Category — Planning

Nevin Cohen on Hacking the Food System

By Nevin Cohen
FoodandTechconnect
Sept 25, 2011

Excerpt:

The future of urban agriculture is not vertical, nor even simply horizontal. It is distributed and networked throughout the city. In a growing number of cities, suburbs,and small towns, community groups and entrepreneurs have discovered innovative ways to harvest and grow food, using interconnected networks of relatively small plots of public and private land and shared resources. In the process, they are forging novel relationships among producers and consumers.

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The Chicago Lights Urban Farm in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood, a garden run in collaboration with Growing Power Inc. Image via ChicagoLights.org.

An opportunity to train youth, create economic development and create tax revenue for the city.

By Judith Nemes
Chicago Business, Crain’s Blogs
Sept 22, 2011

Excerpts:

Crain’s: Why is this new ordinance getting rave reviews from the urban farming community?

Ms. Allen: It legitimizes urban agriculture as an enterprise or a business that hasn’t been on the books before. Chicago always had farms within the city limits, but the new ordinance creates a space where we can begin to create economic opportunities within our communities, especially in areas where food deserts are a direct result of unemployment and little economic opportunity.

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Current Initiatives include TRCA-FarmStart McVean New Farmers Project, Toronto Urban Farm, Permaculture Design Course

The McVean New Farmers project is a partnership between Toronto and Region Conservation (TRCA) and FarmStart. The New Farmers project is based on the historic McVean property located within the Claireville Conservation Area, in the City of Brampton which is owned by TRCA. The project is the first of its kind in Canada, leading the way towards sustainable, local agriculture that serves the needs of growing urban and peri-urban communities and protects the local greenspace and ecosystems.

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“Provide opportunities to experience working farm landscapes in appropriate park sites through the establishment of an active farm program and academy for sustainable food production and the development of policies to fit agriculture within regional park settings. Promote education, demonstration and observation of farm activities where appropriate.”

By Kelly Sinoski
Vancouver Sun
September 12, 2011

Excerpts:

Metro Vancouver continues to pitch the idea of a “sustainable agriculture academy” at Colony Farm, despite concern from environmentalists that it will lead to more farming at other regional parks.

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Rebecca Frazier, a teacher, said she had cut her food bill in half by growing her own and preserving and by buying in bulk from local farmers. She recently paid $10 for 40 pounds of sweet potatoes, a fraction of the store price. Credit: Luke Sharrett for The New York Times.

“When I go to my cellar and get my own green beans and potatoes, I know I won’t go hungry.”

By Sabrina Tavernise
New York Times
September 8, 2011

Excerpt:

“You see a lot more people turning up ground,” said Wanda Hamilton, 61, a lifelong gardener who sells her surplus vegetables at the farmers’ market in West Liberty, a small town in the Appalachian foothills. “It’s the economy. You just can’t afford to shop at the store anymore.”

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Greenhouses on Schaaf Road, Cleveland, Ohio area, with a buggy in the foreground, April, 1927.

This study shows that Cleveland city can meet up to 100% of its fresh produce need.

By Sharanbir S. Grewala and Parwinder S. Grewal
Center for Urban Environment and Economic Development, The Ohio State University,
Wooster, OH 44691, USA
Available online 20 July 2011
Cost of paper at Science Direct $19.95

Abstract

Modern cities almost exclusively rely on the import of resources to meet their daily basic needs. Food and other essential materials and goods are transported from long-distances, often across continents, which results in the emission of harmful greenhouse gasses. As more people now live in cities than rural areas and all future population growth is expected to occur in cities, the potential for local self-reliance in food for a typical post-industrial North American city was determined.

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Do you wonder about permitting and zoning issues that affect urban food production? Do you know that there are business services available to help “grow” your business? Ever wonder how other small sectors have developed?

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The Edible Map of Hackney by Mikey Tomkins. “You Are Hungry: Mapping An Edible Urban Hackney” investigates how much food can be grown on 25 hectares of south Hackney. Complete map here.

More and more people are finding imaginative places for growing food in urban environments

By Edward Platt
The Guardian
1 September 2011

Excerpt:

The map offers a beguiling vision of a district recently ravaged by riots, and yet it isn’t entirely wishful thinking. When Tomkins had greeted our small group half an hour before with a pot of his London Fields honey, he had explained that the tour we were about to embark on would not only take in the places where food might be produced, but the places where it was already in production.

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Michael Storck and his daughters, Isabel, 10, and Zita, 4, pick produce from their plot at the Bexley Community Garden. Researchers say such urban gardens can help sustain cities. Photo by Courtney Hergesheimer | Dispatch.

Vacant lots equal lots of acreage to plant

By Mark Ferenchik
The Columbus Dispatch
August 22, 2011

Excerpt:

The researchers found that the land could generate as much as $115 million in produce each year, enough to satisfy at least 22 percent of Cleveland’s demand for fresh produce. In some scenarios, perhaps 100 percent.

“We were definitely shocked it was really possible to be self-reliant,” said Parwinder S. Grewal, who is co-author of the study and director of Ohio State’s Center for Urban Environment and Economic Development, in Wooster.

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Urban agriculture functions as a catalyst for larger food system transformations.

By the Urban Design Lab
The Earth Institute and Columb1a University
Prepared by Kubi Ackerman
Project Team:
Richard Plunz, Urban Design Lab, Columbia University
Michael Conard, Urban Design Lab, Columbia University
Ruth Katz, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
Sarah Brennan, Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, Columbia University Patricia Culligan, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University
2011, 112 pages

Excerpt:

Key findings in brief

• Urban agriculture can play a critical role as productive green urban infrastructure. There is significant potential for urban agriculture to provide critical environmental services to the city through stormwater runoff mitigation, soil remediation, and energy use reduction. At a time when municipalities are straining to address complex infrastructural challenges with limited budgets, productive urban green spaces will be increasingly important in their capacity to function as a cost-effective form of small scale, distributed green infrastructure.

