“I don’t like the goal of self-sufficiency, I think it’s a fool’s errand to chase that goal.”

Filmed by Johnny Sanphillippo
FairCompanies.com
May 20, 2013
(Must See. Mike.)

Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne have been farming their yard in Los Angeles for over a decade. In addition to a mini orchard and extensive veggie garden, they have all the instruments of an urban homestead: chickens, bees, rainwater capture, DIY greywater, solar fruit preserver, humanure toilet, rocket stove, adobe oven. But they don’t like to talk about sustainability of self-sufficiency, instead they prefer the term self-reliance.

“I don’t like the goal of self-sufficiency, I think it’s a fool’s errand to chase that goal,” explains Knutzen. “I think we live in communities, human beings are meant to live, and trade and work together. I think self-reliance is okay, in other words, knowing how to do things.”

Knutzen and Coyne share their tinkering, DIY and small scale urban agriculture experiments on their blog Root Simple and in their books “The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City” and “Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post Consumer World”. They believe in the value of shop classes and old-school home economics (back when you learned how to make things, not shop for things).

For the couple, their true goal with all of this self-reliance is freedom to live as they please. By growing their own and canning, pickling, preserving, freezing and baking their own breads and beans, they live frugally. They also only own one car (plus a cargo bike), one cellphone and no tv. “I think a lot of it has to do with our overdriving ambition to be free,” explains Coyne, “makes being cheap fun, because it means you can be free”.

Link here.

We operate our commercial aquaponics farm in Hawaii, and teach you how to feed yourself by building and operating your own aquaponics systems

When: Sunday May 26, 830 am – 530 pm
Where: the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street
How much: $40-100, no one turned away.
contact: gavin@plantingjustice.org for more info.

“Friendly Aquaponics has trained thousands of people at their certified organic commercial aquaponics farm in Hawaii, and now they’re coming to Oakland to share their tried and true practices of growing an incredible amount of food in small spaces with 90% less water than conventional agriculture. Perfect for paved lots and urban agriculture where
soils are nonexistent or too toxic! Hope to see you there.”

From their website:

Build four different sizes of stable, durable, and productive indoor aquaponics systems that can be operated indoors OR outdoors, or even MOVED between indoors and outdoors, depending on the season. These affordable systems range from a counter top 3.5 square foot system which costs $85 for materials to one with 48 square feet in grow bed area that costs $460 for materials. Most materials are available locally; some items may need to come from suppliers whose contact information is given in the materials lists. In addition to the four standard sizes of systems in the manual we show you how to build small custom-designed aquaponics systems out of Igloo coolers, discarded refrigerators and freezers, plastic garbage cans and barrels, concrete mixing tubs, and other easily-procured items. Most importantly, we show you in complete detail how to OPERATE them successfully! This complete plans package is only $49.95!

Their website here.

The work ethic instilled by the military makes vets a good fit for farming, advocates say.

By Marc Ramirez
Dallas News
May 19, 2013

An assemblage of soil-filled plastic buckets stood at the ready, and Operation Rooftop was officially underway. For former soldiers Steve Smith and James Jeffers, it was just another mission in their quest to change Dallas’ eating habits through an urban farming enterprise they call Eat The Yard.

With the aid of a winch, a scissor lift and a half-dozen volunteers, they hoisted buckets of soil 30 feet up through an opening in the ceiling of a West Dallas design studio. There, on the roof, the buckets would be dotted with the starts of watermelons, lemon cucumbers and Malabar climbing spinach.

“Part of why I love this after being in the military is there’s a lot of problem-solving,” said Jeffers, who deals with the lingering effects of traumatic brain injury suffered after a car bomb blast in Baghdad. “It’s given me meaning and drive.”

Eat The Yard is among a growing number of farming programs started by or for veterans around the country. Besides offering ample job opportunity and the benefits of working outdoors, advocates say the work can be therapeutic.

“You’d be surprised at the things you get off your chest,” said Smith, who, like Jeffers, did two tours of duty in the Middle East. “You may not want to talk to a psychiatrist, but out here you’re weeding and pulling strawberries and the next thing you know, you’ve just gotten a bunch of stuff off your chest. We’re doing group therapy in the dirt.”

