New Stories From 'Urban Agriculture Notes'
Random header image... Refresh for more!

Category — Video

“From the Ground Up” – wonderful new film coming soon

Watch the trailer!

Director: Kristi Stephens Adams
Editor: Sara Maamouri

“From the Ground Up” is a documentary film and media project that showcases the lives and gardens of urban farmers in three cities, comparing and contrasting them with the Victory Garden movement of WWII. A Sacramento teacher engages her sons in taking on City Hall to fight for their front yard garden; a Puerto Rican community in post-industrial Massachusetts works to elevate their quality of life by farming in once abandoned lots; a team of San Franciscans create a Victory Garden in the Civic Center, donating the produce to food banks and transforming the function of public land. These seemingly dissimilar stories all demonstrate one thing: the simple act of planting an edible garden feeds more than just one need.

[Read more →]

November 23, 2010   No Comments

Vanishing of the Bees

vanish.jpg

Documentary by George Langworthy and Maryam Henein
US Release – August 21, 2010
National Honeybee Awareness Day!

Vanishing of the Bees takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee. The film also highlights the positive changes that have resulted due to a tragic phenomenon known as “Colony Collapse Disorder.” Providing viewers with tangible solutions they can apply to their everyday lives, Vanishing of the Bees unfolds as a dramatic tale of science and mystery, illuminating the greater meaning surrounding the relationship between humankind and Mother Earth. The bees have a message – but will we listen?

[Read more →]

October 28, 2010   No Comments

Co.Nx, hosted by the U.S. Department of State, features Growing Power – A Model for Urban Agriculture

Growing Power is a sustainable urban agriculture center located in the city of Milwaukee

Co.Nx, hosted by the U.S. Department of State, provides free online multimedia events with experts on a variety of topics. Our events are live, and we invite people from around the world listen in and discuss an array of important issues in order to share their thoughts and learn from each other.

Our goal is to connect people from around the world so they may discuss an array of important topics. We invite everyone to join our free multimedia events so they may engage each other in a discussion by sharing their thoughts, opinions and ideas.

[Read more →]

October 13, 2010   No Comments

Visit New York’s urban farming community in this 27 minute video

Lunch New York City – Episode 1 – Urban Farming

By New York City Media
Watch this video. Mike

New York City is a huge metropolis thats urban areas greatly outnumber its rural ones. Yet for a city of over 8 million people, New Yorkers consume a staggering amount of food. Lunch NYC takes a look at the efforts and movements trying to make this concrete jungle a little more edible. This episode, Urban Farming, is hosted by Nicole Parker.

Topics include:

Farming Concrete
Community Gardens
Herb Farming
Indoor food grown hydroponiconically
Rooftop hydroponics
Urban farm produce taste test

[Read more →]

October 9, 2010   No Comments

Music video features making a community garden in Detroit – Triumph over Adversity

Music videos celebrate urban agriculture – On a Good Day (Metropolis) by Above, Beyond & Gareth Emery

Beautiful videos! Mike
Tracklist:
1. Above & Beyond pres. OceanLab – On A Good Day (Above & Beyond Acoustic Mix) (pre-order on iTunes now)

“We all read about the Detroit Urban Farms project and saw the documentaries about it and it really moved us all. To see a community reclaiming the crumbling city blocks to grow the food they need is an incredible story in so many ways. It was moving, topical and also a beautiful and apt illustration of what the song is actually about – triumph over adversity. As a video concept, it was perfect from angles.” – Above & Beyond’s Tony McGuinness

See the longer video about making this video on the next page. Interviews.

[Read more →]

October 6, 2010   No Comments

Speaking about Ben Affleck, his wife Jennifer Garner filmed in a community garden too

garner2 copy.jpg
Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant filming “Catch and Release” in Vancouver, BC. Photo by Michael Levenston.

Paparazzi alert! Garner photographed in the community garden next to City Farmer’s garden in 2005

Along 6th Avenue in Vancouver, next to our Compost Demonstration Garden, is the Maple Street Community Garden on city boulevard land next to the no-longer-used CPR railway tracks. In July, 2005, Jennifer Garner and crew turned up to film a segment of “Catch And Release”.

Of course we were there, gawking from the rooftop of our building. I got a few zoom shots off before they spotted me and yelled “stop”. The larger versions of the photos include a good number of unusual models of compost bins that we’d donated to the gardens over the years.

[Read more →]

September 26, 2010   1 Comment

Actors Ben Affleck and Rebecca Hall in a community garden in “The Town”

bentown.jpg
(L-r) Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey and Ben Affleck as Doug MacRay in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ crime drama ‘The Town,’ distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Photo by Claire Folger

It’s a Boston community garden but which one?

