Urban Agriculture

Urban Farms Are A Lifeline For Food-Insecure Residents

July 15, 2024 Kimberly Izar, Next City. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Security, New Jersey (NJ), Urban Agriculture

In Montclair’s Third Ward is a tiny farm with big community value. In the summertime, Montclair Community Farms transforms its less-than-10,000-square-foot lot into a space with something for everyone: a garden education program for children, a job training site for teens, and a pop-up produce market for Essex County residents. “People really love being here,” says Lana Mustafa, executive director of Montclair Community Farms. “It’s really developed into something really beautiful and productive and community-oriented.” On a breezy afternoon in early June, bunches of lettuce, bok choy, parsley, and garlic scapes begin to sprout and ripen. Some are even ready to harvest. Mustafa and her team are preparing inventory for their Monday farmers market, where several dozen shoppers use their SNAP or WIC benefits to buy fresh produce.

Urban Agriculture In The Heart Of Caracas

April 5, 2024 Cira Pascual Marquina, Venezuelanalysis. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Urban Agriculture, Venezuela

Urban agriculture gardens, inspired by methods developed during Cuba’s special period, are being used to promote food security in Venezuela.

How We Can Place The Wellbeing Economy At The Heart Of Our Cities

April 29, 2021 Nadine Maarhuis, Sustainable Urban Delta. Create! Food and Agriculture, Municipalization, New Economy, Urban Agriculture

Once upon a time, the growth of a country’s Gross Domestic Product would actually lead to social progress. In the first few decades after the Second World War, growth was invested in collective institutions like health and education systems. Tax rates were progressive and growth was directed to those who needed it most. Unfortunately, this so-called ‘Golden Age of Capitalism’ did not last very long. Within a few decades, we managed to shift to an economic system dictated by market fundamentalism. “We have been undermining our collective institutions, tax rates have been cut down for the very wealthiest and scientists are getting louder with their warnings about environmental breakdown”, author, researcher and advocate for a Wellbeing Economy Katherine Trebeck explains.

Reclaimed Space Sprouts From Uprising’s Embers

September 29, 2020 Jenn Schreiter, Unicorn Riot. Create! Land Right, Minneapolis, Rebellion2020, Urban Agriculture

Minneapolis, MN – Without waiting for permission, growers began planting vegetables and herbs in an empty lot on Lake Street and 17th Avenue. Their aim was to reclaim the dormant land on behalf of the community who lived nearby, in whatever way they saw fit to put it to use. ‘Lake Street Open Growth Space‘ was the name chosen for this squatted garden. A ‘squat‘ is a reclamation of neglected or unused privately-owned property to transform it into a public commons. In August, we interviewed several volunteer organizers at the Open Growth Space (OGS).

Urban Fruit Trails

May 8, 2016 Staff, www.fallenfruit.org Create! Food and Agriculture, Urban Agriculture

By Fallen Fruit. When people think of Los Angeles, it isn’t usually a bountiful landscape teeming with public fruit trees that comes to mind. But the artists of Fallen Fruit – Austin Young and David Burns – are working with local communities to transform the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown Los Angeles into a walk-able network of Urban Fruit Trails. Starting this month Heart of LA (HOLA) will collaborate with Fallen Fruit to create the City’s very first Urban Fruit Trail: over 150-fruit trees planted in the MacArthur Park neighborhood. HOLA students will research where the trees can be planted, plant them, and then map their location. During weekly workshops with Fallen Fruit, HOLA’s young artists will create site-specific artworks based on the places, people, cultures, and trees they discover along the Trail; and their actions and artworks will be documented and geo-tagged in a free downloadable app.

Homeless Activists Feed Shelter With Rooftop Garden

January 6, 2016 Steven Maxwell, www.activistpost.com Create! Food and Agriculture, Homelessness, Poverty, Urban Agriculture

By Steven Maxwell for Activist Post - Every activist has read the increasing number of stories where homelessness is being criminalized, as if simply being homeless isn’t punishment enough. However, there is a rising tide among all walks of life that is beginning to view homelessness in a very different light. As a sinking economy and the criminal actions of the banking elite are leading many middle class, stable families into abject poverty, it is becoming much easier to identify with the less fortunate the closer their plight appears to be.

Green Design Has More Impact When Local Residents Are Involved

January 4, 2016 Eilis O'Neill, www.earthisland.org Create! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Urban Agriculture, Urban Design

By Eilis O'Neill for Earth Island Journal - Raindrops are falling slow and heavy on the concrete walkways, children’s playgrounds, and brick, V-shaped apartment buildings of the Bronx River Houses, one of New York City’s largest housing projects. But today’s rain won’t slide off the roofs, walkways, and hard-packed lawns into the Bronx River across the street. Instead, it will gather in the project’s bioswales, rain gardens, enhanced tree pits, and blue roofs, which together can capture 32,000 gallons of water. Unlike the monotonous lawns and ordered trees that characterize the landscaping here and at other housing projects, the rain gardens add a splash of yellow, a spray of white flowers, and an explosion of bushiness.

South Minneapolis Creates Free Organic Market

September 20, 2015 Staff, www.unicornriot.ninja Create! Food and Agriculture, health, Organic, Urban Agriculture

By Unicorn Riot. Minneapolis, MN - The project itself began as conversations over a backyard fire pit where people came up with the idea to teach people to grow food, and through that process give food away for free. The project gives families classes with a master gardener and the resources to make a raised garden and help with installation. The agreement between the twenty participating families and the project was to give 3 small harvests a season to the free farmers market. The harvests are moved by a food cart created as part of volunteers dreamed up to make it all sustainable. That cart now pulled up to the various gardens driven by volunteers who gathered the food to give away for free at the market.