Buried issues

According to a 2008 Rand Corp. study, nearly 20 percent of military service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression.

“I don’t think anybody who goes over there doesn’t come back a little stressed out,” Smith said. “You come back different, that’s for sure.”
Traumatic experiences buried deep are hard to unearth in a counselor’s office. Farming and gardening can offer comfort unavailable elsewhere, even for those who insist they don’t need help.

“You get a bunch of vets together, and it’s a way to sneak in a little therapy without hurting any egos,” Smith said. “All they really need to do is talk about it. Like our grandfathers did.”

Smith and Jeffers met in the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division but lost touch when Jeffers was deployed for his first tour in Iraq. They randomly reconnected in Kuwait several years later.

Both served two tours in the Middle East, but it was Jeffers who suffered the most damage: He’s got memory issues, the result of his brain injury and concussions suffered in a series of other close calls.

He had come back to Dallas, not doing much of anything and frustrated to be on disability. Smith had already been growing vegetables in his yard and talking with others about the idea of for-profit urban farming but couldn’t find anyone willing to do it.

“James was just sitting around collecting disability checks,” Smith said. “He said, ‘I need to do something.’ I said, ‘Let’s do it, then.’ I wanted to help him out, and I wanted a buddy I could trust. It just worked out.”
With help from the Farmer Veteran Coalition, a Davis, Calif.-based group offering resources and education to veterans pursuing farming careers, they bought a tractor, then found grocers like Oak Cliff’s Urban Acres willing to buy their goods.

Next they found local property owners willing to offer land in exchange for produce, and since then, Eat The Yard has blossomed from a two-lawn operation to half a dozen Oak Cliff yards covering about an acre in all. A Preston Hollow resident has offered land for an orchard, and several other businesses are considering rooftop gardens too.

Smith and Jeffers strive to be green, composting vegetable waste to grow new veggies and turning restaurants’ discarded oil into biodiesel fuel for their vehicles.

“We’re not shipping vegetables in from California, we’re not refrigerating them, we’re not storing them in coolers for four weeks,” Smith said. “It’s not only more energy-efficient, it’s more nutritious.”

Nationwide mission

Now Eat The Yard is among efforts like the Veteran Farmers Project at Nebraska’s Center for Rural Affairs and Combat Boots to Cowboy Boots, at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture. The work ethic instilled by the military makes vets a good fit for farming, advocates say.

“Our mission is to mobilize veterans to feed America,” said Ross Erickson, who does vet outreach for the coalition.

Smith and Jeffers hope to recruit other vets to their cause. “We want to get vets interning with us and into paying jobs,” Jeffers said.

But that’s down the line. For now, Eat The Yard is powered by volunteers like Mariana Griggs, a community garden proponent who teaches biology at El Centro Community College and was among those helping to install the rooftop garden at Mecca Design.

“Plants are living things,” Griggs said between rounds of soil-bucket carrying. “If you learn how to take care of a living thing, you learn to take care of yourself.”

Studio owner George Mecca was happy to offer his rooftop for an entrepreneurial effort he recognized as more than just bluster.
Smith “said he had an idea and then he showed up with two water-collection tanks,” Mecca said. “That’s somebody who’s not just talking to me at a party. He didn’t just have a bunch of magazines about what he wants to do; he had a yard full of plants.”

For Jeffers and Smith, promoting healthy eating is a cause they can believe in.

“It’s something to be involved in that’s bigger than myself,” Jeffers said. “Like the Army.”

Link here.

“A sense of accomplishment in a community that has seen so much divestment.”

By Megha
Detroit Free Press
May 20, 2013

Excerpt:

n front yards, backyards and on vacant land where nothing but weeds and debris used to be, an urban farm belt is forming, bringing neighbors back to the earth where just a few years ago, no one would come outside.

“In 2006, there was nobody on these streets. Some people had lived here for 30 years and were utterly discouraged,” said Riet Schumack, the woman at the center of the farmway taking over the area near Fenkell and Eliza Howell Park.

