Category — Meetings

Canadians Wally Satzewich and wife Gail Vandersteen teach city farmers how to earn money from gardening small lots.

For aspiring and practicing urban, home-based, backyard and front lawn farmers.

“Had I known about the feasibility of sub-acre farming when I started my farming career 20 years ago, I would never have bought large acreage in the country, and would have instead fulfilled my farming aspirations more easily and with less expense in the city.” - Wally Satzewich

“SPIN is the first commercial organic-based farming system for land bases under an acre in size, and it takes the challenges posed by urbanization and turns them to a farmer’s advantage by capitalizing on limited space and resources.”

Workshop Program, May 19, 20, 2008 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

SPIN Farming web site.

May 10th, 2008 “SPIN-Gardening” Workshop in Portland, Oregon information here.

A Symposium that will be held at Ryerson
University, Toronto, Canada. May 2-4, 2008

Some of the presentations:

• Planning the Edible Landscape: Challenges & Opportunities in Toronto
• On zoning and building regulations and urban agriculture – lessons from East Africa
• Ravine City / Farm City: gardening and density in Toronto
• Urban agriculture in the community design studio: The Detroit Studio example
• From international development to a more edible Montréal – urban agriculture and urban design at McGill
• From community garden to community food security: Grupo Motivos and Penn Planning
• Linking urban agriculture and built form to carbon cycles, energy use and nutrient flows
• Urban agriculture in the design charrette: The Black Creek Urban Farm example

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Includes many urban agriculture topics including: City Farming in London; Urban gardens in Buenos Aires; Urban farming – Organiponicos in Santa Clara, Cuba; Gardening at the riverbank in Addis Abeba / Ethiopia; Urban Farming – Gardens in Detroit; and ‘Jardins partagés’ in Paris – urban gardens in the context of sustainable urban planning.

“New gardens of everyday life and use are becoming widespread in cities around Germany and other European countries. Whereas experts still concentrate on traditional types of gardens, changed kinds are emerging, especially joint projects such as ‘International Gardens’ by and for migrants, ’self-harvesting-gardens’ or vegetable patches in public parks. Phenomena like these are identified as forward-looking elements in urban development which require closer examination.”

See full poster and program here(PDF):

Don’t miss ‘Pollinating Our Future’ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Still time to see urban agriculture experts speak. Michael Ableman, Jac Smit, Chukou Thao, Jerry Kaufman, Will Allen, Mark Winne , Sharon Adams, Harry Rhodes, Orrin Williams, Michael Olson, Marcia Caton Campbell MCRP, PhD, Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen, Martin Bailkey, PhD , Joe Nasr, PhD, James Kuhns, Margaret Krome , Dennis Lukaszewski, Tyra Rodgers.

Visit conference site for details here.

Reports and Reflections From the First International Urban Agriculture Conference: “Pollinating Our Future”.