urban farming

[sabelmouse]

i find this developement rather exciting

Bad Seed Farm in Kansas City Brings Urban Farming to the Next Level: Legislation


Urban farming is not new -- its been a way to feed cities for thousands of years. But in the US, it was purposely planned out of our cities, even as they grew bigger and, as a result, hungrier. Now many of our cities contain massive sprawl, which have created new opportunities in the form of abandoned lots, a consequence of the economic downturn. But we also have a mobilized movement of individuals interested in feeding people, especially those without access to healthy fruits and vegetables (many of whom reside in cities). But connecting these dots is sometimes more complicated than it seems.

As urban farming takes hold across the nation, reviving old school ways of supporting communities with homegrown food, it will inevitably bump into resistance in the form of outdated laws and legislative confusion around this up and coming issue, in addition to complaints by neighbors who don't see the value in having a farm nearby when there are still packed shelves at the supermarket. These neighbors worry about their views, are disturbed by farm animal noises and deposits, and fear property value declines, which have more to do with economics than kale.

These anticipated problems now have a face -- Bad Seed Farm is at the center of a neighborhood zoning debate in Kansas City, Missouri. The farm is run by two forward thinking young agriculturalists, Brooke Salvaggio and her husband Dan Heryer, both age 27, who pulled up a half acre of her grandfather's lawn (with his blessing) to plant their urban farm. The two provide local organic produce to city residents via their storefront farmer's market and run a popular CSA. But the farm is located in a more affluent section of the city, where it could be viewed as "rubbing up against the suburban ideal" of perfectly manicured lawns, said Katherine Kelly, Executive Director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture. "As more people get into urban agriculture, it becomes more visible to the neighbors," said Kelly. "As [urban farming] becomes a business... people start having opinions about it."

Bad Seed is one of around fifty urban farms in greater Kansas City, where almost 22% of inhabitants were living below the poverty line in 2007, and unemployment jumped around 5 points (to 13.1% in Kansas City, KS, and 10.4% in Kansas City, MO) in the last year. This particular case has brought to the fore an issue which is bound to come up again and again as growing food changes the cityscape: how do we value urban land, and what are the existing laws on the books that keep urban agriculture from flourishing and feeding locals?

Kelly took part in a meeting with some of the legislators and the Bad Seed farmers this morning. Prior to the meeting, the urban farmers had been warned that they could be in violation of a zoning law that states that no business can be conducted in a residential zone. Technically, Salvaggio and Heryer should be exempt as they only sell produce through their storefront farm stand nearby. But the law is not nuanced enough and so is open for interpretation in the case of growing produce. The house on the property serves as the primary use of the land, a residence. Today, the legislators clarified that as long as Salvaggio and Heryer are the only two farming on their land, their urban farm will be considered an accessory use, instead of a competing primary use. Though restrictive (no volunteers, specific delivery hours to follow, etc) this is great news.

The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture is working on re-writing the code with city council members to more clearly accommodate urban farming, in an era when more and more unemployed people, hunger advocates and beginning farmers are looking for just these kinds of opportunities to grow in urban settings.

"I think this is a sign of the maturing of the urban agriculture movement," Kelly said. "Urban farming is part of a a new emerging definition of the city... We are eager to work with planning and development officials to develop new codes addressing urban agriculture."

Follow Paula Crossfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/civileater

[President Clive-φ-Davidson]

It's good to see things like this actually happening for once.

[sabelmouse]

apparently it's happening in few places. i read something else a while ago, but can't find it now.

i would if i could.

[President Clive-φ-Davidson]

I would like to hear more of this sort of thing.

[charles baker]

Here are a few urban farming pics for those who would like them. There possible future urban farms.

.

And a link to more beautiful concepts.
http://www.tuvie.com/dragonfly-a-metabolic-farm-for-new-york-city-i...

[President Clive-φ-Davidson]

Those are amazing. Thanks!

[charles baker]

Your welcome

Did you see the painting of American Gothic the artist put in the first pic?

[President Clive-φ-Davidson]

Not at first, but I see it now. That's hilarious.

[sabelmouse]

they are, though i think this is what is meant

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/29/bia.urban.farming/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/26/illegal-guerrilla-gardeni_...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/19/how-to-get-started-in-com_...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/30/the-truck-farm-the-cooles_...

[sabelmouse]

the first one about seattle's parkinstrips is the one i was looking for yeaterday.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009535078_parkin...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/dining/17roof.html?_r=2&ref=d...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/24/project-urban-rain-garden_...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/01/in-which-urban-beekeeping_...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/searchG/?cx=partner-pub-3264687723376...

[William Jennes]

I really like those images- they remind me of the Arcologies from Simcity 2000, a concept of urban planning that I have always been fascinated by. I think that, as the world gets more crowded and the cost of fuel makes interstate shipping of food more expensive, we are going to start seeing a lot more restructuring of communities to produce and consume local food. I have a lot of respect for homeowners who are able to take the initiative and do it themselves.

[sabelmouse]

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-10-usda-to-unveil/

As I prepare for five days of announcements next week, when USDA plans to unveil its new “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative, the buzz across my desk is about the potential for urban agriculture.

EPA reminds that brownfield moneys can be used to convert polluted land into working farms in inner-city areas. I saw the excellent film “The Garden,” documenting the destruction of the largest community farm in the U.S. (South Central LA) in 2006. Will and Erika Allen are coming to Minnesota again. Over breakfast, friends asked about the potential for urban food production.

I think the potential is enormous, especially in formerly industrial cities, where the big factories are not going to come back, but there are large tracts of vacant land that already have water mains (think irrigation) running under them. Each of these cities spends billions of dollars for food, and can generate significant local income by building the farms and distribution channels needed to cycle that food within city borders. We’ll also need to grow new urban farmers, and tap the excellent skills that many new immigrants already have in growing food.