In seven years, that section of Brightmoor has transformed and been organized under the moniker Neighbors Building Brightmoor. Students tend two youth gardens and sell the food at local farmers markets. Adults grow everything from food to flowers in gardens called Ladybug Lane and Rabbit Run. Houses begging to be torn down are painted brightly, with inspiring prose. And young adults from elsewhere have moved in to start small commercial farms, gardens and parks on two-and three-lot stretches where the houses are long gone and the land was left barren.

It is Brightmoor’s farmway effort, said Detroit City Councilman James Tate, that helped push the city’s urban farming ordinance through. It was evidence, he said, that urban farming could work as a community builder in Detroit long before urban farming became a social justice buzzword.

Read the complete article here.

Pete sings “Turn, Turn, Turn”

Video shot by John Rokosny and Andriette Redmon.
Produced by WingFlix.Com
Published on May 2, 2013

Happy 94th Birthday to Pete Seeger at the New York City Community Garden Coalition’s “Stand for the Land” Forum, April 27, 2013 at the Great Hall at Cooper Union. Pete is presented the Hammer of Justice by Haja Worley.

Pete sings “Turn, Turn, Turn”, “Quite Early Morning” and “If I had a Hammer” with Morley, Stephan Said, and Pierce Turner with Sylvain Leroux on flute and the whole crowd. Then Pete teaches a little history lesson, past and future.

See New York City Community Garden Coalition here.

Will create clarity and predictability for urban farmers

Boston Redevelopment Authority
May 13, 2013

Since January 2012, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the Mayor’s Office of Food Initiatives, and the Mayor’s Urban Agriculture Rezoning Working Group have been meeting monthly to draft new zoning to open up new urban agriculture opportunities in Boston. Article 89 of the zoning code will create clarity and predictability for anyone interested in commercial food growing and creating farms in Boston. A draft of the new zoning article is now finalized and available online.

Some highlights from the draft regulations as reported in JamaicaPlain Patch article:

• Small and medium ground-level urban farms will be allowed in all city districts and subdistricts, while large ground-level farms—greater than one acre in size—are allowed only in industrial districts and as a conditional use, with special permit, in all other districts.

• Rooftop farms of all sizes will be allowed by right in the city’s industrial and institutional districts, but rooftop farms of more than 5,000 sq. ft. are conditional in all other districts and subdistricts.

• Most ground-level urban farms that are more than 10,000 sq. ft. in size must undergo a Comprehensive Farm Review process to make sure they are designed in a way that fits with the surrounding neighborhood. Rooftop farms larger than 5,000 sq. ft. must also go through the CFR process, with some exceptions for farms being placed in industrial and institutional districts.

• Accessory composting will be allowed where any ground-level urban farm or rooftop urban farm is permitted. Ground-level composting structures must not exceed 10 feet in height and all must not cover more than 5 percent of the lot and must be enclosed and out of direct contact with flammable materials.

• Article 89 does not regulate whether the keeping of bees or hens is allowed in certain districts—that is already outlined in the city’s Base Code. But the new document does set some rules for that use, including the prohibition of on-site slaughtering, a no-rooster policy and a limit of six hens and six non-egg-laying chickens per site.

See article here.

See Boston draft document here.

Gardening, Gleaning, and Farming for Food Banks in the U.S.

By Domenic Vitiello, Jeane Ann Grisso, Rebecca Fischman, and Leah Whiteside
A report on research funded by the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives
2013

Excerpt:

Food banks have recently enlarged their distribution and promotion of fresh vegetables and fruit. Many food banks are accomplishing this through involvement in and connections to local agriculture, in a diverse range of gardening, farming, and eld gleaning programs. Many food banks are also playing expanded roles in building community food security, especially through programs that support gardeners and farmers. As more Americans need food assistance while, at the same time, state and federal funding for food relief is shrinking, scaling up and replicating programs that distribute and support production and consumption of fresh produce oers a vital opportunity to transform food relief systems.

