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Couple's 'Micro-Mini Farm' Venture Began As A Hobby
Couple's 'Micro-Mini Farm' Venture Began As A Hobby
Anne Schamberg, Special to the Journal SentinelPublished 6:00 a.m. CT July 16, 2017 | Updated 10:21 a.m. CT July 16, 2017
Photos: Aromatic Acres
(Photo: Courtesy of Carly Ledger)
During an end-of-June walk through the community garden space that Aromatic Acres calls home, rows of herbs, flowers and vegetables were showing promise. And some of the plants, like sharp-tasting radish seed pods, were ready to be harvested.
“Try this,” said Joseph Ledger, offering a few beanlike pods. “We eat them raw and they’re also good roasted.”
Since last summer, Joseph and wife Carly have been trying their luck at market gardening, digging in at the Firefly Ridge community gardens in Wauwatosa, which are rented from Milwaukee County University of Wisconsin-Extension.
The couple sell to a handful of area restaurants, but their their main outlet is Tosa Farmers Market, where they are first-time vendors. Last season, for their initial commercial foray, they were at Enderis Park Farmers Market.
They got their start as avid hobby gardeners. “We’re really self-taught,” said Carly.
Their “micro-mini farm,” as she calls it, adds up to about 1/6 of an acre, including three adjacent annual plots and, in a separate part of the gardens, a perennial plot where they plan to put a hoop house that will allow them to extend the growing season.
It was a brainstorming session that led to the name Aromatic Acres. And for the quibblers out there, she notes that “we personally aren’t farming on acres of land, but our garden is located on 11 acres of community garden space.”
The aromatics include more than 30 different herbs, for both culinary and medicinal use, that range from pineapple sage and anise hyssop to bronze fennel and epazote. They also grow cut flowers, many of which are edible, and a selection of veggies including heirloom tomatoes and oddballs like Mexican sour gherkins and those radish seed pods, an heirloom variety also known as rat’s tail radish.
“There are enough people out there selling your basic string beans,” he said. “I like growing some fun weird stuff that you don’t see.”
Joseph’s full-time gig is as an audio technician for Northern Lights Theater at Potawatomi Hotel and Casino, so he often spends mornings in the garden while she gardens later in the day. “We don’t sleep. We work nonstop,” she said. He quickly agreed.
“We do the farmers market together on Saturdays because we just love hanging out together — and we don’t have a lot of free time with each other,” said Carly, 32, whose day job is as office administrator for The Green Team, a Milwaukee-based landscaping service.
But the long hours are worth it.
Carly describes “the joy of working with the soil and being outside. I can’t put a price on it. I feel like my whole life has been bringing me here.”
With a degree in art and environmental studies from UW-La Crosse, she has been gardening since her college days and has had a series of outdoor jobs at parks around the country over the years.
Her “just-a-hired-hand” husband, as he dubs himself, has a degree in mathematics from Milwaukee’s Cardinal Stritch University — and he’s particularly enthusiastic about “growing chemical-free food and preserving the soil.”
Because it’s rented space, they are not moving toward organic certification, but they follow an organic-based system known as SPIN, or Small Plot INtensive, which helps them get the most from their limited urban space.
When it comes to peddling their produce, they find that people need to be sweet-talked into trying, say, electric blue borage flowers or honey melon sage.
“I hand someone some lemon basil and say see those strawberries over there? Sprinkle some lemon basil on them and you have a wonderful, simple dessert,” said Joseph, 40, who loves to cook.
They bring a different recipe each Saturday to the farmers market. In summer, it might be for a for a lemon balm mojito. And in fall, it’s perhaps a soup or stew with an accompanying “bouquet” of herbs.
And, somehow, this busy couple manages to cook at home on many evenings.
“This week we smoked two chickens and then had enough leftovers for sandwiches and to make stock,” he said. “We always make stock and a lot of soup. We just throw maybe some lentils in the pot and then add whatever vegetables and herbs we have. Once in a while we use a recipe.”
Leftovers make quick mealtimes possible.
“We cook, we freeze and we eat leftovers. I can’t get enough leftovers,” she said with a laugh.
They’ve just bought a house not too far from Aromatic Acres, so they’re dedicated to continuing their “urban farming” in Wauwatosa with an eye toward expanding their community garden space.
Possibilities for future projects keep cropping up, whether it’s mushroom growing, building a plant cloner for seedling starting, or setting up a portable kitchen for garden-side cooking demonstrations.
And they both dream about a day when they could do market gardening full time.
As Joseph wistfully puts it, “If we could make a living at this, we wouldn’t have a care in the world.”
To see the list of what they grow or for more information, go to aromaticacres.com.
Want your own garden plot?
Whether you’re a city slicker hoping to grow a few vegetables or an aspiring urban farmer, the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Milwaukee County is a good place to start.
According to the Extension website, the community garden program, which began in 1972, now rents to something like 500 families on 75 acres of land around the county.
There’s a wide range of plot sizes and rental prices. This summer, for example, a 20-by-20-foot plot at Firefly Ridge in Wauwatosa costs $45; and at Kohl Farm on West County Line Road in Milwaukee, a market gardener can rent a 120-by-90-foot “micro-farm” for $252.
If you need expert advice, the Extension has programs on urban agriculture or micro-farming, beekeeping and accessible gardening. For links to these programs and for more information on garden rental, go to http://milwaukee.uwex.edu/agriculture/.
Farmer Josh is Bringing Ultra Local Food to NYC (and Asking Hard Questions About Our Food System)
Farmer Josh is Bringing Ultra Local Food to NYC (and Asking Hard Questions About Our Food System)
JULY 11, 2017 by EMILY MONACO
Josh Lee may have grown up on a farm in North Carolina, but he never expected to end up a farmer himself -– especially not in New York City. And yet that’s exactly what the fifth-generation farmer has done with Green Top Farms, a “seed-to-salad” delivery service that brings ultra fresh, ultra local food to offices throughout NYC, in the hopes of helping people think more about where their food comes from.
Fifth-Generation Farmer From NC to NYC
At 18, Lee left the farming life behind, and he was never encouraged to return.
“Even though I was farming every summer, it wasn’t something that I was encouraged to stay and do,” he says. “’You’ve got to go to college; be a doctor or a lawyer, some sort of professional career.’”
For Lee, the calling came from education, and so he became a special education teacher in New York City. But while Lee was living and working in the Bronx, he never quite abandoned his farming roots. He kept up an interest in the industry, particularly in new developments like vertical farming, which allows growers to produce food in vertically stacked layers, thus using a smaller footprint of space – within a shipping container or building, for example.
“I kind of became in-tune with vertical farming and urban farming in general, when I saw this Colbert Report back in 2008,” he says. “I just thought that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.”
While Lee still had no intentions of going back into farming – at least not until he was retired – vertical farming piqued enough of an interest for him to set up a Google Alert, which yielded maybe an article every few months. Of course, that was all about to change.
Taking Vertical Farming to New Heights
Over the years, Lee’s Google Alert yielded more and more information, and in 2014, Lee decided to join the trend. He left teaching to found Green Top Farms, a hydroponic urban growing experiment. The farm grows microgreens, which are harvested daily and paired with local, seasonal ingredients to create delicious salads, which can either be ordered individually or, the company’s specialty, for “farm-to-work” salad bars, delivered right to your office.
“I don’t know if in a blind taste test it tastes better,” says Lee, “but for me, knowing where food comes from, it always tastes better, because it comes with a story, something behind it.”
Image care of Green Top Farms
Over the past three years, the project has grown exponentially, and now, Green Top Farms is looking for more space. The company’s new Kickstarterproject was created with the hope of moving into a new 1,000 square foot location that will combine hydroponic farming and kitchen.
