By Tracey Gold Bennett,
Washington Informer
03 January 2012

Excerpt:

Our urban farm in Prince George’s County is a response to the fact that roughly 70 percent of all county residents are overweight or obese, and diet-related diseases amongst Port Town’s adults and youth have reached epidemic proportions. There are many pockets of the county that are documented food deserts– meaning that food access is limited to snack foods at corner markets, convenience stores or take-out restaurants, with few healthy or nutritious options.

Our first farm is intentionally located in Edmonston, one of the poorest and (until very recently) most polluted communities in the inner-Beltway region. Our target population is the almost 15,000 residents of the Port Towns and vicinity. While only 54 percent of county school children qualify for free or reduced meals (FARM), almost 9 out of 10 of Port Towns students are FARM recipients. All of the elementary and middle schools serving the Port Towns are Title One “low-achieving, high poverty” schools.

Read the complete article here.

Eco-City Farm website here.

During River Cottage spring (2008) Hugh helped a group of Bristol families start a smallholding on derelict council land.

A talented writer, broadcaster and campaigner, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is widely known for his uncompromising commitment to seasonal, ethically produced food and has earned a huge following through his River Cottage TV series and books.

His early smallholding experiences were shown in the Channel 4 River Cottage series and led to the publication of The River Cottage Cookbook (2001), which won the Glenfiddich Trophy and the André Simon Food Book of the Year awards.

The success of the show and the books allowed Hugh to establish River Cottage HQ near Bridport in 2004.

In the same year, Hugh published The River Cottage Meat Book to wide acclaim and won a second André Simon Food Book of the Year Award.

He has just finished filming his most recent series, which accompanies his most recent book, River Cottage Every Day.

He continues to write as a journalist, including a weekly column in The Guardian and is Patron of the National Farmers’ Retail and Markets Association (FARMA).

River Cottage HQ moved in 2006, to a farm near the Dorset/Devon border, where visitors can take a variety of courses. http://www.rivercottage.net

During River Cottage Spring (2008) Hugh helped a group of Bristol families start a smallholding on derelict council land.

The experience was so inspiring he decided to see if it would work nationwide, and Landshare was created to bring keen growers and landowners together. The movement now includes more than 50,000 people.

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (2 of 5) “Pigs”

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (3 of 5) “Chickens”

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (4 of 5) “First Harvest”

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (5 of 5) “Pig Show – Blossom goes to a show”

See River Cottage website here.

Soil Born Farms from Soil Born Farms on Vimeo.

Soil Born Farms Apprentice 2011

By Emily Pearson
December, 2011

When Shawn Harrison speaks he has the uncanny ability to make people listen. This has come in handy during his years as co-founder and director of non-profit Soil Born Farms – an urban agriculture and education program that is changing the way his native town of Sacramento thinks about food. The project’s home base, the American River Ranch is a testament to his vision and to the possibilities that urban agriculture holds for transforming our food system in North America.

The 40-acre property sits on one of the oldest pieces of agricultural land in California and is home to the multi-pronged approach that Soil Born Farms has to changing the way we think, interact and experience our natural and agricultural environment. Behind the organization’s many lofty goals and activities lies a powerful mission statement. Created in 2000, Soil Born Farms aims to “create an urban agriculture and education project that empowers youth and adults to discover and participate in a local food system that encourages healthy living, nurtures the environment and grows a sustainable community.”

Nowadays it is not uncommon to read about stories such as Soil Born’s and to find similar examples popping up all over North America. The food revolution is alive and well and Soil Born’s work is further evidence of the demand for fresh local food, food education, and the opportunity to connect with the natural environment. Walk the American River Ranch (that is after you miraculously discover it deep in the suburban jungle) and on any given day you will encounter chickens, sheep, cows, and pigs happily munching on perennial pastures (that were established by Soil Born to replace the many acres of Star Thistle) or maybe on the end of season corn stalks. Having animals born and raised on the American River Ranch, only minutes from supermarkets, taquerias, and fast-food restaurants, is an effective way for the farm to communicate to its community about where its food is coming from, the cycles of life on the farm, and how their meat, milk, wool, and eggs could be produced in ways that are more aligned with nature’s principles.

While not only bringing the historically significant American River Ranch back to life, the organization is also encouraging the local community of Rancho Cordova and the greater Sacramento area to familiarize themselves with the farm and find a way in which to connect with its mission. Soil Born provides four different avenues for this interaction to take place: Food Education, Food Access, Food Production, and opportunities to Connect with Nature. For Harrison it’s about “trying to become a regional resource…where people can come and learn about food, health and the environment. Historically this farm was not accessible to the public. So now that we’ve been charged with stewarding the property and bringing it into the public domain…we have to make it functional.” The public has the opportunity to participate in the CSA program or purchase from the farm’s weekly farm stand. As part of its food access goals, Soil Born Farms also works with the Sacramento Food Bank and provides around 10,000lbs of produce which get distributed through mobile markets throughout the city – helping to ensure that the food insecure of Sacramento are not denied access to healthy, organic food.