This report summarizes the results of research examining food banks’ engagement in and with local agriculture. e report documents how food banks grow, support production, and acquire fresh fruit and vegetables directly from local farms and gardens in cities and regions across the United States. We include information about the dierent ways that food banks do this as well as estimates of how much fresh, local produce they distribute to hungry people. e report consists of: a brief introduction; a description of our methods; basic summary analysis of our findings; sections on gleaning, gardening, and farming programs, with case studies of best practices at eleven food banks and partner organizations; followed by a brief discussion of some policy implications of their work.

Read the complete report here.

Terrace gardening with the Indian pioneer, Dr B.N Viswanath

Home and Decor
2013

Excerpt:

What inspired you to start a movement of Organic farming, especially on the terrace?

Dr. Vishwanath: It happened accidentally. I was travelling from Delhi to Bangalore in 1995, as the flight couldn’t land on time due to some technical reason and flew over Bangalore city for a while… that’s when I noticed immaculate terraces reflecting sunlight. That’s when the thought came in my mind, why the constant rise of temperatures in Bangalore? .Even though, Bangalore is known as “Air conditioned city” because of the pleasant weather.

It disturbed me to realize that the Garden City of India, Bangalore, has become a concrete jungle day by day. I didn’t bury that thought in me; I discussed with like minded people and friends and realized that in Bangalore every one used to have an ornamental garden in the front and vegetable garden at the back side of their house.

But on the contradictory now every inch of the property is use for construction as the land becomes highly priced commodity. So I decided to bring a change by finding space that we can use effectively for cultivation. In the city I could find space nowhere but on the terrace.

Then we studied and developed efficient terrace gardening methodology. Carrying the movement ahead a workshop was organized at Institution of Agricultural Technologists (IAT) Bangalore in 1995. It was inspiring insightful for us to see the large number of participants, they really wanted to know the possibility of using terrace for gardening. There were around 100 people (majority women) including Kannada heroin Ms. Bharathi Vishnuvardhan.

Read the complete article here.

The rearing of insects can be carried out in rural, peri-urban and urban areas. Insect consumption is a part of the diets of over 2 billion people worldwide!

By Arnold van Huis Joost Van Itterbeeck Harmke Klunder Esther Mertens Afton Halloran Giulia Muir and Paul Vantomme
Food And Agriculture Organization Of The United Nations
Rome, 2013

“Edible insects: future prospective for food and feed security” was launched on May 13th during the International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition. This publication describes the contribution of insects to food security. It shows the many traditional and potential new uses of insects for direct human consumption and the opportunities for and constraints to farming them for food and feed.

It examines the body of research on issues such as insect nutrition and food safety, the use of insects as animal feed, and the processing and preservation of insects and their products.

Download the book here (201 pages).

A 4 page information guide summarizing the findings of the publication can be downloaded here in:

English:

Français:

Espagnol:

Needing $50,000 to manufacture their product

Take the guesswork out of growing your own fresh, nutritious herbs and greens with Let’s Patch! Our lightweight, self-watering Patch Planters are user-friendly for kids, grownups and, well, everyone! After a soft launch with our local community and a bunch of elementary school classrooms, we have come up with the perfect formula for fresh, healthy herbs and greens every time. With your support we can go from beta to mega, bringing Patch Planters and a healthy, sustainable food source into more homes around the world.

When it comes to food, if you grow it you will eat it. Especially with kids.

Imagine if we all started to grow even just a small amount of our own food. Think of how this would benefit our health and lifestyle. Imagine 20 years down the line if kids started growing their own food now. Our current food systems are broken. Let’s Patch it up! Our low-tech, self-watering Patch Planter makes growing good food easy peasy.

See their Kickstarter page here.

Developing an Urban Agriculture Master Plan for the City will lead to a sustainable urban system of food production and distribution

City of Omaha Website
May 10, 2013

Farms to Omaha will be the driving element of Omaha’s urban agricultural programming. The initiative will be farmer-based, with the goal of increasing access to local high-quality produce in our restaurants, grocery stores, and community at large. “The Farms to Omaha coalition will bring about important changes in our how our citizens access food,” said Mayor Jim Suttle. “This coalition of farmers, distributors, and restaurant owners will bring local grains and produce directly to individuals who lack access to local, nutritious food. This will promote healthy lifestyles, strengthen our neighborhoods, create jobs, and keep our food economy local.”