“Right now we are completely squeezed where we are,” says Lee. “We have a very small growing operation, and everything we’re growing is being used.”
But while Lee and his colleagues can be applauded for their success, they are still encountering one major problem – a problem that’s plaguing not just these local food producers, but America’s food system on the whole: transparent sourcing. While Lee and his colleagues know exactly where their microgreens come from, they have to rely on external sources for their other salad ingredients, and sometimes, no matter how hard they try, even they don’t know where these foods are coming from.
Local Food Is A Question of Education
It was when Lee was first teaching that he realized what a huge problem the lack of transparency in our food system is.
“That’s where I really saw the night and day contrast with how I grew up and my relationship with food and farming and the kids I was teaching and their relationship to food and farming,” he says of the Bronx high schoolers he was working with.
“I remember interrupting the whole lesson several times to explain the difference between a fruit snack and a real fruit or explain why they spell cheese with a z in some of these ‘cheez’ snacks: because it’s not real cheese.”
Lee’s roots in education persist in his new career: he continues to teach people about these important issues through Green Top Farms.
“I tell our customers, ‘Well, we know where some of it comes from, but we don’t know where all of it comes from, and we think that’s a problem, so help us move in that direction of more transparency.’”
All deliveries are made with zero-emission vehicles. They go faster than regular bikes, so couriers can deliver more food in the same amount of time.
Fixing Our Food System One Salad At A Time
Green Top Farms is, at its core, a micro-solution to a macro-problem. From the depletion of the rainforests to the death of pollinators to the record rates of diabetes, problems related to food and nutrition are skyrocketing in this country, problems that Lee believes are all inextricably linked.
“I personally think that all of those problems come from the fact that we’re really just not in touch with what we’re eating,” he says.
“If you’re really serious about having a better food system, then we not only have to change some of the things we’re doing in farming and improve our distribution so that we’re not wasting so much food, we also have to change the way we’re eating,” he says. “And that’s on all of us.”
Green Top Farms is doing its part to reconnect people with their food: not only by growing it close to where people live, but in being open about all the work that still needs to be done. But at least as far as Lee is concerned, it’s a true labor of love.
“I’ve never been so broke, I’ve never eaten so well, and I’ve never been so happy, all at once,” he says. “I’m living my dream life, for sure.”
'Grow Food On Mars': LA Startups Tackle Climate Change With Inventive Solutions
'Grow Food On Mars': LA Startups Tackle Climate Change With Inventive Solutions
Dozens of startups are inventing ways to keep LA cool with products and services that aim to avert environmental disaster – and yield profits
The entrance to Laci’s La Kretz Innovation Campus, which mentors local startups. Photograph: Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator
Rory Carroll in Los Angeles | @rorycarroll72
Tuesday 18 July 2017 07.00 EDT
Drought, floods, wildfires and heat waves – climate change and extreme weather events are wreaking havoc in California, especially in Los Angeles. The city has recently baked in record temperatures with a long, hot summer still stretching ahead.
It is the new normal: climate models predict the number of extreme heat days, defined as more than 95F, will triple by the middle of the century.
Little wonder Hollywood is churning out desert dystopias in films such as Mad Max: Fury Road and The Bad Batch.
Reality, however, has an overlooked subplot: geeks are inventing ways to keep LA cool – and possibly mint fortunes in the process.
Dozens of startups have turned the city and nearby regions into a laboratory for products and services which they hope will avert environmental disaster and yield business models replicable across the globe, even beyond.
“We would welcome opportunities for off-planet growing,” said Brandon Martin, vice president of business development of Local Roots, which turns shipping containers into hydroponic farms. “We’d love to be the first company to grow food on Mars.”
He was completely serious. Engineers from Elon Musk’s Space X have studied how the company uses sensors, algorithms and machine learning to transform 40ft containers into the equivalent of three to five acres of farmland while using 97% less water.
“We want to be a billion-dollar company as soon as possible,” said Kipp Stroden, another Local Roots executive. “We’d like to feed at least a billion people in the next 10 years.”
Time will tell if that is hubris but it reflects the confidence of startups which think solving some of LA’s environmental challenges will open other markets in a heating planet.
“LA is essentially a giant opportunity to demonstrate their technologies,” said Mike Swords, vice president of government relations for Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (Laci), a public-private nonprofit which mentors startups. “If you can demonstrate that your company can help solve problems here there’s a good chance you will export it to other urban areas around the world.”
Kipp Stroden at the entrance to one of Local Roots’s container farms. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian
LA’s biggest climate challenges were extreme heat and drought and increased fires, said Matt Petersen, who was the city’s first chief sustainability officer before recently taking over the reins at Laci. “Trees are job number one, and cool surfaced roofs and streets are key strategies as well,” he said.
LA’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, has set bold targets to reduce the so-called urban heat island effect, improve air quality and ease congestion. Voters approved two measures which will generate $150bn in the next decades – a sum exceeding Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, according to some estimates – to replace traffic gridlock, a major source of heat and pollution, with cleaner transport and shaded, pedestrian-friendly sidewalks.
“It’s a city that has taken the climate change challenge seriously,” said Adrienne Alvord, western states director of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
California’s governor, Jerry Brown, and the state legislature, meanwhile, champion a cap-and-trade programme and ever more ambitious renewable energy targets – big-spending rebuffs to the Trump administration’s environmental policies.
The result is an El Dorado of subsidies, favorable rules and fast growing markets for cleantech companies.
“It has the attributes of a gold rush,” said Mike Hopkins, CEO of Ice Energy, which makes air conditioning units that store energy and can cool homes without using electricity. “It’s a bit of a wild west, the rules are still being formed. Those who innovate and take risks, win.”
A potential big winner is GuardTop, an asphalt coating manufacturer which makes CoolSeal, a reflective street surface which can reduce temperatures by more than 10F. It is being piloted around LA.
You can see other green technology on display even before entering Laci’s La Kretz Innovation Campus, a 3.2-acre site in LA’s downtown arts district.
The car park boasts a canopy of solar panels which feed a microgrid supplying a third of the campus’s energy needs. A bioswale collects and recycles rainwater. Amid the Teslas and other vehicles sits a triple-function generator which can turn biomass, including banana peels and coconut shells, into electricity, heat or cool air. A “living wall” of 2,100 plants looms over the reception.
The incubator was founded in 2011 with money from the federal government, the city and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), and moved to this campus in 2015. It has outposts in Silicon Valley and Northridge and plans to open one in Mexico City.
“We want to bring the best cleantech companies from around the world, especially startups, and help them grow,” said Swords, the spokesman. “This level of coaching and mentoring is an incredible deal. Every single one of the companies plans to scale. They hope to sell their products all over the world.”
In return, he said, LA and its water and power utility will get the chance to acquire technology to combat climate change.
The DWP has a tradition of thinking big: a century ago it siphoned water from the Owens Valley to LA, a controversial rerouting fictionalized in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.
Mike Swords, at the LA Cleantech Incubator’s ‘living wall’. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian
Laci will survive even if the Trump administration ends federal funding, which was important but not essential, said Swords.
The buzz on the Laci campus was unmistakable. Pick My Solar, which helps householders choose solar panels, has grown from five to 30 employees in a year. “With the heatwaves and brownouts people are thinking a lot about energy,” said Kyle Graycar, a company analyst.
Green Commuter, another company, says it is the US’s first all-electric vanpool. “We reduce the cost of commuting, the amount of traffic and CO2 emissions,” said Bart Sidles, as he drove one of the company’s Tesla SUVs up Alameda Street.
River LA, one of the incubator’s nonprofits, is also feeling emboldened: it has been tasked with helping to spend $100m in water bond money to transform the Los Angeles River, in places a sorry trickle, into a lush waterway.