At the present moment the Food Education branch has been receiving a lot of positive attention, which comes as no surprise since they are tasked with a myriad of activities that are each effectively transforming the school system, food literacy and helping to ensure that organic farming has a future. The farm hosts numerous school groups, runs a high caliber apprenticeship program, is working towards participating in an incubator farmer project, teaches local teachers about how to establish native plant gardens at their school, runs adult education classes about growing your own groceries and then somehow also manages to fit in the Green Corps program – a green jobs training program for low-income high school seniors.

In the youth garden (a separate plot that facilitates youth exploration, discovery and experimentation, but without the risk of destroying all the carrots destined for market) you’ll find every seasonal vegetable you could want and often hear a child exclaiming their new love for kohlrabi or lettuce wraps dipped in hummus. The overall goal is “frequent interactions that build upon themselves.” The children may start out food illiterate and uncomfortable, but they soon find themselves spouting out nutritional information about vegetables, reciting the basic process for making compost, and having the so-called light go on when they connect their recent science class with a real-life experience down at the American River. “The education program is really built upon creating experiences – hands on interaction with the natural and agricultural world,” says Harrison.

No class knows this better than the 4th graders of 2008 from Phoebe Hurst Elementary School. After numerous educational experiences at the farm the students decided to hold a fundraiser for Soil Born – the goal $1000, enough for one cow. And what an amazing cow she has been. Fittingly named Phoebe, she has since given birth to two calves that are being raised on the farm and reminding every adult and child who visits just where their milk and meat comes from and providing valuable services to the farm. These intimate experiences make Soil Born a unique educator and facilitator for interactions with food, agriculture, nature, and the community.

Harrison hopes that the children and youth who are coming to Soil Born are “taking the experiences they got here and bringing them to their home and school environment. We are trying to create experiences and awareness that ultimately translate into behaviors and preferences for how they might live their life and make change in their home environment. Whatever they are hearing from us and experiencing or observing, we want them to take something. Whether it’s a cooking experience, or some kind of service project like planting native plants, or they were out their in the field. That’s the goal of this place.”

Come out on any Saturday during the summer and you can’t help but feel how palpable that committed energy is and you too are sure to take something away, even if it is just a simple tomato (an area in which Soil Born’s farmers particularly excel). The friendly chatter in the farm stand, the laughter from a nearby bee class, children running around to visit their favorite animals and get a hug from a friendly farmer, a student eagerly showing their parent what they did on the farm that month, and the sight of a group of volunteers toiling away in the fields all with smiles on their faces. Sometimes we forget that a piece of land and some determined people can provide all these experiences on top of producing nourishing organic food. It’s why Shawn Harrison believes that Soil Born Farms in “not just farming food, we’re also farming habitat. We are land stewards. We are growing food, growing plants, and growing people.”

Whole Foods Market ‘urban farming’ series

YellowTree Farm’ – Looking for more time together and less time selling cars, Justin and Danielle set out to make a living by farming their small St. Louis backyard. Radishes, bees, quail and local chefs are all parts of the business plan; happiness, the bonus.

See the first 4 videos in this excellent series here.

28 lots, $3,000 — that’s a lot of work.

By Patrick Crouch
Grist
Dec 8, 2011
Patrick Crouch manages a 2.5 acre organic farm which is part of a soup kitchen in Detroit. He also serves on the Detroit Food Policy Council and blogs at Little House on the Urban Prairie.

Excerpt:

Edith Floyd is the real deal. With little in the way of funding or organizational infrastructure, she runs Growing Joy Community Garden on the northeast side of Detroit. Not many folks bother to venture out to her neighborhood, but Edith has been inspiring me for years. I caught up with her on a cold rainy November afternoon. While we talked in the dining room, her husband Henry watched their grandkids.

Q. You haven’t always been an urban farmer. What did you do before this?

A. I worked at Detroit Public Schools. I started out with the Head Start Center and then I went to the middle school, to the Ed Tech, [which is] now the Computer Lab. I started farming because they laid me off and didn’t call me back. Farming is not making a living, it’s just keeping food in my freezer. I try to sell some so I can get some more equipment, so it will be easier for me to farm.

Read the complete article here.

See Little House on the Urban Prairie here.