In addition to promoting the growth of local urban farms, the Farms to Omaha program will provide resources to support the development of community gardens in North and South Omaha. Furthermore, through a partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the “Farms to Omaha” program will help strengthen the business development of the urban agriculture economy in Omaha.

Read the complete article here.

60 concerned citizens rewrite the definition of an Urban Farm in Austin

By Dustin
East Side Compost Pedallers
05/09/2013

Excerpt:

In order for a property to be recognized by the city as an urban farm, it needs to meet the criteria set by the urban farm code. That makes sense. But what is so great about getting a certificate of occupancy as urban farm anyway? Couldn’t you just start growing food and forget about the title? It turns out that there are a number of benefits that come along with being recognized by the city as an urban farm.

First, urban farm certification does away with some of the restrictions that home growers are usually submitted to under the home occupation ordinance. It also allows for employees. While it is not allowed for other residentially zoned properties to employ on-site workers, certified Urban Farms are allowed up to 1 on-site employee for each full acre that the farm occupies plus one additional employee for any partial acreage. Another notable advantage of the urban farm title is that it grants growers the green light to put up a sign outside and advertise their farm as a business.

Read the complete article here.

“The average farmer today is 60 years old,” says Spicer. “We need to open up farming as an option for kids to consider when choosing a career.”

By Zinta Aistars
SouthWest Michigan
April 25, 2013

Excerpt:

Sprout Urban Farms grew quickly, and soon included all of these things.

Bright Star Farm became the one community garden. Compost Happens became the community compost project with a focus on youth engagement and environmental stewardship. Fresh on Wheels is the mobile market partnership between Sprout Urban Farms and the Battle Creek Community Foundation. The GreenFist Project is a gardening youth internship made up of youth, ages 16 to 23, from many of the school districts surrounding Battle Creek.

More initiatives keep popping up, almost like weeds. Each new project brings more nourishment to the community.

“Community food grows relationships, I always say,” Andrews says with a nod.

Read the complete article here.

A study in peri-urban areas of Nepal’s Bhaktapur district showed the lack of technical know-how among farmers regarding preparation and use of farm yard manure and balanced application of chemical fertilizers.

By Sushil Thapa and Juni Maharjan
ag.sushilthapa@gmail.com
May 11, 2013

Nepal is endowed with diverse climatic conditions and agro-biodiversity which offer bundles of opportunity to grow rice and wheat. Though, in recent years especially in urban centers, farmers are motivated towards commercial vegetable production for getting better yield and economic return, rice-wheat based cropping system (RWCS) is still a major part of Nepalese agriculture.

Increasing resource constraints, changes in farming system and decreasing availability of manpower has significant effect in transformations of soil fertility management practices in Nepal. Chemical fertilizers are becoming popular among the farmers and occupy a key position in plant nutrient supply. Since Nepal does not produce chemical fertilizers and is fully dependent on imports, the rate and timing of application is chiefly determined on the basis of how much fertilizer is available rather than how much actually a plant needs. This inappropriate and/or inadequate practice of nutrient management is one of the major production hurdles. Climatic abnormalities, lack of irrigation infrastructure, inadequate access to improved seeds and small farm size holding are other constraints in RWCS.

In many areas of Nepal, yields of both rice and wheat have stagnated at below potential level. A study conducted by the authors in 2012 in peri-urban areas of Bhaktapur district showed the lack of technical know-how among farmers regarding preparation and use of farm yard manure and balanced application of chemical fertilizers. Urea was the major and only one fertilizer that is being used by more than 82 per cent farmers interviewed. Adoption of soil test and measures to improve soil pH was rarely done. Abiotic stresses such as erratic rainfall, drought, drying of water resources and biotic stresses from disease and pest were also recorded as a vital risk in RWCS, which has crooked to harsher in recent years. Zinc deficiency in rice and loose smut and yellow rust in wheat was quite common. Low level of soil organic matter, loss of fertile top soil and environmental pollution in the areas of brick kilns was rampant. Farmers were facing production/yield as well as marketing/price risk in both rice and wheat and were found reluctant to continue RWCS.