Torrential winter rains ended California’s drought but Local Roots, the farming company, believes continued water shortages plus a growing population and pressure to reduce transport costs will make their container farms a common sight in parking lots across the US and beyond. One container can produce 4,000 heads of butterhead lettuce every 10 days using just 25 gallons of water daily, said Stroden, the executive.
Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the nonprofit Climate Resolve, cautioned that LA will inevitably heat up. “We could all turn into vegans driving electric vehicles and we’d still see this.”
Low-income residents will suffer most – several studies have shown the inequitable impact. Poorer neighborhoods near the coast such as Compton will enjoy relative coolness but be vulnerable to gentrification, potentially pushing residents to the city’s hotter, eastern side, said Parfrey.
Even so, he was optimistic. Technologies were getting cheaper and smarter. “The antidote to climate despair is working on solutions.”
Bring On Next-Gen Urban Farming: Usher In A New Era Of Food Production in New York City
When New Yorkers go to their local grocer or supermarket, we often see produce imported from other states or countries. There is no reason why the majority of our natural food products cannot be grown and sold right here in the Big Apple. For an urban center as large as New York City, we must be prepared for the challenges of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, a changing ecological system, and the need to supply healthy food to an ever-growing population.
Bring On Next-Gen Urban Farming: Usher In A New Era Of Food Production in New York City
We can do so much more
(MIKE DI PAOLA/BLOOMBERG)
BY ERIC ADAMSRAFAEL ESPINAL
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | Wednesday, July 26, 2017, 5:36 PM
If a tree grows in Brooklyn, so too can a cherry or a cucumber. Now imagine a crop large enough to feed our entire city.
When New Yorkers go to their local grocer or supermarket, we often see produce imported from other states or countries. There is no reason why the majority of our natural food products cannot be grown and sold right here in the Big Apple. For an urban center as large as New York City, we must be prepared for the challenges of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, a changing ecological system, and the need to supply healthy food to an ever-growing population.
At the same time, we face a crisis of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity of epidemic proportions. The growing urban agriculture movement around the world, estimated at between 15% and 20% of global agricultural output, has the substantial potential to revolutionize our city's food system and turn a page on protecting our health and environment while bolstering the economy.
We have the ingenuity at hand to take advantage of the plentiful space in the five boroughs, to make this 21st century dream a reality. New York City has rehabilitated unused space before, most famously with the High Line. Our city has 14,000 acres of unused rooftop space, and there are more than 45,000 square feet of publicly owned land in East New York alone. With the use of smart, cutting-edge technology, we would be able to grow enough to feed as many as 20 million people in the metropolitan area.
As New Yorkers, we need to think boldly about the many benefits of expanding urban agriculture. Cities contribute to 70% of the world's global greenhouse gases, and a City Hall analysis from last year found transportation accounts for nearly 30% of our own output.
Local food production means less trucking required to go in and out of our neighborhoods, reducing the amount of carbon emissions pumped into our city as well as relieving stress on our highways. Green roofs and gardens used to grow produce pump oxygen into the air and cool down our environment, while playing a major role in reducing the runoff and flooding that heavy downpours create. Our environmental future is at stake, and urban farming helps us grow a more sustainable and resilient city.
In Brooklyn, food insecurity and poverty are compounded to create an economic and health crisis. A 2016 report by FoodBankNYC showed Kings County has a food insecurity rate of 20 percent, the only borough with a rising trend since 2009. Lacking basic healthy food access contributes to high levels of preventable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. African-American and Latino communities across central and eastern Brooklyn are twice as likely to suffer from these debilitating and deadly diseases.
There's even a condition known as Flatbush diabetes; that says it all.
Urban farming is the key to solving this problem, creating mixed-use neighborhoods where this kind of horticultural industry could thrive. The aquaponics market alone is expected to expand over the next five years at an annual rate of 14.3%, generating a value of more than $900 million by 2021. Thinking beyond the traditional expansive farms of America's heartland, the technology exists to grow crops and careers on unused spaces in the heart of New York City.
Think of the broad potential. We can even establish high-yield farms on our many public housing developments, creating jobs in communities plagued with chronic unemployment, educating a new generation in healthy living, and providing access to fresh foods right at residents' doorsteps.
The buds of this revolution are growing, but commercial and industrial scale urban farming is tangled in the weeds of bureaucratic uncertainty, making implementation that much more difficult. While scientists and agro-experts have done their jobs of innovating, government has not caught up.
Sophisticated vertical farming operations can be more efficient and profitable, but our zoning laws leave open many questions as to where these businesses can operate. For example, current regulations prohibit growing and selling produce on the same lot regardless of what the lot is zoned. In fact, the zoning text only mentions the word "agriculture" on a handful of its nearly 4,000 pages, thereby making this practice permissive but vague at best. This uncertainty stifles growth.
That is why we are proud to introduce City Council legislation that would rationalize this industry through the creation of a comprehensive urban agriculture plan in New York City. Our legislation would catalogue existing and potential growing spaces, classify and prioritize uses, identify potential land use policies that would favor expanding agricultural uses, as well as expand the availability of healthy food in low-income neighborhoods by integrating this practice across the city's conservation and resiliency plans.
This plan is the seed to robust growth. Let's cultivate a multi-million dollar industry here in New York City with a harvest of economic, environmental, and health benefits that we can all share.
Adams currently serves as the Brooklyn borough president. Espinal is a member of the New York City Council for District 37, which includes the neighborhoods of Bushwick, Brownsville, Cypress Hills and East New York in Brooklyn.
With Urban Grit and Pink Lights, London Warehouse Farms Fish and Greens
With Urban Grit and Pink Lights, London Warehouse Farms Fish and Greens
By Reuters
PUBLISHED: 20:00 EDT, 26 July 2017 | UPDATED: 20:00 EDT, 26 July 2017
By Lin Taylor
LONDON, July 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Inside a warehouse in industrial southeast London, farmed tilapia swim in blue tubs filled with pristine water, ready to be sold to trendy restaurants across the capital.
In an adjacent room, under pink LED lights and controlled temperatures, shoots of salad leaves and herbs grow on recycled carpet fibre fertilised with the fish waste. In this cavernous, windowless space more suited to a nightclub than a farm, the greens are stacked on metal shelves stretching to the ceiling.
It's a far cry from traditional British farms that sprawl across acres of land. But for Kate Hofman, who co-founded GrowUp Urban Farms in 2013, producing food in this 6,000 square feet building in Beckton was not only clever and cost-effective, it was also a sustainable way to feed people in the city.
"Sometimes people have an idealised idea of how their food is being produced. In their head, they think that farmer Joe tends to his field with his hoe and grows his heads of lettuce," the 32-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"We're trying to show that you can have an industrialised food system ... but you can do it in a way that's sustainable," said Hofman, who launched Britain's first commercial aquaponic farm - a system that uses fish waste to fertilise crops, which in turn filtrate the water used to farm the fish.
Rich and poor countries alike are tasked with creating sustainable and inclusive cities by 2030 under global development goals agreed in 2015 - and sorting out how cities are fed is a crucial part of that challenge, experts say.
As two thirds of the global population are forecast to live in cities by 2050, compared with about half now, urban planners and policymakers are increasingly looking to agriculture in towns and cities as a solution to provide nutritious food.
CLOSER AND FRESHER
Land used for farming in cities and the areas around them equals the size of the European Union, a recent study said, while others estimate some 800 million urban farmers provide up to 20 percent of the world's food.
Unlike imported produce, food from city farms and gardens travels less, reducing production costs, waste and fuel use.