An Urban Farming Census – Project Description

By Marc Schutzbank, MSc. Candidate
University of British Columbia
November, 2010
Presented at the Vancouver Urban Farming Forum

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index is at the highest level ever recorded. Wheat crops have failed in Russia and in China due to severe heat and draught. International food access issues are stirring local public and private responses, one of which is urban farming. To ascertain the community impacts of urban farming, I propose the development of an urban farming census to measure the economic, social and environmental outcomes of urban farming.

Vancouver’s Urban Farm Network: A Look into the Economics of Urban Farming. See the large poster here. (Large 5.3 MB

Many cities and municipalities are developing local food strategies that include provisions for local production and distribution of agricultural products. Entrepreneurs are developing businesses in the field of urban agriculture and thousands of gardens are being readied for next season. Yet, despite this interest and growth, there are no data available on specific yields, economic profit, social benefits or environmental impacts of urban farming in North America. I will address this lack of information by conducting a census of urban farms. Using Vancouver, BC as a test case, I will use the census to help elucidate both urban farming practices and their community impact. This tool will be exportable, to assist and encourage better accounting of urban farming in other communities. Measuring the impacts of sustainability initiatives like urban farming, can help decision makers target resources to the most effective programs. Results can drive future sustainability initiatives. I hypothesize that Vancouver’s urban farming promotes a wide range of community benefits; this census will evaluate my hypothesis.

Interest in local food continues to grow. Concerns of food safety and unease with international markets for agriculture are driving more customers to their local farmer’s markets and to their gardens. In 2008, Canadian farmers’ markets supported twenty-eight million shoppers, each spending thirty-two dollars per visit for a total economic impact between two and three billion dollars . In the United States, there has been a 250% increase in the number of farmers markets over the past fifteen years . Local food increasingly finds it way to the dinner table. Vancouver is no different.

Though many local farmers drive into the city from the surrounding areas, produce is readily available from expanding urban farmers. Urban farmers, unlike community gardeners, farm to make a living. They raise produce, grow ornamentals, extract honey, raise chickens and collect eggs to sell in their community. This year, 13 urban farms grew food for their community. Together, urban farmers have built an Urban Farmer’s Network to develop relationships, build community and understand the impacts of their work.

Working with the Urban Farming Network, the City of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia, I have conducted an urban farming census, which provides data on number of financial and social metrics: revenue gained, jobs provided, volunteer hours logged, and social benefits. These metrics, among others, were collected through individual interviews and surveys. In addition, I will be describing and modeling urban farm business operations. This will help give policy makers data to better develop legal frameworks for these programs and make best business practices available to current and future urban famers. Attached you will find my poster and flyer with information from the census.

Urban farmers seek to build our future around a vision of local production. During World War II, Victory Gardens provided 42% of fresh vegetables consumed in the United States. This vision is possible and already happening in Vancouver.

Vegetable Vancouver 2010: An Urban Farming Census. See the two page flyer PDF here. (1.7 MB)

Vancouver’s Urban Farm Network: A Look into the Economics of Urban Farming. See the large poster here. (Large 5.3 MB)

Also see: “Urban Farming by the Numbers” here. Dec 9, 2011

D-Town Farm in Detroit

By Selah Hennessy
Voice of America
November 17, 2011

Excerpt:

D-Town is a 1.6-hectare farm that grows 35 different kinds of fruit and vegetables. Volunteers plant the farm together and in return get a discount on produce. Hunt says the aim is to give Detroit’s residents access to fresh food.

“One of the things we can do by doing this, by having people who don’t farm, who don’t have gardens in the back yard, have them come out here and see how easy it is to plant whatever it is that’s planted,” she added. “It’s like simple. You can do it in the back yard. You can grow enough in the back yard to feed everybody.”

And the farm serves another purpose: it unites the community. Local residents help out at the farm and that’s important for the area, says Kwamena Mensah, D-Town’s manager.

“When there is a community project going on, then the kids, they feel a sense of ownership,” said Mensah. “They will look out if people just dump tires and stuff in the garden . They won’t let people steal the produce and everything. There are a lot of good things happening as a result of urban farming in this city.”

Read the complete article here.

The little half-acre that could: Urban minifarms, like Mill Creek, are keeping many Philadelphians from going hungry

By Dan Geringer
phillynews.com
June 08, 2009

Excerpt:

“When you use solar panels,” Walker said, “you don’t pay an electric bill.”

In a shoestring operation like Mill Creek Farm’s, that is one of many huge savings that help keep prices low for the fixed-income-neighborhood seniors who make up more than half of the farm’s customers and the low-income families that use food stamps to buy vegetables from the little half-acre that could.

“I know we’re small, by farm standards,” Rosen said. “But for a city, we’re big in terms of growing space. In another part of Philadelphia, I know a half-acre vegetable garden that is grossing over $60,000. We’re not doing that because we keep our prices so low that you can buy a bag of most things we grow for a dollar.”

Complete article here.