The Big Carrot Natural Food Market

Description:

Let’s make urban gardening fun! Join us catching the last rays of the summer sun on the brand new Green Roof on top of the Big Carrot (348 Danforth Avenue). Our host, Zora Ignjatovic will guide you through the hows-and-whats of preserving your garden through winter, and sheds light on mysteries like vertical gardening and growing tomatoes in a concrete parking lot. All this on the top of the Carrot, in a very pleasant environments. We will have some snacks to munch on as well.

About the host

Zora Ignjatovic is grateful to be a gardener on the Carrot Green Roof. She is a horticulturist and garden coach pursuing her life’s passion to educate and inspire people to rethink their relationship to nature, food, shared meals and the celebration of life. Her “Growing in a Box, thinking Outside the Box” lecture has received great interest. This season Zora is cofacilitating a bi-weekly “Building Resilience” workshop teaching people about edible and medicinal plants in the neighbourhood.

See workshops here.

Urban Farming Summit: Panel Discussion

Panel: February 19, 2010, The University of Michigan – Dearborn

Ashley Atkinson, The Greening of Detroit

Oran Hesterman, Fair Food Network

Susan Schmidt, The Henry Ford

Kami Pothukuchi, SEED Wayne

Malik Yakini, Detroit Black Community Food Security Network

Moderated by Bruce Pietrykowski, Professor of Economics, UM-Dearborn

Urban Farming Summit: Keynote Speaker Robert Kenner

Visit the Urban Farming agenda Feb 19 website here.

Next Event:
UM-Dearborn and Crain’s Detroit Business presents:
The Business of Urban Agriculture
April 7, 2010
7:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Fairlane Center North

Waterford will host the launch of a new national food-grower’s network called GIY Ireland on Saturday, September 12th 2009 as part of the Waterford Harvest Festival.

As the interest in home-produced food reaches fever pitch, a new organisation called GIY Ireland is aiming to inspire people to get growing and give them the knowledge they need to do so successfully.  On September 12th 2009 Waterford Institute of Technology will be the venue for the launch of this unique organisation which aims to establish food growers groups in every town and county in Ireland.  GIY networks aims to recreate the camaraderie of allotment growing for back-garden vegetable growers by getting them together on a regular basis to talk, learn from each other and exchange tips, war-stories and produce.

Journalist Michael Kelly established the first network in Waterford in 2008 – GIY Waterford now has over 100 members and meets monthly in the city library.  Meetings are free and open to people interested in food growing at all levels, i.e. from growing a few herbs on the balcony to complete self-sufficiency, from beginners to old hands.  There are now five GIY networks in the southeast and others in the pipeline nationwide. 
 
GIY Ireland is planning to establish at least one network in every county in the next 12 months by finding ‘local champions’ to set up a network in their area.  The organisation will provide these local champions with the necessary help and support they need to get a successful network up and running.  The event in WIT will officially launch the organisation and is open to anyone interested in finding out more about GIY Ireland.  The organisers are particularly keen to invite people who are interested in establishing a network in their area.  They are also interested in hearing from existing food growers groups that might be interested in becoming part of GIY Ireland.
 
Keynote speakers at the conference include Minister for Food and Horticulture Trevor Sargent TD, BallymaloeCookerySchool founder Darina Allen, GIY Ireland’s Michael Kelly and Will Sutherland from the John Seymour School of Self-sufficiency.  There will also be a series of afternoon workshops covering a range of topics including, health & nutrition, baking, permaculture, seed-saving, and allotments & community gardens.  Tickets cost €35 and include a 3 course lunch of mouth-watering local produce. 
 
The conference is part of Waterford’s Harvest Festival, a weekend of autumnal events that are sure to appeal to foodies everywhere.  Events include a taste of Waterford event called Blas na Deise on Friday night, a harvest feast in the city on Saturday evening and a massive farmer’s market in the city centre on Sunday 13th.  As part of WIT’s plans to support local food producers, the college is launching a new farmers market for students on Friday the 11th.
 
Following the event, the GIY Ireland website (www.GIYIreland.com) will be a one-stop shop for people interested in finding out about GIY networks in their area and will provide local networks with the information and materials (e.g. leaflets, grower’s calendars etc) to make their network a success.  There will be a downloadable monthly newsletter and a virtual forum where GIYers can meet to exchange tips and information on food production. 
 
Local GIY Network initiatives include monthly meetings; talks and demos; garden visits; seed and seedling swaps; product bartering and exchange; mentor panels where more experienced growers are available to beginners to answer questions and provide advice; grower’s meitheals where GIYers get together in one another’s gardens to carry out some growing-related tasks (e.g. making raised beds etc).

Visit the Grow It Yourself (GIY) Ireland website here.