"Because (urban farms) are in proximity to an urban population, they can see for themselves where their food is coming from. This has a benefit in terms of education and reconnecting food with the consumer," said Makiko Taguchi, an urban agricultural expert at U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
Having your food come from sources close by is also crucial if supply is disrupted by civil unrest or extreme weather in the rural areas that still supply most of the world's food.
Hofman said Britain's huge appetite for salad leaves and herbs, and the fact that most of it is imported, were key reasons why she decided to grow such plants in her warehouse.
"It makes sense to grow crops like these close to people so you can get it to consumers more quickly - they're fresher, they last longer in the fridge, they're less likely to go to waste," said Hofman, who sells 200,000 bags of salad each year to local food retailers and restaurants.
Hofman also sells 4 tonnes (4000 kg) of fish each year and believes the ethical farming of fish provides a sustainable source of protein, especially at a time when nearly 800 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat, according to FAO.
Though Hofman doesn't think urban farming could ever replace existing food production systems, she hopes to pioneer ways to scale up the output of urban farms.
"It's terrifying. There's so much unknown in the model that we're trying to do. There are so many challenges that we're trying to overcome," Hofman said.
"But it offers a really exciting opportunity for people to engage with the idea of farming as something that can be sustainable and high-tech."
(Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, global land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women's rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)
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No Soil, No Sunshine, No Problem! Meet the Farmer of the Future, Growing Real Food Indoors
No Soil, No Sunshine, No Problem! Meet the Farmer of the Future, Growing Real Food Indoors
Kate Good
July 26, 2017
Okay, let’s be real – most of us have no clue what it takes to grow food … or much about farming, generally. But, despite our potential ignorance of the tenets of farming, most of us would say that in order to grow crops you need dirt, water, and sunshine. With these three things at the ready, all you have to do is add a few seeds, sit back and wait for tomatoes! Ah, how wonderfully simple (we guess…)!
Now, regardless of whether or not we know what it takes to grow food, there is one thing that the majority of people in the U.S. are wholly unaware of – where our food comes from. Chances are, you picture the above farming ideal when you think about the produce that ends up in your grocery store. In reality, most of our food is grown on a large-scale industrial farmwith the help of giant tractors and heavy machinery.
The bulk of the food grown in the U.S. is made up of things called “commodity crops,” such as corn, wheat, and soy. The majority of these crops are never fed to people but instead redirected to livestock, used in packaged foods, or relegated to the biofuel industry. In order to make these crops, which are grown en masse with little to no biodiversity, resistant to pests and disease, they’re frequently doused with herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. Once a field of monocultures has been farmed repeatedly, the soil becomes depleted of nutrients and therefore, the nutrition content and quality of the food goes down. Crops also become less resistant to bugs and infection, leading to the need for higher strength pesticides and herbicides – plus more fertilizer to make up for the depleted soil.
On top of this, produce that is grown in the U.S. travels an average of 1,500 miles to get from farm to grocery store – that’s like half the distance of the country. In order to make this possible, they have to be locked in refrigeration units and or frozen themselves, so when you finally get to the tomatoes in your grocery store – it more than often tastes like a potato with the consistency of a peach.
Adding insult to injury, our industrialized food system is failing to feed people – around one in nine people worldwide go to bed hungry every night and countless communities – many of which are in urban areas – are deemed “food deserts,” completely devoid of healthy, fresh, affordable foods.
So, if you’re like us, you’ve probably figured that mass producing food isn’t exactly the answer to feeding the growing population of Americans. In fact, our reckless industrial farming practices are rendering us less able to produce food, especially in the face of changing climate conditions.
But, since we need dirt, water, and sunshine to grow food … seems like we’re pretty set in our ways. Right? Well, Rob Laing, farmer of the future and CEO of Farm.One might beg to differ.
In a recent episode of the #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias podcast, Rob explains how he is pioneering the world of hydroponics, a system of growing plants without many of the traditional inputs. Basically, using just a finely tuned solution of water, Farm.One can grow crops without soil or even sunlight. In fact, Farm.One is a unique indoor farm in downtown Manhattan, which uses hydroponics to reduce water use by around 95 percent, and advanced climate control technology to grow a wide variety of plants year-round without pesticides, pollution, soil contamination, herbicides, manure or waiting in cold storage.
His specialty is microgreens and specialty herbs, which he grows on demand for some of New York City’s top rated chefs, but he sees the future of farming as going far beyond this.
Listen in to hear how Rob thinks technology can transform the food system and help to create a more sustainable, healthy world!
Image source: Farm.One
You can listen to the full episode on the following platforms: iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher
If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias podcast for new episodes with food industry leaders, health, and sustainability experts, as well as entrepreneurs and creative minds who are redefining the future of food.
Selected Kaufland Romania Shops To Turn Roofs, Parking Lots Into Urban Gardens
Selected Kaufland Romania Shops To Turn Roofs, Parking Lots Into Urban Gardens
By Georgeta Gheorghe News July 18, 2017 16:50
Kaufland Romania will turn its roofs, parking lots and the outer walls of in urban gardens, the food retailer announced. The vegetables, fruit, flowers will be used by the community.
The project, “Gradinescu,” developed through a partnership with the Association of the research Institute for Permaculture in Romania, is a first in Romania and promotes care towards nature, community spirit and supports the development of urban agriculture, company representatives say.
Moreover, the project is designed to introduce children and adults to gardening and the possibility to have a healthy diet even in an urban environment. “The project consists of a network of nine urban community gardens, three of them located on the roofs of three Kaufland shops, four in the parking lots or behind the shops and two in schools” company representatives said.
The first Kaufland store with the roof and outer walls transformed in urban gardens is that on Bucurestii Noi Blvd., and by the end of summer those on Barbu Vacarescu, Tudor Vladimirescu, Aparatorii Patriei, and in schools.
The first urban garden set up as part of the Kaufland store in Bucurestii Noi has 2,300 square meters and is designed to be used by the community. The garden will serve as a teaching space for schools and gardens in the area.
The company presented the results of the first study on the presence of urban gardening in Romania. According to the survey,7 out of 10 Romanians are involved in urban gardening, by cultivating at their home vegetables, greens or fruit, in order to enjoy natural produce. While the balcony is the preferred spot for urban gardening for almost 50 percent of Romanians, 14 grow their produce in front of their block of flats, 8 percent in the suburbs and the rest headed for areas outside of the cities.
How Urban Agriculture Swept Through Greater Cleveland
How Urban Agriculture Swept Through Greater Cleveland
Posted on July 17, 2017 at 7:00 AM | By Patrick Cooley, cleveland.com | pcooley@cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Kinsman Farm, marked by crop-filled fields and surrounded by tall trees and grass filled lots, would seem at home in a rural Ohio county.
But the pasture of leafy greens sits in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio's second most populous city.
And Kinsman Farm isn't the only field of fruits and vegetables within Cleveland's city limits. It's part of a trend that picked up steam in recent years: urban farming. That practice began 25 to 30 years ago, said Kareem Usher, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the Ohio State University. But a push by restaurateurs for local ingredients and the desire of city officials to fill empty and unused lots helped fuel the rise of urban agriculture in recent years.
The city leases land to Kinsman Farm, which in turn leases quarter acre plots to local farmers looking to advance from gardening or backyard farming to full-scale urban farming.
"I've been farming on a plot in North Royalton for the past two and a half years and I just moved (to Kinsman Farm) this season," said farmer Halle Kirsch. She plans to grow lettuce, microgreens and kale and manages a beehive that produces honey.
Kirsch said her time in North Royalton was her first foray into urban agriculture. Fellow farmer David Horvath, who also has a plot at Kinsman Farm, said he had an urban garden before he decided to grow crops for sale.
