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FFA member Cierra Fierce, 16, tends to plants in the greenhouse behind Clyde C. Miller Career Academy in St. Louis.

Founded in 1928, the National FFA Organization — it dropped “Future Farmers” from its name in 1988 — isn’t just for farm kids anymore. About 34% of its more than 500,000 members live in cities or suburbs.

By Judy Keen
USA TODAY
Feb 17, 2010

ST. LOUIS — Andre Hall lives in the city and has never plowed a field or fed a hog, but he proudly wears the blue jacket long associated with the organization once called Future Farmers of America.

Hall, 18, is among 30 high-school students who belong to the FFA chapter at Clyde C. Miller Career Academy here. FFA is part of the curriculum in the school’s biotechnology “pathway” that’s preparing him for a job in the agriculture industry.

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The video has no sound.

Food Print Manhattan

A research project conducted by The Why Factory, MVRDV.
By Winy Maas, Ulf Hackauf, Pirjo Haikola, Bas Kalmeijer, Tihamer Hazarja Salij. Animation: WielandandGouwens

How much food do I consume? How much land is needed to grow it? Could we grow our food in the city? Could we feed all Manhattanites by growing food on Manhattan island?

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Integration of urban farming within the future city

Student project by Jack O’Reilly
graduate Ba(Hons) Architecture from the University of Manchester

“My project tried to push the boundaries of the hybrid building by combining an urban farm with a television studio as an attempt at broadcasting the need for sustainability both physically and in the media.”

Student Statement

The programme proposed provides for the sustainable Manchester. It is centred around food cultures and media networks. Sustainability can be improved by the production of food in urban spaces, sourcing local foods and selling the produce of local farmers.

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Photo by Marta_9. Larger image here.

Crops for Clunkers [HD]

by Lou Karsen (videos)
18:01

New film by Lou Karsen about the transformation of a ‘78 Mazda pickup truck into an edible garden by the Seattle Urban Farm Company for the 2010 NW Flower and Garden show.

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Photo by Martin Barrett, City Garden Farms, Dan Bravin, here using a seeder, farms about a dozen backyard lots in Portland, Oregon, using an approach referred to as SPIN Farming.

Roxanne Christensen
Fall 2007
Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy Volume 3 Issue 2
Co-author, SPIN-Farming, an online learning series on subacre farming

Author’s Personal Statement

I began advocating for urban agriculture in Philadelphia in 1998. What appealed to me is what draws many people to the cause: its social and environmental benefits are obvious and easy to understand. But it quickly became apparent that, compelling though they are, these benefits were not enough to motivate policy makers in a position to help urban agriculture succeed on any kind of scale. Instead, the economic benefits that many proponents had long acknowledged in theory, but few were able to demonstrate, had to be proven. SPIN-Farming is a very powerful tool for validating the economic viability of urban agriculture.

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Strip Mall Farming

By Stacey Murphy Landmines Productions
for The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

BK Farmyard reconnects farmers and consumers as co-producers of the landscape and food culture. The strategy takes advantage of the existing urban fabric of Brooklyn neighborhoods to reclaim privately held green spaces as farms. Residents pay for a yard-farming service that delivers produce to their doors, while others without green space pay for produce cultivated in these farmyards. Additionally, some lots would be converted to Dinner Party structures, public spaces for community dinner parties

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Vertically Integrated Greenhouse in Cafe with Strawberries

By Arup Engineers, Kiss + Cathcart Architects, New York Sun Works, The Vertical Farm Project, Dickson Despommier for The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Abstract

The Vertically Integrated Greenhouse (VIG) combines a double-skin building facade with a hydroponic greenhouse, offering one pathway toward energy-efficient cities that can grow their own food.

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See FAO’s Food For The Cities brochure here.

Invitation to participate in the FAO Forum on Food, agriculture and cities: challenges and priorities:

More and more of the world’s population is becoming concentrated in and around large cities. Ensuring that the billions of people living in cities have their rightful access to adequate amounts of safe and nutritious food represents a global development challenge of the highest order. Promoting sustainable agricultural production in urban and peri-urban areas and developing food systems capable of meeting urban consumer demand will become increasingly important to global food security. Currently however, the important relationship between food security, agriculture and urbanization is often not sufficiently recognized.

In order to pursue the work, broaden the approaches, bring new insights, for cities both of developing, intermediate or developed countries, FAO proposes a discussion on the forum http://km.fao.org/fsn/fsn-home/en/ . The Forum is open from this week onwards and will run for the coming 3 weeks.

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A strawberry’s journey: From West to feast

By Catherine Porter
Environment Reporter
Toronto Star Jun 21, 2009

Excerpt.

“Food-miles” became a hot subject a few years ago. It wasn’t long ago that cities like Toronto largely fed themselves. But now, the average pear you buy has travelled 6,000 kilometres.

Although vilified by locavores, food travelling long distances by truck doesn’t necessarily result in more greenhouse gases. On a per-pound basis, an 18-wheeler emits one-fifteenth the carbon dioxide of a delivery van heading to a local farmers’ market.

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June 24, 2009
ABC News report

See the video story here at ABC News. (after the short ad)

Link to Urban Farming website here.

Still photograph from the Nazi propaganda film, “Der Fuehrer Schenkt den Juden eine Stadt” [The Fuehrer gives the Jews a City]. Theresienstadt inmates working in the SS vegetable gardens. This work brigade was called the Stab Garten and was greatly increased in size for the filming.

“There were gardens, and we worked in them, but they were only to feed the SS. You could be deported (to the death camps) for taking one potato.” Helga Hoskova spent two and a half years at Thereisenstadt.

The SS, seeking to exploit the beautification efforts undertaken at Theresienstadt in preparation for the Red Cross visit of June 23, 1944, decided to produce a film about the ghetto for propaganda use in Germany.

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