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Can urban agriculture help save our struggling cities?
by Staff
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Urban farming touted as tool for neighborhood revival
Brian Meyer, Buffalo News
Community gardens and urban farms could be valuable tools to help improve Buffalo's distressed neighborhoods, speakers from several local groups told Common Council members this afternoon.
Advocates are prodding the city to take early but key steps aimed at making it easier for people to create community gardens and pursue urban agriculture. The measures would include setting up a "diggable database" to help aspiring gardeners and farmers pinpoint land that has been cleared for planting.
Other steps would involve creating a model lease based on agreements used in other cities that address a variety of unique issues. Supporters also want assurances that neighborhood gardens and urban farms are taken into account as long-delayed efforts move forward to overhaul Buffalo's antiquated zoning codes.
Among the speakers at a City Hall hearing today was Mark Stevens, whose family made headlines last year in a struggle to create an urban farm on Wilson Street, not far from the Broadway Market.
The farm is continuing to expand, Stevens reported today. He's convinced that urban agriculture and neighborhood gardens are assets that can help revive "dying communities."
"Hopefully, the vision for the City of Buffalo becomes pro-community gardens, and it also sees how urban farming fits into that at just a little bigger level," said Stevens.
(23 March 2010)
Project aims to turn empty Dallas plots into vegetable gardens
Craig Civale, PUB
A new project is looking to change the way some families in south Dallas eat, by offering fresh, organic food to some of the poorest neighborhoods in the southern sector.
The aim is to improve health and hopefully change communities.
It's not much to look at, but a recently-plowed field is the beginning of something new in Dallas.
The plot is part of a $150,000 project to turn open spaces into community gardens.
"This is the stage of the planning where we get input from the neighbors," said Vaughn Williams, a teacher at St. Philips, a south Dallas private school.
Employees at the school are already working with families who will soon be growing and harvesting their own fresh food.
"[We want] to be able to eat something you grew with your own hands - potatoes, tomatoes, fruit. It's healthy," said John Williams, a resident.
The field at St. Philips is one of eight organic gardens being built across the southern sector in the coming months.
Most of them are at churches, which will decide which families get a plot, then teach them how to plant and care for the crops that you would normally see at higher-end grocery stores.
A recent study showed that more than a third of the predominately African American neighborhoods in south Dallas do not have any grocery stores within a mile of their home. Combine that with the lack of transportation, low income and the choices are limited...
(26 March 2010)
related: Growing a Diverse Food Movement: Interview with Karen Washington
A Damascus farmer's ideas on sustainable urban agriculture are breaking new ground
Dana Tims, The Oregonian
Larry Thompson was born and raised on his family's farm in what is now the city of Damascus. No one has to tell him the importance of staying ahead of spring and fall rains when there's work to be done.
So Thompson flew into high gear recently when, with a slew of storms approaching, his massive Kubota M-120 tractor suddenly fell idle to fuel-line problems. Off came his trademark cowboy hat and on went the mechanic's cap.
"When the big tractor goes down around here, things get serious," said Thompson, whose quicksilver repair job had him out preparing a field for lettuce transplants before the clouds gave way. "That's my workhorse."
It was just one more skin-of-the-teeth victory for Thompson, who has emerged as a national voice in calling for a revolutionary blend of sustainable farming practices and urban development.
Increasingly, he is fielding speaking invitations from groups ranging from land-use advocates to farming interests. To all, he spreads his message that stark lines dividing urban and rural uses no longer make sense.
Instead, what's needed is for fertile farm areas perched on the edge of urban centers to start providing the nutrition -- the food security, he calls it -- for residents living inside those centers.
Dusting off an old idea
His vision holds the power to radically alter the way the Portland region and others like it are configured. Food-producing farms, far from being excluded from urbanized areas, would be integral to them.
"A long time ago, communities were built around farms," Thompson said. "It's an idea we need to revisit."
Thompson's own farm, a lush pastiche of open fields, gently rolling hills and tree-lined buttes, is helping break down long-enforced lines separating urban and rural uses. By the time the fledgling city of Damascus finishes crafting its plans for future development, Thompson's will be one of the state's only working farms situated inside an urban growth boundary.
He'd like to change that...
(20 March 2010)
Mayor's agriculture plan soon to bear fruit
Heather Knight, SFGate
Vegetable gardens will soon be sprouting in unlikely places throughout San Francisco including a building that produces steam to heat the Civic Center, Department of Public Works land in the Bayview, outside McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park and at the San Francisco Police Academy in Diamond Heights.
The public library has installed gardens outside its Mission and Noe Valley branches with plans for more and is leading classes for teens on how to cultivate them.
And the city may soon adopt proposals from private groups to install easy-to-assemble chicken coops in its gardens and send mobile vegetable markets to school pick-up zones and other busy destinations.
It's all the result of Mayor Gavin Newsom's executive directive eight months ago to reshape how San Franciscans think about food and choose what to eat.
"Urban agriculture is about far more than growing vegetables on an empty lot," Newsom told The Chronicle. "It's about revitalizing and transforming unused public spaces, connecting city residents with their neighborhoods in a new way and promoting healthier eating and living for everyone."
Newsom unveiled the unusual plan in July. His directive required that all city departments conduct an audit of unused land - including empty lots, windowsills, median strips and rooftops - that could be converted into gardens.
...The Department of the Environment has started an Urban Gleaning Program to teach people how to plant fruit trees, supply local food pantries with fresh food and manage a listserv for those interested in urban agriculture.
Sales at San Francisco farmers' markets to those using food stamps increased 85 percent last year. The public health department this summer will begin hosting cooking classes at the Alemany and Fillmore farmers' markets.
A project is under way to ensure the food served at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department is locally grown and nutritious.
The city also helped launch a competition last fall seeking innovative designs related to urban agriculture and is likely to begin using some of the favorites. They include Chicken Cribs - billed as "the quick and easy, self-assembly urban chicken coop" - and Mobile Markets, carts stocked with produce that can easily be taken to any busy locale.
(23 March 2010)
thanks so much to kalpa for giving me the idea and most of the sources for this post! -KS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This notion of using urban agriculture to help rejuvenate dead and dying spaces inside urban environments is everywhere now. As witnessed by today's crop of articles, it is spreading like wildfire from initial efforts in cities such as Detroit and Cleveland. Decried by some as abandoning what cities have always stood for and seen by others as a giant step backward for traditional industrial economies, the benefits of increased health for both local citizens and local economies are touted by many as one visionary way to move beyond the boom-and-bust legacy of former times and encourage a new urban resiliency. -KS |