Hoping the USDA will focus next week on turning urban lands into productive farms, I’ve finished revising a brief resource guide for urban agriculture I handed out at the Urban Extension Educators conference when I spoke there in May. Let me know if this is useful, or how to improve it!

Did you know that forty-one percent of all U.S. agricultural commodities are sold from farms in metropolitan counties?

Were you aware that 55% of the money made from producing farm commodities was made in metropolitan areas in 2007 ($15.7 billion of $28.7 billion)?

Moreover, Department of Defense studies show that Victory Gardens during World War II produced 40% of all produce consumed by Americans, after two seasons of gardening. This shows the potential for small-scale activity adding up to a big difference.

This is all part of a bigger shift that America, and USDA, are going to need to make—to focus on food, people, and communities, rather than primarily on commodities. That, in fact, is the theme of this year’s Community Food Security Coalition Conference in Des Moines from October 10-13—“From Commodities to Communities.”

http://www.thegardenmovie.com/




and this



New film ‘Earth Days’ takes a sometimes-devastating look at the history of environmental activism

[sabelmouse]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4330961.html?page=1

The New Homesteaders: Off-the-Grid and Self-Reliant
You may have heard about them: Off-the-gridders living in radical opposition to modern amenities by growing their own food and cutting themselves off from the rest of society. Not so. Sure, more people are choosing to cut their dependence on the power grid, the grocery story and fuel pump. But these new homesteaders are hardly radicals—they are simply DIYers who, for a variety of reasons, revel in self-reliance. This is their story.

New Farmer’s Almanac: In a 4500-square-foot lot in Oakland, Calif., Novella Carpenter grows broccoli and lettuce right next to fig trees and passion fruit vines. Included in her annual crop: 1095 eggs, 200 pounds of tomatoes, 16 quarts of honey, 40 rabbits and 210 quarts of goat's milk. In the U.S., more than 4800 farmers markets and 2500 Community Supported Agriculture farms supply locally grown food. Studies have shown that organic methods, like those Carpenter uses, can help soil store 1000-plus pounds of carbon per acre. Other approaches can cause carbon loss.

The phone rang when I was shoeless and only a couple of sips into my morning coffee. “Hi, it’s Novella Carpenter,” the caller said. “My goat is giving birth.”

Twenty minutes later I was crouched in the hay at Ghost Town Farm, pushing away chickens and peering into the pen that housed the expectant mother, Bébé. Her udder was so swollen she couldn’t get her hindquarters down. Bleating, she clawed at the dirt with her right front hoof as if searching for a stash of Vicodin. “Pass me the iodine,” Carpenter said. “We better wash up.”

Similar birthing scenes have unfolded countless times in America’s agrarian past, but none, I suspected, had the soundtrack of the Ghost Town neighborhood in Oakland, Calif. As Bébé’s cries reached an apex they were matched by the caterwauling of a police car siren on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Then came the intestine-undulating bass of hip-hop from a passing car. Residents disagree on how Ghost Town got its name—for the isolation created when freeways cleft the neighborhood from the rest of the city in the 1950s? For the appallingly high murder rate? For the casket companies that used to be located here? More unanimously accepted is that Ghost Town is a singularly odd location for a homestead that hosts pigs, goats, geese, peaches, potatoes, spinach and bees. Carpenter is living a version of the Laura Ingalls Wilder fantasy all right, but hers is Little House in the ’Hood.

Carpenter, the author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is, by her own admission, “a bit nuts.” If so, she has company—similar farms have sprung up on city blocks in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh and Detroit. And food is hardly the only commodity that people are producing for themselves these days. A small but growing number of American households generate all of their electricity using wind, solar or micro-hydro. But off-the-grid living has come to mean something more nuanced than cutting all ties with utilities and society; for many, it’s about finding creative ways to produce and conserve resources at home. Hundreds of thousands of Americans capture rainwater in barrels, can food from their gardens, heat water with solar collectors and commute by bicycle. We may be nearly a decade into the 21st century, but the self-reliant spirit of an earlier era—that of homesteading pioneers—has returned with gusto.

At Ghost Town Farm, Carpenter cleared the head-high weeds from a 4500-square-foot lot and started planting. She didn’t ask permission. When the lot’s owner discovered the squat garden he warned that he would soon develop the real estate—that was five years ago. Now the lot is verdant with lavender, sage and thyme; lime, rhubarb and raspberries; artichoke, collard greens and avocado.

Strolling through the garden, I became overwhelmed by a feeling that could only be described as vegetable lust. But something deeper than my appetite had been stimulated, too. My grandfather once worked a small mountain farm in Greece. He immigrated to California’s Central Valley in his 20s, opening a produce stand and then a grocery store, but he never totally severed his connection to the land. I remember strolling through fruit-laden trees in his backyard as a boy. Now, I was gearing up for major changes myself—the arrival of my first child, the purchase of my own home—and I had been thinking about what sort of sanctuary I could create for my own family. The house I envisioned was solar-powered and garden-ringed, a little safer, smarter and more productive than the wasteful world around it. I was deeply curious about the experiments of modern homesteaders because I wondered just how self-sufficient I could be, too.

In the pen Bébé continued to push and, with a little gentle guidance from Carpenter, the newborn’s head crowned. Then the front legs were out. Bébé gave a final, anguished cry and the kid was born, a female, soon to be named Hedwig. Twenty minutes later, she had a brother, Eeyore. The two Nigerian dwarf goats wobbled about on untested legs and, undistracted by a car alarm that had started to blare, tried to find their mother’s teats.

CONTINUED >>> The Financial Crisis, Llama Farming and The Doomsday Retreat