"I'm using Kinsman as an opportunity to scale up and learn as I go," Horvath said.
He grows tomatoes, peppers, herbs and mouse melons (a small cucumber) on his plot in Kinsman.
Both Kirsch and Horvath said they hope to sell their crops to Cleveland area restaurants.
"This past fall I went to a variety of restaurants (from small-scale family owned restaurants to trendy, upscale restaurants) and gave them samples and they were receptive," Kirsch said. "They were so happy to have local, fresh produce. The demand is way bigger than the push that's happening right now."
Urban farms are taking up root in formerly vacant lots all over the East Side, encouraged by local laws intended to convert unused land into green space.
Most are much smaller than Kinsman Farm and Rid-All, containing a single hoop house or a small field (Bay Branch Farm, a Lakewood farm run by a Cleveland couple, is a half acre).
Erich Hooper is one Northeast Ohio's first urban farmers. He grows fruits and vegetables in his backyard and sells food (mostly vegan and vegetarian) at festivals. He took up the pastime in 1994 and now proudly refers to his farm -- which he calls Hooper Farm -- as the oldest urban farm in the city of Cleveland.
Hooper grows Swiss chard in a small greenhouse. Further down the gentle slope of the hill that his house sits on, he keeps a pasture surrounded by a four-foot-high fence that's filled with asparagus, squash, beets and other assorted fruits and vegetables.
An elaborate system of barrels captures rainwater.
"We collect about 1,000 gallons of water a summer," Hooper said. "It saves us on water costs."
A strategically placed set of traps capture animals like groundhogs that burrow under the garden and endanger his crops.
Hooper sells much of his crops to local restaurants, a common theme among urban farmers. Shortly before speaking with a cleveland.com reporter on a recent Wednesday, he had just sold Fahrenheit -- an Ohio City restaurant -- a shipment of ghost peppers.
What follows is a look at urban farms, and how and why they have proliferated.
You can read about specific urban farms in Greater Cleveland here.
How many urban farms are there in Greater Cleveland?
It is difficult to come up with an exact number because there's no commonly accepted definition of an urban farm that separates it from an urban garden. But by some estimates, Cleveland is the second largest urban farming city in the United States.
Justin Husher, a horticulture specialist for the Cuyahoga County Soil and Water Conservation District, said the county has between 30 and 40 urban farmers.
Do they benefit the community?
By putting empty lots to use and creating jobs in impoverished neighborhoods, urban farms appear to provide many benefits to the communities they inhabit.
"It's putting that land to some use, particularly in cities that are shrinking," said Usher, the assistant professor at the Ohio State. "And I think it can build community pride and social capital."
Cleveland has more than 14,000 parcels of vacant land, and although it will likely experience population growth, said Michael Cosgrove, director of community development for the city of Cleveland, the city probably won't grow enough to fill all of its empty space.
Although they are still few and far between, urban farms could help make up some of the difference.
But experts said more research is necessary to determine whether or not urban agriculture helps a community in other ways.
While urban farmers tout the advantages of their trade, the practice hasn't been scrutinized enough to conclusively say how it impacts a neighborhood, said Zoe Plakias, an assistant professor of agriculture at the Ohio State University.
"Urban ag is very exciting and promising, and we've seen a lot of positive impacts," she said. But "there's definitely a need for more research to better understand" those impacts.
For example: an urban farm can absorb carbon and reduce the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. However it's unclear if urban farms absorbs carbon better than urban forests.
And as urban farms become more prevalent, they may begin to clash with traditional farms, Usher said.
"What happens to food producers who exist outside of the city?" he asked. "When we help local growers, are we going to be competing with family-owned farms? There's a long of entanglement. It can work well, but we don't have a sustainable model as of yet."
A 2016 report from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future found that urban farming and urban gardens can raise property values, but said that higher property rates can push poor people out of their neighborhoods. Farms create jobs in impoverished areas, the report said, but few of the jobs pay a living wage.
Indeed, Cleveland Area urban farmers interviewed for this story said they pay workers between minimum wage and $10 an hour. Their goal, they said, isn't solving joblessness, but giving young people valuable experience.
"This year I'm expecting 20 kids," Ka La Healing Garden Founder and CEO Tanya Holmes said. "I teach them how to do landscaping and urban farming."
In 2015 "I had 32 kids and only two of them knew how to cut grass," Holmes said.
But she said the most important lesson she teaches is community stewardship.
"We generally have three to four people here," said Mansfield Frazier, executive director of Neighborhood Solutions, which manages Chateau Hough in the rugged and Hough neighborhood on Cleveland's East Side.
His farm -- which grows grapes used to make wine -- was built by workers from Oriana House, which provides rehabilitation for alcoholics and drug addicts. But Frazier said he mostly hires teenagers now.
How do they get started?
Cleveland's city government, along with state and federal agencies, offer financial help to aspiring urban farmers. Available assistance includes grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Ohio State University Extension Office and the National Resources Conservation Service.
The NRCS, for example, invested in more than 80 hoop houses throughout Cuyahoga County in 2011 and 2012, said Husher, the horticulture specialist.
Holmes, of the Ka La Healing Garden, secured loans from Farm Credit of Mid America -- with help from Cleveland Congresswoman Marcia Fudge -- to repair the garden's gate and feed her workers.
Legal changes made the city more amenable to urban agriculture in the 2000s, when zoning laws changed to accommodate hoop houses and other buildings urban farmers rely on.
Cleveland has programs for both urban farmers looking to sell their crops for profit and community gardeners who grow mostly for themselves.
"Community gardens are, at most, a few parcels large," said Cosgrove, the Cleveland community development director. "They're usually in the sort of area that is accessible to the community. They're small scale, more built around the neighborhood.
The city leases land to farmers -- and occasionally sells them plots at a hefty discount. Cleveland also partners with Cuyahoga County's Ohio State University Extension office to fund community gardens through a Summer Sprout program, which provides grants that extension officials use to train gardeners and provide them with seeds, starter plants and services like soil tilling.
Eric and Annabelle Stoffer of Bay Branch Farm in Lakewood said they took a master gardener training program through the OSU extension.
In 2008, Cleveland amended its Neighborhood Retail Assistance Program to create the Gardening for Greenbacks program, which provides $3,000 grants to farmers who pledge to stay in urban agriculture for at least two years and sell their crops for profit.
"Some of them sell at local farm stands in neighborhoods that could be a food desert," said Kevin Kevin Schmotzer, executive for small business development for the Cleveland Department of Economic Development.
Others sell to local restaurants, he said.
In 2012, Cleveland got the attention of CoBank, which is part of the U.S. Farm Credit system, which helped Cleveland increase the value of its grants to $5,000. The city awarded $40,000 to eight community farms in 2015 and 2016.
Technical help is also available. Husher's duties include connecting farmers with the services they require.
"Sometimes people are really good growers but they need an insurance agent," he said. "Other times it's people trying to build a hoop house and they have really bad soil and they need to bring it up to speed."
What are the challenges?
Starting an urban farm requires an upfront investment that can reach tens of thousands of dollars. Eric Stoffer of Bay Branch Farm said he and his wife spent thousands on equipment alone
And while most urban farms are self-sustaining, many don't provide their operators with a living wage. Most urban farmers have a job off the farm. Eric Stoffer tends to his farm full time, but his wife still works part-time.
And farmers taking up root in a city have to deal with limited space and soil that is not always conducive to agriculture.
"One of the webpages I'm developing is literally just pictures of rocks to show what farmers have to contend with in terms of soil quality," said Husher, the horticulture specialist. Much of Cleveland's vacant land was once industrial, making its tainted soil of little interest to farmers, Cosgrove said.