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Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Detroit has an unemployment rate hovering around 24 percent.

Correspondent Desiree Cooper has the story, which is a co-production with Detroit Public TV and Blueprint America.
(Must see video! Mike)

Excerpt:

If the Republican presidential hopefuls agreed on anything at last week’s Iowa debate, it was the need for America to create jobs. And one city that needs jobs is Detroit. The city itself has an unemployment rate hovering around 24 percent. The lack of jobs is one reason that nearly one-quarter of the population left the city in the last decade.

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East Side, Detroit 2008. Photo by James Griffioen.

American Bar Association weighs in

By Kristin Choo
American Bar Association Journal
Aug 1, 2011

Excerpt:

But Orsi of the Sustainable Economies Law Center suggests that urban agriculture is just one part of what should be a larger movement toward sustainable approaches to food production. She argues that the best place to grow food is on the outskirts of cities, where densities are low enough to allow larger farms that are close enough to urban centers to avoid the energy costs of long-distance transport.

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New Book

By Andrés Duany
The Prince’s Foundation/DPZ
2011

The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment is proud to present: Garden Cities: Theory & Practice of Agrarian Urbanism by renowned US urbanist Andrés Duany, the fifth in its series of Senior Fellow Books.

Agrarian urbanism refers to settlements where the society is involved with food in all its aspects: organizing, growing, processing, distributing, cooking and eating it. A primary distinction of Agricultural Urbanism is that the physical pattern of the settlement supports an intentional agrarian society.

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RFP – Request For Proposals – Vacant land for cultivation and sale of crops

RFP – Request For Proposals
8/15/11
45 pages

The City of Boston acting by and through its Public Facilities Commission by the Director of the Department of Neighborhood is seeking proposals for its Grassroots Program Urban Agriculture Land Lease RFP. This RFP is intended to assist initiatives for the development of urban agriculture in the City of Boston, increase local food growing opportunities and provide community benefits.

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Megan Webb, director of the Oakland Animal Shelter, is now housing an additional 21 confiscated bunnies taken from a breeder who was raising them for their meat. The rabbits are available for adoption. Photo: Lance Iversen / The Chronicle.

On the heels of the urban faming craze, Oakland is embarking on a series of community meetings this summer to review its agriculture laws.

By Carolyn Jones
San Francisco Chronicle
June 30, 2011

Excerpt:

Oakland animal officials were scrambling Wednesday to find homes for 21 malnourished, deformed rabbits seized from a Lake Merritt area backyard, where they were being raised for food.

The bunny bust comes just as Oakland enters into the debate over urban agriculture regulations, deciding how to monitor livestock – its treatment and slaughter – in one of the country’s hotbeds of urban homesteading.

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By Paul de Graaf
2011

Since 2007 a group of Rotterdam citizens has been active under the name Eetbaar Rotterdam (Edible Rotterdam). Coming from different disciplines this expert group has been stimulating and initiating urban agriculture in Rotterdam, because they believe urban agriculture can greatly benefit the city.

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Historic postcard of sheep grazing in Franklin Park, via Union Park Press – Dorchester Historical Society

Will urban food production ruin our economy, change our climate, and make our world a more miserable place to live?

By Meg Muckenhoupt
Union Park Press
June 21, 2011

Excerpt:

It’s been days since Edward Glaeser published his urban farm-bashing piece in the Boston Globe, but I’m still annoyed. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University and director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, managed to argue against farms in a way that could extend to urban parks, gardens, zoos, swimming pools, and most sidewalks. He also ignored some intriguing trends in making urban farming more efficient, a.k.a. the Vertical Farm.

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To address food security for Beirut planners, policy makers, and municipal officials need to reevaluate the potential of urban agriculture.

By Sandra Rishani
Spatially Just Environments Beirut
June 25, 2011
Sandra is a Beirut-based practicing architect.

Excerpt:

Past present and Future

The case shows how the lack of government initiatives and problems with land tenure and market land prices make urban agriculture rarer in cities like Beirut. Moreover hardly controlled imported crops and competition with them also make the agriculture sector in Lebanon weak. Several steps can be taken to encourage urban agriculture. These may include protection and promotion of urban agriculture by the government.

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The Boston Globe staff illustration.

The locavore’s dilemma: Urban farms mean less people per acre which in turn means longer drives and more gasoline consumption.

By Edward L. Glaeser
OP-ED
Boston Globe
June 16, 2011|

Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University, is director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.

Excerpt:

But the most important environmental cost of metropolitan agriculture is that lower density levels mean more driving. Today, about 250 million Americans live on the 60 million acres of this country that are urban — which is about four people per acre. By contrast, America uses 442 million acres for cropland and 587 million acres for pastureland, which is about 1.4 and 1.9 acres per person respectively. If we allocated just 7.2 percent of this agricultural land into metropolitan area, we would halve metropolitan area densities.

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The group is offering 20- by 40-foot plots for $100 a year, 40-by-40 foot plots for $150 and a quarter acre plots for $300.

Associated Press
June 12, 2011

Excerpts:

An Everett group is hoping to put 10 acres of unused city-owned river bottom land back to work providing produce for local food banks.

Don’t call this a P-patch, Smith said.

“They’re fine for what I call a taste of sustainability,” he said. “People could eat off a P-patch for a month in the summer but it’s not big enough to grow food year round.”

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