Excerpt from a review in the Observer by Phillip French
Sept 26, 2010

Based on a novel by Chuck Hogan called Prince of Thieves, Ben Affleck’s The Town is a violent crime story set in the Charlestown area of north-east Boston, which boasts more bank and armoured car robbers than any other square mile in America. Forty years ago one might have been surprised by this, as to outsiders Boston was thought of as a sedate city, rich in revolutionary history and the setting for respectable novels of upper-class manners.

[Read more →]

September 26, 2010   No Comments

Chef Bryant Terry discusses the rise of urban farming


NourishLife.org. Chef Bryant Terry discusses the rise of urban farming and its importance in building healthy communities, engaging young people, and bringing fresh, homegrown food to cities.

The rise of urban farming

By Nourish Video Encyclopedia

Bryant Terry is an eco-chef, food justice activist, and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen and co-author of Grub, with Anna Lappé. For more than a decade he has worked to build a more just and sustainable food system. His interest in cooking, farming, and community health can be traced back to his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee, where his grandparents inspired him to grow, prepare, and appreciate good food.

[Read more →]

September 22, 2010   No Comments

‘Save the Farm’ at Vancouver International Film Festival

farm5.jpg

Daryl Hannah fights to save the farm

Directed and produced by Michael Kuehnert
Playing at the Vancouver Film Festival
Sep 30th and Oct 1st, 2010

The endangered 14-acre organic farm in South Central Los Angeles, cultivated by 350 families over 14 years and then sold out from under them by the Los Angeles city council, is the subject of Michael Kuehnert’s call to arms. Celebrities – Alicia Silverstone, Amy Smart, Daryl Hannah Julia, Butterfly Hill, Tom Morello, – and activists link arms to fight city hall.

[Read more →]

September 18, 2010   No Comments

LA urban homesteader and TV producer Theresa Loe on Growing a Greener World

theresTV.jpg
See the TV episode here.

TV producer is an urban garden educator

By Growing a Greener World

Excerpt:

In this episode we visit with Joe’s Associate Producer of Growing a Greener World, and urban homesteading expert, Theresa Loe. Joe, Nathan and Patti descend on Theresa’s small but productive urban garden in LA to see first-hand how this popular blogger and trained Master Canner incorporates enough produce aesthetically to feed her family of four. Annuals and perennials are intermingled with vegetables, herbs, fruit and chickens for a visually pleasing yet highly productive garden and outdoor learning environment for her two young boys.

[Read more →]

September 16, 2010   No Comments

Greensgrow Farms – from brownfield to model commercial urban farm

greensgrow4.jpg
See the TV episode here.

Must-see interview with Mary Seton Corboy of Greensgrow Farms

By Growing a Greener World, a groundbreaking new television series that delivers the latest trends in eco-friendly living mixed with traditional gardening know-how to a modern audience.

Excerpt:

Joe and Patti journey to Philadelphia, home of Greensgrow Farms, fulfillment of the dream of visionary in urban farming, Mary Seton Corboy. More than ten years ago a city block in the Kensington area was the site of an abandoned galvanized steel plant and an EPA brownfields project (see below) that the neighborhood had given up on. But not Mary. Beginning the experimental transformation she was growing lettuce hydroponically (growing plants in a water and nutrient solution without soil) for her clients; high-end local restaurants in need of fresh, organic produce. But the one attribute she prides herself on is her ability to change.

[Read more →]

September 16, 2010   No Comments

The Queer Farmer Film Project

fruitloop.jpg
Kay Grimm and Sue Spicer of Fruit Loop Acres in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Queer Farmer Film Project is creating a full-length documentary film which explores the dynamic relationships between gender, sexuality, and agriculture, with a particular focus on the hearts and hard work of America’s queer farmers.

Excerpt from the Queer Film Project website.

Fruit Loop Acres is a 3/4 acre permaculture fruit farm in the heart of the city. Like many post-industrial midwestern cities, much of this urban center is fledgling, depressed, boarded up and faced with significant challenges to accessing good fresh food.

[Read more →]

September 12, 2010   No Comments

Levi Strauss and Co. film urban farm in Braddock, Pennsylvania


In 2010, Levi Strauss and Co. began a collaboration in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a broken town struggling to reinvent itself. As part of this collaboration, Levi Strauss and Co. invested in Braddock’s community center, public library, and urban farm. The result is a campaign that tells the story of the people of Braddock.