Visit the Get Ireland Growing website here.

The RUAF Foundation, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Development Research Centre, Urban Harvest (CGIAR), the Chinese Urban Agriculture Association and the Nanjing Agriculture and Forestry Bureau are organizing a networking event “Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture for Resilient Cities (Green, Productive and Socially Inclusive)” to take place on Wednesday, November 5th, 14.00-16.00 hours, in the Auditorium, at the World Urban Forum in Nanjing, China. There will also be a booth at the Exhibition and a tour to some urban and peri-urban agricultural sites.

See program flyer here.

City of Fresno Wants to Destroy Garden to Make Way for Police Station

By Mike Rhodes,
Indybay, Oct 21, 2008

The City of Fresno is attempting to evict a group of Hmong gardeners from plots they have farmed for 13 years. The Hmong Community Garden, which sits on 4 acres of public land, provides food for 300 members of the Hmong community. Spokesperson Mai Summer Vue said that to the gardeners, the garden is “a way of life, a peace of mind, food for their family, exercise, therapy, stress relief, and it eases their mental health issues…caused by the Vietnam War.”

The city is planning to destroy the garden and build a police substation in its place, and city officials have sought to relocate the gardeners to a site one-eighth the size of the current garden. On Friday, Oct. 17, the city claimed that an agreement had been reached to relocate the gardeners. But the gardeners stated that they did not and will not agree to be relocated, and they accused the city of using wrongful translation to mislead and manipulate. Vue said, “As a community, we feel abused by city officials. They took our voice away, violated our civil rights, and disrespected our elders.”

The issue has galvanized the community, and the gardeners and their allies have mobilized to fight the eviction. On Tuesday, Oct. 21, over a dozen people, including a number of gardeners, spoke before the city council in support of the garden during time allocated for unscheduled communications. The issue will be included in the council’s agenda at its Tuesday, Oct. 28 meeting.

See complete article on Indybay here.

Hmong Speak Out About Community Garden – See 11 minute video here.

Wendy Mendes researchers and teaches on the sustainability of cities, local food systems and participatory governance at the
University of British Colombia, York University and
Ryerson. Wendy has worked as a social planner for the City
of Vancouver from 2001-2006, and has in this function
played a major role in the setting up of Vancouver’s Food
Policy Council and Food System.

The course will be fully offered on-line and does not
require participation in any face-2-face meetings or
sessions. Costs for participation amount to Canadian
Dollar 456 (for Canadian and international participants
alike).

Course Description:

In the context of current debates on the global food
crisis, post-oil economy, climate change etc. the
potentials of urban agriculture or localised food
production are more and more discussed. In order to
contribute to these discussions, Ryerson University, ETC
Urban agriculture and the Resource centres of Urban
Agriculture and Food security (RUAF) have developed a new
distance learning course on the Dimensions of Urban
Agriculture. The course will deal in detail with the
different dimensions of UA: its food security dimensions,
environmental, health and social dimensions, economic
dimensions and UA as a strategy to increase cities’
resilience. It will quantify and qualify UA impacts in
these various areas where possible, discuss how to asses
these impacts at local level and illustrate policy and
intervention strategies as to enhance UAs’ contribution in
the various fields. In short, a course that will provide
you more food for thought and inputs for action planning
or policy lobbying.

Please find attached a further description of the course.

New August 30, 2008
See: Report of Growing Food For London Conference – June 2008

“This event will look at urban agriculture: its impact on the food security of London, its role in preserving the capital’s open space, educating and improving the health of Londoners and potentially reducing the distance that London’s food has travelled.

“Through a series of presentations from British and international experts, including academics, growers, and other experts we hope to explore what opportunities there are for producing more food and how this can be achieved in a sustainable way.

Speakers include:

Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, former Director of the Centre for Food Policy at Thames Valley University

Joe Nasr, author of Urban Agricultrue: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities,

Fritz Haeg, author of Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn,

Ian Collingwood, Middlesborough Council regeneration, and lead on the Middlesborough Urban Farming project.

June Komisar, Assistant Professor, Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University

(there will be 12 speakers split over 4 sessions and discussion panels).

Read more about the conference here.

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

You are invited to attend a symposium that will be held at Ryerson University May 2-4, on “The role of food and agriculture in the design and planning of buildings and cities”. This symposium will investigate the opportunities for creative cooperation between shapers of the built environment and actors in urban food and agriculture systems. It brings together, for the first time, individuals from the full range of professions of the built environment who have been recently tackling challenges of the urban food system. The interface between the physical aspects of urban food provision and distribution, and urban design and architecture, will be explored. After an introductory survey as part of a public lecture, this meeting will address a number of issues, grouped into five themes, and include field visits and an exhibition.

Visit the symposium website here.

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”.