Category — Roof Garden

New York Urban Farmers Grow Rooftop Crops

Video:

“Brooklyn Grange” in Queens, N.Y., is a 40,000-square-foot rooftop farm.

Video Report – Rooftop Farms in New York

By Monika Vosough
Wall Street Journal
7/13/2011

Entrepreneurs are looking to urban farms and rooftop gardens as an alternative to traditional farms. While start-up costs are higher, these efforts could pay off with long-term environmental benefits and better tasting veggies.

Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn. Photo by Liu Xin.

Rooftop agriculture (RA) is the production of fresh vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers on rooftops for local consumption.

By Aaron Quesnel, Joshua Foss, Nina Danielsson
School of Engineering Blekinge Institute of Technology Karlskrona, Sweden 2011
125 pages

Abstract:

Cities present many opportunities to improve socio-ecological sustainability through efficiencies of scale and access to resources and services. These benefits are often compromised by rapidly increasing urban populations demanding energy, water, resources and food that are sourced, produced and transported from rural areas in unsustainable ways. A systems level approach to understanding the complex challenges cities face is required to strategically plan for the future. Rooftop agriculture is one measure that can help address many sustainability problems cities are currently faced with.

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Photographed by Valentina Cattane.

Labib’s private rooftop in Mohandessin is going to serve as a pilot location for one of Cairo’s first permaculture – self-sustaining environmental systems.

By Steven Viney
Valentina Cattane
Al-Masry Al-Youm
04/07/2011

Excerpt:

In Cairo, urban agriculture is growing in popularity as more and more people strive to adopt more eco-friendly approaches to the environment and encourage the decentralization of the community’s reliance on farming corporations.

Many academics and supporters are championing methodologies by hosting workshops in which attendees can learn how to set up small urban gardens and make use of their personal spaces – rooftops, balconies and private gardens.

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A Course with Keith Agoada and Ben Flanner
Saturday, July 9

Learn about multiple approaches to growing food on rooftops through design and maintenance principles, and case studies drawn from across North America. This course:

Familiarizes participants with the diversity of physical applications of urban agriculture and the growing technologies that apply.

Explores the social, environmental and economic benefits of urban agriculture and rooftop farming.

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A local city lawyer says rooftop space is accessible to all interested gardeners.

NTD Television
2011-06-21

Chinese gardeners are turning a gritty industrial landscape green. Residents in Chongqing city are transforming rooftops into innovative mini farms. Let’s take a look.

Environmentally friendly residents in China’s southwest city of Chongqing are creating mini-farms on their rooftops.

These green-fingered gardeners are growing organic vegetables and fruits like eggplants, peppers, green beans and balsam pears.

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Proposed site.

A Food project in Philadelphia, PA

By Clare Hyre

Cloud 9 Urban Rooftop Farm is a burgeoning rooftop farm to be located on a warehouse roof in Southwest Philadelphia.  Inspired by successful rooftop farms in other major cities like Chicago and New York City, Cloud 9 believes rooftop farming can become a key component for produce regional food and for the city’s plan for sustainable development. While the city is home to hundreds of community gardens and several urban farms Cloud 9 provides a new research opportunity on urban growing.

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Assessing composted conifer bark as a growing media for tomato production and reducing waste disposal costs at Stockbridge.

A facility for LED lighting for investigating potential yield gains from vertical farming

Horticulture Week
03 June 2011

Centre’s tenth anniversary event issues rallying call to build on research into food production in face of Government cuts.

Stockbridge Technology Centre (STC) is working with industry partners to develop an applied research and development facility for LED lighting in the UK for investigating potential yield gains from vertical farming.

The facility will compare conventional production systems with tiered glasshouse production using LEDs as well as tiered production using an insulated warehouse to assess the economics of an “urban farming” scenario.

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A year-long research project that will measure the stormwater management potential of two urban farms.

Seeing Green: The Value of Urban Farms

Project by Tyler Caruso and Erik Facteau

Seeing Green: The Value of Urban Agriculture is a year-long research project that will measure the stormwater management potential of two urban farms; Brooklyn Grange (a rooftop farm) & Added Value (raised beds) in NYC.

Our aim is to create a model for future research that can be replicated anywhere, to help validate and support urban farms. We think policies should be based on scientific study and we want our work to encourage the adoption of supportive incentives and non-restrictive regulations for urban farming.

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BrightFarms Systems, which was founded to advise rooftop growers, built a greenhouse atop a school on West 93rd Street in Manhattan. Photo by Guy Calaf for The New York Times.

New York has 14,000 acres of unused rooftop space

By Glen Rifkin
New York Times
May 18, 2011

Excerpt:

After four years of developing the business, building the greenhouse and refining growing techniques, Lufa Farms has started delivering baskets of produce to local subscribers: $22 for a six-pound basket and $30 for a basket weighing about nine pounds.

With more than 400 customers signed up and more joining daily, Mr. Lynn, a 60-year-old technology entrepreneur who founded, ListenUP! Canada, a hearing aid chain, says Lufa Farms can enroll a thousand customers, break even this year and reap a 15 percent profit in the future.

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Park board chair Aaron Jasper stands on the roof of the West End Community Centre. Credit: Doug Shanks photo

Park Board chair will be advocating for roof-top gardens to be considered in the design of future community centres.

By Jessica Barrett
WestEnder
05/18/2011

Excerpt:

The aging roof of the West End Community Centre could bridge the divide between urban agriculture enthusiasts and area residents reluctant to give up valuable park space to community gardens, says park board chair Aaron Jasper.