Cereals are the staple food crops of Nepal. Rice alone accounts 55 per cent of the total national cereal production and supplies up to 40 per cent calorie intake per head. Since RWCS has significant contribution in production of food grains, farmers should be trained on improving manure quality and integrated nutrient management practices in RWCS. Exploring alternative sources of irrigation and increasing water-use efficiency in dry land areas is imperative. Incorporation of soil organic matter and legumes in crop rotations should be promoted. Finally, it is suggested to endorse System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Wheat Intensification (SWI) which has shown positive results in reducing quantity of seed, water, and pesticides while enhancing crop productivity.

Billions of dollars — and a way of life—ride on saving pollinators

Jennifer S. Holland
National Geographic News
Published May 10, 2013

Excerpts:

Bees are back in the news this spring, if not back in fields pollinating this summer’s crops. The European Union (EU) has announced that it will ban, for two years, the use of neonicotinoids, the much-maligned pesticide group often fingered in honeybee declines. The U.S. hasn’t followed suit, though this year a group of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups sued the EPA for not doing enough to protect bees from the pesticide onslaught.

Barrage of Stressors

So in addition to a changing climate and bizarre local weather systems, bees are threatened by chemical exposure in untested and unregulated combinations, disappearing foraging habitat with increasing monoculture that requires trucking bees from place to place, and fungal and viral intruders, plus the dreaded Varroa mite.

Meanwhile, nature is not sitting still. The diseases that are taking out immune-suppressed bees are quick to evolve resistance to farmers’ attempts to protect their bees. “Based on our management surveys last year, not one commercial product against Varroa worked consistently,” says van Engelsdorp, citing numerous examples.

With the barrage of stressors bees face, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re no longer as resilient as they once were. And honeybees, vanEngelsdorp points out, are among the most robust pollinators. The native insects, such as bumblebees, stingless bees, and flies, may be in worse shape, though their plights—and role in the ecosystem—are far less well known.

Read the complete article here.

UK gardens will be replaced by hospital and homes

By Adam Binnie
Waterford Observer
May 8, 2013

Excerpt:

An allotment campaign group has vowed to continue fighting to save a patch of West Watford allotments, after the Government has granted permission to build on it as part of the Watford Health Campus.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, announced today that he has approved building on the Farm Terrace allotments as part of project, which includes a new hospital and 600 homes.

The hundred year old allotments were not included in the original plans, drawn up in 2007, but in December last year Watford Borough Council said the land was needed to make the site economically viable.

The Farm Terrace Community Association fought a bitter campaign against the use of the allotment site, which is owned by the council, as part of the project.

Read the complete article here.

Food Field, sits on the old site of Peck Elementary in Detroit (formerly a convent).

Food Field is a new urban farm on four acres in Detroit’s Durfee neighborhood, between Boston-Edison and Highland Park. Since May 2011 we have harvested several thousand pounds of organic produce, built relationships with local chefs and neighbors, raised a large hoop house for year-round growing, and hired an intern and neighborhood teens. Our goal is to build a sustainable business feeding Detroit and create real alternatives to our corporate food system, while bringing jobs, resources and benefits back to our community.

Our newest project is a 7,000-gallon aquaponics system where we’ll raise catfish and blue gill year-round in our hoop house, along with vegetables and seedlings in one big self-sustaining cycle. It’s based on similar operations like Growing Power in Milwaukee and Toledo GROWS, where aquaculture and hydroponics are combined to maximize food production and recycle resources most efficiently. While there’s been a lot of discussion for aquaculture and expanding farming in Detroit, we’ll be the first farm to make aquaponics happen on this scale here (with your support!).

Visit them here.

“There have been no policies which support agriculture in Delhi, so I don’t think they will last very long in this area.”

