decathlon and the Chase Community Development Competition
Presenters: Laura Briggs and Alison Mears
Respondents: Kubi Ackerman, Daniel Hernandez, Lara Penin
Moderator: Bill Morrish

October 20, 2010: Urban Agriculture: Perspectives from Toronto
Panel: James Kuhns, Joe Lobko, Wally Seccombe.
Respondents: Sarah Brannen, Judith LaBelle
Moderator: Joe Nasr

[Read more →]

Green Thumb helps 600-800 urban farms in five boroughs

By Howard Adam Levy
Red rooster group
Sept 21, 2010

Excerpt:

Will urban gardens save America? This lofty topic was taken on tonight by a panel of experts representing different aspects of the urban agriculture movement that provided an interesting overview of the issue.

Teaching kids to eat dandelion leaves, ensuring capital for commercially-scalable urban agricultural projects, and the impracticality of rooftop gardens were themes that punctuated the diverse conversation in an exploration of how we grow our food.

The session, called Urban Agriculture: The Opportunity and Obstacles, was sponsored by the NYU Stern Social Enterprise Association.

[Read more →]

Farm workers Tim Wilson (left) and Ken Dunn survey early fall turnips. Photo By Letitia L. Star.

A celebration of sustainable gardening at City Farm

City Farm’s Urban Harvest will offer fun outdoor activities for children and adults, from 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 9, and is held on-site at City Farm, which occupies an acre at the intersection of Clybourn Avenue and Division Street.

About City Farm

An initiative of the Resource Center, City Farm is a sustainable vegetable farm bordering Chicago’s Cabrini-Green and Gold Coast neighborhoods. City Farm boasts thirty varieties of tomatoes as well as beets, carrots, potatoes, gourmet lettuces, herbs and melons. All produce is grown in composted soil generated from local sources, such as kitchen trimmings from some of the city’s finest restaurants.

[Read more →]

Features creative research projects and design interventions from the New School in New York

October 1 – December 15, 2010
Opening Reception: September 30, 2010, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery

Living Concrete is co-curated by Nevin Cohen and Radhika Subramaniam.

Living Concrete/Carrot City features creative and research projects that demonstrate the possibilities of urban agriculture.  Linking sociologist Thomas Lyson’s coinage “civic agriculture” to Josef Beuys’s influential formulation of social transformation and individual creativity, “social sculpture”, the exhibition argues that everyday practices of food production and distribution in cities, in the actions of ordinary people in local neighborhoods, register as quiet but persistent challenges to the agro-industrial complex.

[Read more →]