A vacant lot, an opportunity – We Are All Workers: Episode 7 Urban Farm

As an urban farmer, Marshall envisions Braddock’s empty lots as opportunities to create a stronger, healthier community. Amidst the closed steel mills and abandoned homes, the Urban Farm brings affordable, organic produce that’s “as local as you can get” to the dinner tables of Braddock’s homes. Brought to you by Levi’s in partnership with IFC and Sundance Channel.

[Read more →]

September 12, 2010   3 Comments

Urban Agriculture in Atlanta


A video survey of urban agriculture and community gardening in Atlanta. This story was featured on “This is Atlanta with Alicia Steele,” a Telly Award-winning and Emmy-nominated magazine show on PBA, Atlanta’s PBS Station. Produced by Jack Walsh. (Beautiful video. Mike)

City Gardens in Atlanta

This is Atlanta with Alicia Steele

At This Is Atlanta, we wanted to explore a kind of urban agriculture that brings people together — community gardens. A community garden can start out as simply as a few plots and some pooled resources, or they can grow to include classes, nature trails, and even chicken coops. Our story features these:

The Oakhurst Community Garden began as a grass-roots environmental education center and added gardening plots at the request of neighborhood residents.

[Read more →]

August 30, 2010   2 Comments

Short film about Berlin’s Prinzessinnengarten

princes3.jpg

Urban gardening: We spend a day on the farm in deepest Berlin to find out how urban agriculture is taking root in the German capital

In Monocle
12.08.10

Reporter: Markus Albers
Narrator: Saul Taylor
Director/Cameraman: Christian Fussenegger
Producer: Gillian Dobias
Editor: Aleksander Solum

See the video here.

August 27, 2010   No Comments

Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture on KCPT TV

The Local Show on KCPT is designed to highlight artists and entrepreneurs, leaders and overachievers from all walks of life – and in the process, help Kansas Citizens discover substantially more about this place we call home.

Link to Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture here.

August 18, 2010   No Comments

Food Forward is a series of thirteen, 30-minute episodes exploring new ideas of food in America

Raising $125,000 to shoot a pilot episode on urban agriculture in America

Food Forward goes beyond celebrity chefs, cooking competitions, and recipes to reveal the compelling stories and inspired solutions envisioned by food heroes across America who are striving to create a more just, sustainable and delicious alternative to what we eat and how we produce it.

Written by food journalist Stett Holbrook and produced by a veteran documentary film making team led by Greg Roden, Food Forward is a series of thirteen, 30-minute episodes exploring new ideas of food in America as told by the people who are living them.

[Read more →]

July 21, 2010   No Comments

Michael Hansen – brilliant urban agriculture photographer

birming.jpg
Gardens of Park Place, Birmingham, AL. See larger image here.

Breaking Through Concrete continues to impress!

Michael Hanson is an award winning photographer based in Seattle, WA and was recently named one of the World’s Top Travel Photographers by Popular Photography Magazine.

In the midst of a summer sleeping on buses or in chain hotels throughout the Appalachians while playing baseball in the Atlanta Braves minor league organization, Michael started to make pictures. The unique environment, personalities, and lifestyle of minor league dovetailed with Michael’s sensibility for documentary photography. Over the two years he played with the Braves, Michael shot a series that sparked his post-baseball photography career.

[Read more →]

June 26, 2010   No Comments

Feature-length documentary in production about urban agriculture in both the First and Third Worlds

‘Food Not Lawns’ documentary fundraising teaser

By Karney Hatch

This is the fundraising teaser for the upcoming documentary “Food Not Lawns”. The documentary examines the efforts of a variety of individuals and organizations in Los Angeles to replace lawns with food-producing gardens. It also looks at larger-scale urban agriculture projects such as a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm operating in North Hollywood.

The second focus of the film will be to examine the success of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba, with an eye towards transferring the ideas and methods that have worked in this “Third World” city to urban centers in the United States and elsewhere in the “First World”.

[Read more →]

June 24, 2010   No Comments

Toronto’s Greenest City sprouts in Parkdale


Yonge Street’s videographer Rose Bianchini went to Parkdale to see what Greenest City is up to in that neigbourhood.

Greenest City

Greenest City is an award-winning charitable organization that grows local organic food, youth leaders and healthy, sustainable communities with a focus on Toronto’s Parkdale-High Park neighbourhood. Our animated, community-driven initiatives are grounded in urban agriculture.

Why focus on food? Because we believe that food and urban agriculture offer opportunities to connect people to nature, to each other and to new skills, simultaneously addressing a variety of critical urban issues.

[Read more →]

June 24, 2010   No Comments