By Joseph Redwood-Martinez
Artist, writer, and filmmaker
Huffington Post
May 8, 2013

Excerpt:

The Yamuna River runs through the middle of Delhi — India’s second largest metropolis and home to a population of over 18 million inhabitants. But very few of this city’s residents or visitors know that along the banks of the Yamuna live thousands of urban farmers. Contrary to what one who learns of them might assume, these urban farmers are not recent migrants forcibly displaced from rural areas and only able to find work in Delhi as agricultural laborers. Rather, they have been cultivating vegetables along the banks of Yamuna for several generations. Yet still, since they are without government identification cards and do not own the property on which they farm, these farmers are among the most vulnerable population in urban Delhi — not only unknown, but also invisible.

Despite having no access to government services, living under constant threat of eviction, and having to rebuild their houses each year after the river banks flood during the monsoons, the Yamuna farmers speak enthusiastically about farming vegetables in the Delhi city center in favor of growing grain crops in the rural provinces as they did generations ago. But with the recently opened metro stations along the banks of the Yamuna and the likelihood of new developments, the future of this vulnerable population is uncertain.

As part of ongoing research I have been doing for a feature-length documentary on urban agriculture in various cities around the world, I was recently in Delhi to learn more about the dynamics of urban agriculture in this rapidly growing mega-city. From preliminary research, I was under the impression that there was little to no significant urban agriculture in Delhi. As such, my motivation for going there was to understand the irrelevance of this activity in Delhi — to ask questions not about something that was abundantly practiced, but rather decidedly absent; ultimately, to better understand the social and cultural factors that prevented this activity from coming into being.

Read the complete article here.

Stanford Daily – ‘Breaking News from the Farm since 1892’

By Graciela Watrous
The Stanford Daily
May 9, 2013

Excerpts:

Unlikely as it sounds, Detroit has no real shortage of small-scale urban farms. In the last couple of years it has been estimated that there are as many as 355 urban agricultural farms and gardens in the city. Most of them are small, and many of them are non-profit community gardens. Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, for example, runs one of the more successful community gardens within the city limits. It hosts a 1.5-acre vegetable garden and an apple orchard. Several other NGOs have sprung up in the last couple of years, like Greening of Detroit, which has given the urban agricultural movement in Detroit legitimacy and force.

Even an institution like Detroit’s Eastern Market (a farmer’s market founded in 1891) has changed its purpose to become part of this new movement. Michigan State University has even been pouring money into urban agricultural research, spending $100 million on an urban agricultural center in Detroit and financing a $1.5-million project called Metro Food Plus, which aims to reshape the food system in Detroit and beyond.

Hantz Farms

He objects, however, to the idea that Hantz Farms won’t build community. In fact, when I asked how Hantz Farm had accommodated the surrounding neighborhoods, he had a list ready for me. Scope told me that 90 percent of the people one square mile from the parameters of the farm support the project. Second, community members were concerned that food crops would attract rodents. So Hantz Farm became a tree farm. Third, Score initiated a program where vacant lots next to properties surrounding the farm must be offered to the neighboring property owner at a lower price. Fourth, Score plans to keep all roads and streets through the 200-acre property intact so that community members feel free to walk through the farm and enjoy the trees. When I asked Score whether he considered for-profit urban agriculture to be part of Detroit’s future, he answered affirmatively. He expects both large and small companies to emerge in Hantz Farm’s footsteps.

Read the complete article here.

For the day-to-day needs of commercial urban farmers

Created by Cléa Lautrey
BDes. Industrial Design
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Vancouver BC 2013

“MOBIEL is designed to support the day-to-day needs of commercial urban farmers in Vancouver. The local urban farming community is comprised of a flourishing demographic of friendly, passionate people who seek more efficiency than community gardeners, yet do not require a tractor to get from one end of their farm to another.

Beginning with the basic features of a wheelbarrow, this cart has the added benefit of organized tool storage, and the ability to be attached onto the back of a bicycle to carry goods across longer distances; from the farm to the market or from one plot to another. Mobiel carries the narrative of city farming through its unique functionality and its distinctive character.”

Learn more here.