Once they've established their farm, he said, some struggle to find places to sell their crops.
Farmers who work on the Kinsman Farm said they've spoken to local restaurateurs who are eager to use locally grown fruits and vegetables in their kitchens. But Husher said Cleveland's lack of a central farmer's market can hinder an urban farmer's ability to sell their crops to everyday customers.
Cities like Portland, Oregon and Ithaca, New York have large, central farmer's markets, whereas Cleveland and its suburbs have many small ones, which Husher said dilutes the customer base.
"Farmer's market sales are down across the board," he said. "There are just too many."
Even as restaurants increasingly seek out local fruits and vegetables, smaller farmers say they must with large-scale farms that can provide larger volumes of food. Eric Stoffer said only a small portion of his crops are sold to restaurants.
"There are restaurants that want to do local, but I've worked in the food-service business, and I understand you have a menu" and you can't take items off of it because suppliers aren't able to provide certain ingredients that week, he said.
What are they growing?
Most urban farmers grow specialty crops like tomatoes, kale, chard, beets and peppers.
Limited space means that most urban farmers can rule out the volume crops -- such as corn and soybeans -- that rural farmers depend on.
The Hough Chateau grows grapes for wine and the Rid-All Green Partnership has, among other things, peach trees and raspberry bushes.
Tanya Holmes of the Ka La Healing Garden sold vegetables at farmer's markets before upgrading to a full scale urban farm complete with a greenhouse on Cleveland's East Side in 2010.
Her garden grows tomatoes, collard greens, squash, peppers, zucchini, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and Swiss chard.
Eric Stoffer of the Bay Branch farm in Lakewood said he grows leafy greens and root vegetables, which he sells at farmers markets and to local restaurants, most notably the Root Cafe on Lakewood's Detroit Avenue.
"That's our main customer," Stoffer said. "But we're still looking for other relationships."
What does the future hold?
Husher said urban agriculture is entering it's "2.0" phase. Farms are starting to mature and flourish, rather than simply subsist, and he said he hopes to see new and exciting crops grown here in Cleveland in the coming years.
Usher, the Ohio State University professor, said he's visited urban farms in cities as far away as Portland, and believes the industry is here to stay.
"People do this because they believe in something," he said. "They believe in doing the work."
Food Tank’s Sold-Out NYC Summit on Food Waste
Food Tank’s Sold-Out NYC Summit on Food Waste
Food Tank, in partnership with Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data (ReFED) and with support from The Rockefeller Foundation and The Fink Family Foundation, will present a one-day summit on September 13, 2017, at the WNYC Greene Space in New York City (44 Charlton St., New York, NY, 10013), titled “Focusing on Food Loss and Waste.”
Confirmed speakers include (in alphabetical order—dozens more to be announced soon): Emily Bachman, GrowNYC; Elizabeth Balkan, NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY); John Boyd, Jr., National Black Farmers Association; Diane Brady, Bloomberg; Joan Briggs, The Fink Family Foundation; Gigi Lee Chang, FoodFutureCo; Chris Cochran, ReFED; Tom Colicchio, Craft restaurants; Karl Deily, Sealed Air; Ron Gonen, Closed Loop Partners; Tony Hillery, Harlem Grown; Helen Hollyman, Vice; Lynette Johnson, Society of St. Andrews; Prasanta Kalita, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Justin Kamine, KDC Ag – Kamine Development Corporation; Sam Kass, Trove; Amy Keister, Compass Group; Devon Klatell, The Rockefeller Foundation; Bonnie McClafferty, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN); Jude Medeiros, Sodexo; Clare Miflin, Kiss + Cathcart; Carina Millston, Feedback Global; Monica Munn, The Rockefeller Foundation; Kimbal Musk, The Kitchen; Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; Pete Pearson, WWF; Tinia Pina, Re-Nuble; Antonio Reynoso, New York City Councilmember; Ruth Reichl, PBS/Food Writer; Brian Roe, The Ohio State University; Christine Datz-Romero, Lower East Side Ecology Center; Kim Severson, The New York Times; Stephanie Strom, The New York Times; Tom Vilsack, U.S. Dairy Export Council; Luca Virginio, Barilla; Brian Wansink, Cornell University; Jocelyn Zuckerman, Modern Farmer; and Konstantin Zvereff, BlueCart.
Click here to view more details.
With about 8 million residents, New York City alone sends 4 million tons of waste to landfills each year. An estimated one-third of that waste is food. As home to Hunts Point, the largest food distribution center in the world, New York City is primed to lead the nation’s (and even the world’s) food waste movement.
The 2017 Food Tank Summit in New York, NY, will consist of dynamic panel discussions featuring a variety of speakers from around the world and exciting keynote speakers moderated by journalists from The New York Times, Vice, Bloomberg, Modern Farmer, and more. Within just four hours of announcing the event, demand was so high that Food Tank received four-times more applications than there are seats.
The event will be co-hosted by ReFED, the leading national organization dedicated to reducing U.S. food waste. In 2016, ReFED published the Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste, a landmark report that presented cost-effective solutions capable of cutting food waste by 20 percent while conserving natural resources, creating jobs, feeding the hungry, and generating US$100B in economic value. ReFED now collaborates with businesses, nonprofits, and government to implement these solutions.
The Summit is also supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, who has committed US$130 million through their YieldWise initiative to work with private, public, and nonprofit actors across the food supply system to cut their food loss and waste by half. Support from The Fink Family Foundation has also made this event possible.
At the New York City Food Tank Summit, audiences will have the opportunity to participate in extended question-and-answer sessions and expert journalists will moderate each panel—topics include leveraging capital to fund innovations and fill research gaps, forging creative partnerships, encouraging behavior change, and more.
The Food Tank Summit is also made possible with the support of the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition, Sealed Air, Blue Apron, Organic Valley, and Niman Ranch. Food and beverage donations will come from Niman Ranch, Juice Press, Harmless Harvest, Brooklyn Roasting Co., and GT’s Kombucha.
Great Performances, an NYC-based catering and events company engaged in the principles of sustainability and food justice, is graciously donating the breakfast and lunch receptions for all attendees. The menus will reflect the company’s commitment to the reduction of food waste and the creative application of full-food utilization.
Through a national partnership, many Food Recovery Network organizations and chapters on 230 university campuses nationwide will be participating in Food Tank Summit watch parties live. They are the largest student movement fighting hunger and food waste in the country
The following day on Thursday, September 14, 2017, Food Tank will be organizing a free public awareness event to benefit GrowNYC, featuring speakers to educate around food waste and showcasing its new dance fitness concept called Garjana at Washington Square Park (1:30 to 2:30pm). Garjana is led by a team of five Broadway performers, featuring choreography from Mamma Mia’s Monica Kapoor and debuting all-original music from Douglas Romanow, whose credits include Justin Bieber, Tyga, and hundreds more. Garjana has been selling out major venues across New York and getting rave reviews from outlets ranging from Billboard, Time Out, Edible Magazine, and more. Conceived by Food Tank Board Chairman Bernard Pollack with visuals and video by award-winning film and television director Kevin Arbouet. On September 28, Garjana will be making its Brooklyn debut at House of Yes.
More details can be found on the Facebook event page.
Since 2015, Food Tank has convened more than 275 speakers in front of more than 2,500 in-person attendees (all of our Summits have sold out!). More than 175,000 livestream viewers have tuned in from countries around the globe, representing six continents. Major food journalists from The Washington Post, National Public Radio, The Hill, Politico, National Geographic, and more have served as panel moderators. Food Tank Summits feature major partnerships with universities including George Washington University, Tufts University, the University of Chicago, University of California-Davis, and many more. In 2018, we will continue to bring Food Tank Summits to existing and new cities including Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seattle, San Diego, New York City, New Orleans, and more.
