Category — Livestock

Interview on Michael Olson’s Food Chain Radio #586

USDA Photo by: Arthur Rothstein

“The price city people around the world pay for animal protein is going through the roof. And so we ask: Can livestock be raised in the city?

“As the economies of developing nations produce more prosperity, more people seek to add the highly concentrated protein of animals into their diet. Where beef, pork and poultry were once luxuries, they are now day-to-day staples. And given the huge populations of developing nations like China and India, the demand is huge.

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This has to be the year of the chicken in the city. Move over dogs and cats. You are about to be outshone.

From the filmmakers’ blog:
“In the spring of 2004, Madison, Wisconsin passed a law reflecting a growing trend in municipalities across the country. Single-family homes within the city limits were now able to raise chickens in their backyards. A year later, we started filming.

“From the underground to about town, chickens take the city by storm. Backyard poultry owners came out of hiding, and with them the chicken supporters came out of the woodwork. These beautiful birds are celebrated in art, music, and an ever-expanding community.

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Heifer International based in Little Rock, Arkansas, funds many urban agriculture projects. I counted 22 including: Revision House Urban Agriculture Project, Dorchester, MA; East New York Farms! Brooklyn, NY; The City Farms, New York, NY; God’s Gang Planting Dreams Fish and Worm Project Chicago, IL; Growing Home Urban Farm, Chicago, IL; Somali Bantu Refugee Food Security, Training and Community Building Project, Portland, OR; and Birmingham Urban Gardening Society Community and School Garden Project, Birmingham, AL.

“From rooftops to vacant lots, Heifer International’s Urban Agriculture program is growing goodness, changing lives and building communities in the heart of North America’s big cities. Heifer supports grassroots organizations that help communities reclaim and support local food systems.”  

See Heifer’s urban agriculture projects here.

They also produced a 42-minute video documentary on urban agriculture, titled “Seeds, Hope & Concrete.”

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Thirty years ago, the headline in the first issue of ‘City Farmer’ (our newspaper) was ‘Chickens in Soup’, a story about a Vancouver woman who was in trouble with municipal authorities for keeping chickens in her back yard. Recently the subject has popped up multiple times across North America.

Just before Christmas, Canada’s ‘As it Happens’ a national radio show, interviewed an Ann Arbor, Michigan Council Member who was championing the right of city residents to keep chickens.

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