City Farmer’s Journey Of Hope In NYC

September 7, 2015 David Radovanovic, www.youtube.com Create! Food and Agriculture, health, Urban Agriculture

By David Radovanovic on Youtube. New York City, NY - City Farmers is a journey of hope down New York City's meanest streets where inner-city residents have transformed the rubble and rats of abandoned land burgeoning vegetable and flower gardens. "City Farmers is about as inspiring as they come, a cornucopia of hope, fulfillment and diversity." -- LA Weekly, Paul Malchom In this collective narrative, the gardeners share stories about life on both sides of the garden fence; from the struggle to remove drug dealers and gangs, to the success of the gardens providing food for the community, as well as empowering and educating neighborhood children.

A Seed To Save The World

April 5, 2015 Jordan Thomas, www.popularresistance.org Create! Food and Agriculture, Poverty, Urban Agriculture

Kansas City, MO - In the shadows of Kansas City, shop carts rattle past an urban farm as ragged figures scurry away from the burnt shell of an apartment building. “You get a strut on this block,” said Jake, an intern on the farm who spent almost a year living homeless under a bridge. We watched the motley crowd with their carts full of metal. “You see? Head down and shoulders up.” The farm sprouted in a neighborhood forgotten by the twinkling skyline to the west, where old buildings are often burnt to expose the copper wiring within the walls. The wiring is then stripped by “scrappers” and sold to the local scrapyard for five cents per pound. With all of the nearby high schools discredited as educational institutions, scrapping metal is often the most viable means of income.

A Complete Urban Farm In A Shipping Container

March 29, 2015 Derek Markham, www.treehugger.com Create! Food and Agriculture, Urban Agriculture

The Freight Farms design is based on a conventional insulated shipping container measuring 40' x 8' (~12.2m x 2.4m), but are extensively retrofitted to serve as a micro-farm that can grow some 4,500 plants at a time. The rows of plants are grown vertically, with the LED lighting strips between them delivering "the optimal wavelengths for uniform plant growth" and the hydroponic system supplying the nutrients that the plants need, directly to their roots, using 90% less water than conventional growing does. And not only do the units grow mature crops, but the LGM also integrates a dedicated germination and seedling station (also using LED lighting and hydroponic irrigation) that can handle up to 2500 plant starts, which then get planted into the growing towers a few weeks after sprouting. This aspect of the LGM is probably one of the most essential elements for a production farm, and one that isn't so obvious to non-farmers, as it enables the growers to start seeds and continuously feed those seedlings into the system for regular harvests, all within the walls of the shipping container.

Urban Farmers Want To Feed Whole Neighborhood For Free

March 20, 2015 Sam Bliss, www.grist.org Create! Food and Agriculture, health, Poverty, Urban Agriculture

Seattle, WA - The Beacon Food Forest is giving away dozens of strawberry plants. For free. It’s a drizzly, chilly, gray Saturday, typical of January in Seattle. In just a few hours, the Seahawks will host the Packers for the NFC Championship. While the rest of the city slugs its first tailgate beer of what will become an epic afternoon of football, 60 or so unpaid farmhands are hard at work. They wheelbarrow wood chips, prune pear trees, and remove invasive species from the hillside urban garden, preparing it for spring. Some are uprooting the profusion of propagating strawberry plants that are taking over pathways and smothering other ground-cover herbage (hence the gratis strawberry plants).

Law May Enable Urban Agriculture Zones In Santa Clara

March 14, 2015 AJ Hughes, www.sustainablecitiescollective.com Create! California, Law, Urban Agriculture

Landowners and developers in Santa Clara County, California may have greater motivation to turn vacant lots into urban farms, thanks to an Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone proposal by county supervisors Ken Yeager and Mike Wasserman. A recently passed state law, the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act, was authored by Phil Ting, an Assemblymember from San Francisco. It provides property tax breaks for landowners who use their vacant, blighted or unimproved land for urban agriculture for at least five years. The act applies to properties between 0.10 acres and 3 acres in an urban area. California Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 551 into law on September 28, 2013. Home to Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County’s character is decidedly urban. But this was not always the case—since 1984, the county has lost 45 percent of its farmland.

More Evidence Of Western Takeover Of Ukraine: Agriculture

January 30, 2015 Frederic Mousseau, www.ipsnews.net Educate! Food and Agriculture, IMF, Ukraine, Urban Agriculture

As unusual as it may seem, this appointment is consistent with what looks more like a takeover of the Ukrainian economy by Western interests. In two reports – The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture and Walking on the West Side: The World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict – the Oakland Institute has documented this takeover, particularly in the agricultural sector.The Ministry of Finance went to Natalie Jaresko, a U.S.-born and educated businesswoman who has been working in Ukraine since the mid-1990s, overseeing a private equity fund established by the U.S. government to invest in the country.

How To Make Vertical Raised Beds For Urban Green Spaces

October 5, 2014 Emily Ingham, www.permaculture.co.uk Create! Food and Agriculture, Urban Agriculture

Living in cities offers great opportunities for us to reduce our footprints. This may seem like a misnomer but think about mass transit; high density living; the potential for sharing tools, equipment and facilities; and a wealth of community and entertainment options available on your doorstep. The perception that cities are a carbon hungry way of life lays largely in the footprint associated with transporting food and other provisions to geographical areas which do not provide for their own subsistence needs. But this isn’t a reason to give up the joys of city life just yet. In this reader solution we look at more ways to encourage food security in urban areas. Why choose raised beds in an urban setting?

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