The entire NYC Food Tank Summit can also be viewed remotely FREE via Facebook Live and live on FoodTank.com. Additionally, we will be featuring backstage interviews with speakers all day using Instagram Live and Periscope/Twitter Live. After the event, all videos will be immediately archived on Food Tank’s YouTube Channel.
2 East Bay Companies Redefine Urban Farming
2 East Bay Companies Redefine Urban Farming
By Alix WallApril 4, 2017, 1 p.m. - Up Dated: July 25, 2017
Benjamin Fahrer at work at the Top Leaf Farms location on the roof of 2201 Dwight Way in Berkeley. Photo: Alix Wall
One hundred miles, give or take, from farm to table, is the ideal maximum distance for produce to be considered local. But there are some companies that are greatly improving on that goal — instead of triple-digit mileage, they’re offering produce that’s grown within just a few miles. Even better, when there’s a short distance involved, delivery happens by bicycle or on foot, eliminating any reliance on fossil fuels.
Traditionally, this type of urban farming takes place in abandoned lots, backyards or parks. But two new East Bay companies are changing up that paradigm.
Read more about Berkeley’s Garden Village building.
The larger of the two operations is Top Leaf Farms, a rooftop garden at 2201 Dwight Way in Berkeley. The building, which was built by the Oakland-based Nautilus Group, Inc., is called Garden Village and functions as student housing for UC Berkeley. It was completed in January 2016 and Top Leaf began installing its garden in August 2016. By October it was up and running, growing produce in 10,000 of its 12,000 square feet of space.
Top Leaf Farms is in contract for another rooftop garden at Telegraph and 51st Street in Oakland, where the garden will be grown across 30,000 square feet of roof space. The mixed-use building will include apartments, as well as a Whole Foods’ 365 store. In fact Top Leaf is already gardening in the vacant lot on which the building will be constructed; that garden will be dug up once construction begins. While Top Leaf Farms is in discussion to sell produce to the new 365 store headed to the building, nothing has been confirmed yet.
Benjamin Fahrer uses a Quick Greens Harvester (made by Farmer’s Friend LLC) at Top Leaf Farms. Photo: Alix Wall
Top Leaf has just two full-time employees. Benjamin Fahrer is the co-owner, principal designer and farm manager, and he is a 20-year veteran of organic farming in such places as Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center in Sonoma, as well as Esalen in Big Sur.
No doubt he would still be farming in a more rural locale had he not fallen in love with his wife, whose career requires her to be in an urban environment — she is a physician at UCSF and performs in a band.
There’s been a bit of a learning curve when taking his farming skills to the roof of a building. For one, much less soil can be used because of weight restrictions.
“Agriculture is a contrived system where we impose a production system on nature to serve our needs to extract product,” Fahrer explained. “On a roof, it’s even more contrived in that it’s separated from the earth. On the ground, you’re working with nature, and here you’re working with concrete, steel and metal. Fabricated materials have a certain rigidity you can’t be flexible with.”
The rooftop farm created by Top Leaf Farms at 2201 Dwight Way in Berkeley. Photo: Alix Wall
Whatever challenges a rooftop presents, though, are not apparent to a farming novice visiting the roof on Dwight. One can walk through numerous terraces and see neat rows of crops growing; it looks no different than a regular farm, except for the fact that you can also see the tops of nearby office buildings and past those, the Bay Bridge in the distance.
They may call the arugula they grow “arufula” or “aroofula”
Right now Fahrer is growing numerous varieties of kale and lettuces, arugula, pea shoots, herbs, flowers and more. Fahrer said he’s already determined which variety of arugula grows best on the roof — they may call it “arufula,” or “aroofula.”
Top Leaf sells produce to the students in the building in limited quantities, but makes most of its income with its “RSA,” or restaurant-supported agriculture, as Fahrer likes to call it. It currently supplies six restaurants with produce and all are within a three-mile radius. These include all three of Charlie Hallowell’s restaurants (Pizzaiolo, Boot & Shoe Service and Penrose), Juhu Beach Club, Chez Panisse, Ramen Shop, Benchmark Pizzeria and Gather.
“Ideally the [building’s] residents would take the majority of food that’s grown above them,” Fahrer said. “But right now the restaurants provide a constant revenue stream.”
Top Leaf Farms has an advisory board that includes author and sustainability expert Raj Patel and former Oakland Food Policy Council director Esperanza Pallana, and is in contract to design a handful of other projects, but Fahrer said they are very particular about their clients. The company has had a few experiences where a developer asks for a rooftop garden with the latest green technology, but after entering into a discussion, “at a certain point we realize we don’t agree with the ethics of that development,” said Fahrer. “We’ve declined because of gentrification and the way in which they’re developing because they’re evicting people from their homes.”
The hope for the Temescal farm, which Fahrer expects will be finished in 2019, is for it to be “a worker-owned cooperative, where we can train and employ local people to become part owners, and create more of a livelihood from urban agriculture,” he said.
Oaktown Farms: The only way is up
John Wichmann of Oaktown Farms (left) sells lettuce to Paul Bosky at the Temescal farmers market. Photo: Alix Wall
Meanwhile, another Oakland farm has taken shape, albeit on a much smaller scale. If you’ve shopped at the Temescal farmers market these past few weeks, you will likely have seen a white tower, attached to a bike trailer, with various types of greens growing in it.
This is Oaktown Farms.
While vertical towers are a new fad in urban agriculture, Oakland engineer John Wichmann has built one of his own design that he believes is better than any on the market.
“There’s one person making a tower system similar to mine but you’re only able to grow plants on one side of a four-sided box. Why not utilize all the real estate you have?” he asks.
Noting that this other system grows nine plants in the same amount of space in which he can grow 40, Wichmann said his tower grows 1,000 plants in 100 square feet of space.
Then there’s the portability factor. He can disconnect a piece of his farm, attach it to his bike, and ride it approximately three-quarters of a mile to the market. Wichmann doesn’t give out the exact address of the farm, but it is on a friend’s lot somewhere within a one mile radius of the Claremont Department of Motor Vehicles.
“The tower allows me to grow, transport and sell from one device, which is unique,” Wichmann said.
Oaktown Farms grows all of its produce in a vertical system. Photo: Alix Wall
Wichmann’s day job is as an engineer at Nauto, a company that’s competing with Google and Uber in the self-driving car space. His interest in gardening has been lifelong; growing up in Southern California, his father was a food technologist and his mother a dietician.
“My dad had a compost pile in the 1970s when I was a kid,” he said. “I always thought that was normal.”
His high school had a Future Farmers of America organization, and also offered advanced courses in wood and metal shop, all of which Wichmann took advantage of.
But while farming had always been a hobby, Wichmann was especially inspired when learning about aquaponics systems. “I got really excited about that because you can get fish and greens in the same system,” he said.
Like Fahrer, Wichmann was also inspired by the fact that more and more people are living in an urban environment. He thinks that new food systems should be feeding them.
And then, of course, there’s the issue of California’s drought.
While it’s hard to quantify, Wichmann believes his system uses 90% less water than conventional farming.
“When you water plants, a lot of it runs off and some evaporates,” he said. With his vertical-farming methods, called a close-looped system, “the water is in a reservoir if it’s not being sprayed onto the roots, and the only water that’s taken up [goes to] the roots.”
The Oaktown Farms stand at the Temescal farmers market. Photo: Alix Wall
Wichmann’s system also prevents waste, as customers only cut the plants when they buy them; whatever isn’t sold remains planted until the next market.
Wichmann also argues that his produce has better health benefits than traditionally farmed vegetables. He said that once you cut a plant, it slowly starts to lose its nutritional value. His are as close to living as you can get.