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Balcony Farms Sprout In City

By Neeno Pandora
The Urban Times
May 9 201

Excerpt:

Scares about food safety and the high cost of organics in Shanghai are prompting some city residents to grow their own veggies that are clean, safe, cheap and fresh. Yao Minji visits balcony farmers.

Kevin Liu will have stir-fried green onions with scrambled eggs for dinner tonight, since the leeks he planted last spring on his windowsill are ready to be harvested.

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“Envisioning one option for truly sustainable agriculture.”

“Polydome is a revolutionary approach to commercial agriculture that offers the possibility of net-zero-impact greenhouse food production. It produces high yields of over 50 different crops, while also sustainably incorporating chicken, bees, and fish. The increased variety and productivity of the system means that even a small Polydome greenhouse can provide a diverse food supply for a large population. Using Polydome, even New York City could provide the majority of its own food supply using available roof space.

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Vuelve Carolina in Valencia, Spain.

Vertical mini allotments: What grows up

By Harriot Lane Fox
The Telegraph
05 May 2011

Excerpts:

What could be more metro-horticultural than ushering your dinner guests out onto the balcony and inviting them to pick their perfect salad?

That’s almost what the Michelin-starred chef-patron of Vuelve Carolina in Valencia, Spain, is doing with this chic new restaurant. He has taken the green wall — an eco-cool way to soften new shopping centres, offices and Olympic villages, including London’s — and made it edible. Diners now enjoy garnishes grown right in front of them.

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BYBØNDER. »Vi bliver mere og mere stressede, og vi dør af luftforurening. Jeg fatter simpelthen ikke, hvorfor vi partout skal have et højere tempo ind i byen«, siger den urbane landmand Anders Christoffer Andersen. – Foto: Mathias Christensen.

An urban farming initiative in Nørrebro

By Afton Halloran
Urban Agriculture Denmark
May 5, 2011

Excerpt:

The efforts of the unsung heros of the decentralized urban agriculture movement in Copenhagen are now starting to be recognized outside of their usual circles. For example, on April 29th, 2011 Politiken published a feature article on DYRK, an urban farming initiative in Nørrebro, titled “Urbane landmænd planter grønne chok i København”

Located on the roof of Blågård School DYRK has made a 250 square meter garden. And the group also has a variety of mobile raised beds that associations, institutions, cafes and cultural centers in the area can borrow.

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Kurt Lynn, Mohamed Hage, and Yahya Badran of Lufa Farms. Photo by Craig Silverman.

“There’s a lot the city can do to make this process much simpler.”

By Brennan Neill
Open File
2011-04-28

Excerpt:

After two months of round-the-clock care, the first batch of vegetables at Lufa Farms is ready to be harvested. The eggplants and tomatoes that have been growing since February will soon be picked by a small staff of roughly ten people. Meanwhile, the cucumbers and bell peppers just a few rows over will continue to ripen in Lufa’s massive rooftop greenhouse, which sits on top of a two storey commercial building in Ahuntsic-Cartierville.

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Farms for Growing Cities

By Linsey Davis
ABC News
April 27, 2011

Dickson Despommier discusses how to move food production to urban areas.

Apr. 21, 2011. New York photojournalist Rick Hall shows us how the bricks of Bushwick laid the ground for a garden sensation.

Roberta’s in Brooklyn

From a review:

Think I’ve found the definitive meal of this trip in obscure, industrial Bushwick. Amid shuttered warehouses, graffiti and empty streets, in an old garage with a cinder block facade rehabbed into a pizzeria, bakery, beer garden (edible) and borough’s slacker-organic-locavore HQ.

Chef brought the first taste from kitchen just as we got our bevies-poached egg w/ trout roe & breadcrumbs-smoky, creamy, salty, wow. Next up, braised mackerel w/ lemon jelly on levain bread. Hoyy … now this is how you do amuse!

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The salads at one Brooklyn restaurant bring a new meaning to locally grown.
See video here.

Edible: Park Slope Restaurant Brings New Meaning To Locally Grown

By: Rachel Wharton
Edible Manahttan
12/03/2010

Excerpt:

“[We grow] probably about two-dozen different types of greens. They all have a distinct flavor,” says Jacques Gautier of Palo Santo Restaurant. “You can see we have purslane. This is actually fennel, micro fennel, so we planted the fennel seeds and just let them grow about this big. Radish greens. Chrysanthemum greens. A few different types of mustard greens. This is red mustard green, green mustard greens. This is an interesting one – this is called oracle green.

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Gertjan Meeuws, left, and John van Gemert, right, of PlantLab, a private research company, during an interview with The Associated Press in a lab where he is growing herbs and vegetables under LED lights in Den Bosch, central Netherlands. AP Photo.

Advocates say new approach to farming could be an answer to the world’s food problems

By Arthur Max
Associated Press
4/11/2011

Excerpt:

Meeuws and three other Dutch bioengineers have taken the concept of a greenhouse a step further, growing vegetables, herbs and house plants in enclosed and regulated environments where even natural light is excluded.

In their research station, strawberries, yellow peppers, basil and banana plants take on an eerie pink glow under red and blue bulbs of Light-Emitting Diodes, or LEDs. Water trickles into the pans when needed and all excess is recycled, and the temperature is kept constant. Lights go on and off, simulating day and night, but according to the rhythm of the plant — which may be better at shorter cycles than 24 hours — rather than the rotation of the Earth.

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