“These are exciting times”

By Diana Nelson Jones
July 08, 2010
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Excerpt:

The urban farm — a novel, even whimsical, idea a few years ago in Pittsburgh — is now a movement so fully fledged that a neighborhood without one seems almost an anomaly.

Nationally, the movement is profuse, with seeds in the 1980s when foodies sprouted and gourmet eating went mainstream. The roots of several movements have intertwined since: urban enterprise farms, urban farms for educating children, community gardens, vacant lot greening, soil remediation of industrial landscapes, community supported agriculture, backyard chickens and bee hives, consumers who buy into livestock with farmers and grocery chains selling local produce.

Grow Pittsburgh, whose mission is to support urban gardening, is a 5-year-old nonprofit that can’t keep tabs on the number of gardens being planted in the city’s public spaces, said Julie Butcher Pezzino, executive director.

Grow Pittsburgh is a partner of groups operating gardens in Braddock, Lawrenceville, Larimer and Lemington. It is searching for a suitable plot Uptown and has Troy Hill and Hazelwood on schedule for next year.

An online search of terms such as “urban farm,” “sustainable food” and “buy local” shows how robust the movement is in other cities. Interest here has skyrocketed.

Grow Pittsburgh’s latest foray is to widen its scope. It is working with Allegheny County and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in a pilot program to encourage gardening partnerships outside the city. It is currently developing projects in Millvale and McKees Rocks.

It has also collaborated with McAuley Ministries, the granting arm of Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, GTECH Strategies, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, the A. Randolph Institute and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to create the Francis Street Community Garden and Urban Farm Project on approximately 1 1/2 acres at Bedford Avenue and Francis Street in the Hill District.

McAuley Ministries granted $37,580 to the project. Produce from that garden will be sold to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank for distribution through a farmers market and farm stands located at the Hill House and Addison Terrace.

See the complete article here.

By Henk de Zeeuw and Marielle Dubbeling
Leusden, October 2009
18,000 words

Discussion paper for the Technical Consultation “Agriculture, Food and Cities”, September 24-25, 2009, Rome, jointly organised by Food and Agriculture of the United Nations – Food for the Cities Multi-disciplinary Action (FAO-FCIT) and RUAF Foundation (International Network of Resource centres on Urban Agriculture and Food security)

This policy briefing resulted from the international expert consultation organised by FAO-Food for the Cities (FAO-FCIT ) and RUAF Foundation (24-25 September, 2009, in Rome), attended by some 25 experts on urban food security and urban agriculture from international organisations, including senior staff of FAO, RUAF Foundation, IDRC, CGIAR-Urban Harvest, UN-HABITAT, World Bank, IFAD, Rockefeller Foundation, IWMI, CIRAD, IFPRI, ICLEI, GTZ, Heifer Int., Biodiversity Int., WFP and Milano 2015.

The document discusses urban agriculture in view of the recent food and economic crisis and debates on climate change. It provides evidence-based “food for thought and action” to senior policy makers in member states and relevant UN agencies. The document intends to stimulate and facilitate the development of pro-poor policies for urban and peri-urban agriculture at international, national and city levels.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Cities, food and the urban poor: urgent challenges to build more resilient cities

• Urbanisation, increasing urban poverty and food insecurity
• The impacts of rising food prices
• The impacts of climate change
• Growing scarcity of fresh water and growing pollution of streams
due to disposal of wastewater and solid wastes

3. The importance of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) for enhancement of urban food security and reduction of urban poverty

• UPA and urban food security and nutrition
• UPA and poverty alleviation and local economic development

4. The importance of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) for climate change adaptation, sustainable water management
and building resilient cities

• UPA and climate change adaptation
• UPA and sustainable water, wastes and nutrients management

5. The way forward: building more resilient and food secure cities through urban and peri-urban agriculture

• National level
• City level
• International level

See the complete report here.

“For the past four years, Grubb has been acquainting himself with the medicinal and nutritional qualities of these plants that thrive on neglect, often in poor soils, on marginal land. He is an urban forager: a student of nourishing foods that can be gathered for free in the city. On this glorious morning the weedscape looks idyllic: the hawthorn and wild roses are in flower and birds are singing in the tree tops.”

Link to article “Where The Wild Things Are”.

Link to website “Eat The Suburbs”.