He’s been bringing to market a mix of Asian greens like tatsoi and mizuna, as well as heirloom varieties of lettuce and mustard greens. People have been puzzled so far, and they sometimes inquire about buying the tower rather than the greens from it.
This last request may become a reality: Wichmann has some big ideas about how a tower like his could alleviate hunger in certain parts of the world, and he is busy pitching it around.
$200M Invested For a Global Network of Indoor Farms? That’s Plenty
$200M Invested For a Global Network of Indoor Farms? That’s Plenty
Frank Vinluan | July 21st, 2017 | @frankvinluan | @xconomy | Email
Agtech startup Plenty has reeled in $200 million in financing as the company presses forward on its plans to build a global network of indoor vertical farms.
Softbank Vision Fund of Japan led the Series B funding round for South San Francisco, CA-based Plenty. The round included investments from affiliates of Louis Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management, as well earlier investors Innovation Endeavors, Bezos Expeditions, DCM, Data Collective, and Finistere Ventures.
The founders of Plenty say they aim to site their farms near major cities. By growing plants vertically, these farms can produce more food from a smaller footprint while also shortening the supply chain to reach consumers. The company also says these facilities will use sensors and software to optimize growing conditions, avoid the use of crop chemicals, and conserve water—savings that help keep the produce affordable. Plenty CEO Matt Barnard toldBloomberg News that the company’s goal is to provide food priced to fit everyone’s budget.
“That’s the thing that’s hardest to do,” Barnard said. “Now that we’ve accomplished those milestones, we’re looking to scale.”
Plenty has plenty of company in the indoor farming space. In June, New York-based Bowery raised $20 million in its Series A round, four months after announcing its seed round of financing. Bowery CEO Irving Fain hinted at ambitions to build its indoor farms around the world but in the near term, he said the funding will support the construction of at least one additional indoor farm in the New York area. Last year, New York-based BrightFarms raised $30.1 million in a Series C round to bankroll expansion of its indoor farms across the country.
Indoor farming investments have heated up in recent years; the category accounted for $247 million invested in 43 deals last year, according to a report from online investment marketplace AgFunder. But Plenty’s latest round appears to be the biggest agtech investment ever. The $200 million round tops the $100 million Series C round of Boston agricultural microbials startup Indigo a year ago in what AgFunder calculated was previously the largest-ever agtech investment.
Softbank has a lot of money to invest in agtech and elsewhere. In May, the fund announced it had closed on $93 billion in committed capital, a sum that it expected would reach $100 billion. At the time, Softbank said it would seek investments of $100 million or more as it builds a portfolio diversified across technology sectors and geographies. The fund said it is looking to invest in companies “that seek to enable the next age of innovation.”
Plenty has also been a dealmaker in the indoor farming space. Last month, the company acquired Laramie, WY-based Bright Agrotech, a maker of vertical farming equipment. No financial terms were disclosed for that deal but at the time it was announced, Bright Agrotech CEO Chris Michael wrote in a blog post that his company’s technology would help Plenty “build field-scale vertical indoor farms around the world.”
Among the technologies that Plenty gained in the Bright Agrotech deal is the ZipGrow Hydroponic Tower. These towers use gravity to feed nutrient-rich water to plants grown in a vertical plane. Barnard told Bloomberg that using gravity saves energy compared to the energy-consuming systems of other farms that pump nutrients to plants.
Plenty has not yet said where it plans to build its farms, nor has the company set a timeline for bringing produce to the market. Other than the Bright Agrotech facilities, Plenty’s only disclosed location is its 51,000-square-foot warehouse in South San Francisco.
ZipFarm photo by Plenty subsidiary Bright Agrotech.
Frank Vinluan is editor of Xconomy Raleigh-Durham, based in Research Triangle Park. You can reach him at fvinluan [at] xconomy.com Follow @frankvinluan
The Freshest Farm-to-Table Meal in New York City: Dinner at Edgemere Farm in Far Rockaway
At first glance, Far Rockaway may seem like a strange location for a small farm—the peninsula on which it resides is known more as a summer beach getawaythan a bastion of fresh produce. While Edgemere Farm is thriving several years after its 2013 opening, it took a great deal of effort to even make the land productive and arable.
The Freshest Farm-to-Table Meal in New York City: Dinner at Edgemere Farm in Far Rockaway
Most people don't think of New York City as a hotbed of urban farming, but there are a number of hidden pockets of agriculture scattered throughout the city’s five boroughs supplying local produce to everyone from neighborhood residents to Michelin-starred restaurants. Case in point: Edgemere Farm, a half-acre of land in Far Rockaway, Queens, that grows everything from potatoes to raspberries to peppers.
At first glance, Far Rockaway may seem like a strange location for a small farm—the peninsula on which it resides is known more as a summer beach getawaythan a bastion of fresh produce. While Edgemere Farm is thriving several years after its 2013 opening, it took a great deal of effort to even make the land productive and arable.
“Originally the space where the farm stands housed a few bungalows, but during the 1970s a lot of people left the Rockaways and the city condemned the buildings that remained,” says Edgemere Farm co-founder, Matt Sheehan. “Before we arrived, the lot had been used as a place to park cars or change tires. We had a lot of work to do to get the land in usable shape.”
Four years later, though, the four-person team at Edgemere Farms grows more than 40 varieties of plants on the property, along with playing home to weekly farm stand markets. Edgemere also provides produce to more than ten area restaurants—the team makes deliveries in their cars, blasting the AC to preserve freshness.
While the farm’s focus is growing great produce, Sheehan and his team also host dinners on the property, each run by a different visiting chef. Edgemere Farm continues to host dinners almost weekly throughout the summer and most recently they teamed up with Grindhaus’ Erin Norris and chef Kevin Speltz, along with noted baker, and Matt’s wife, Jessie Sheehan, for the Hooked On Edgemere Farm dinner. Here's a look at what it's like to eat the freshest farm-to-table dinner in the city.
— Max Bonem
Organization Turning Vacant Toronto Properties Into Mobile Urban Farms
Organization Turning Vacant Toronto Properties Into Mobile Urban Farms
By Susan HayAnchor/Producer Global News
The Bowery Project is taking vacant lots in downtown Toronto and transforming the properties into mobile urban farms. It’s the brainchild of longtime friends Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto. Susan Hay has the story.
Longtime friends Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto have a passion for growing food and giving back to the community. Their joint love for food prompted them to start the Bowery Project, an organization that takes vacant lots in downtown Toronto and transforms the properties into mobile urban farms.
“The developer here, Oben Flats, wanted to do something that gave back to the community and that transformed his site,” said co-founder Rachel Kimel.
“People come and they learn new things and they walk away with something fresh, organically grown and sustainable.”
READ MORE: Urban farming: not just growing food but communities
Currently there are three sites in Toronto growing produce in re-purposed milk crates that sit above the land. This allows for an easy change of location when the land is sold or developed.
“It’s like a pop-up mobile farm,” said Kimel. “There’s something called square-foot gardening and so whatever you can occupy in a crate, we do. Herbs, veggies, edible flowers, lots of greens, mixed greens.”
Several community organizations like the Native Women’s Resource Centre benefit from what’s grown on the sites and from the weekly programming and educational workshops.
“Every year from a site this big (at Sherbourne Street and Gerrard Street East), we grow at least 400 pounds of produce and that gets given away to people who are hungry in the city,” said Kimel.
For Farmers Without Land, a Long Island Lawn Will Do
For Farmers Without Land, a Long Island Lawn Will Do
By ARIELLE DOLLINGER | JULY 23, 2017
Jim and Rosette Adams, owners of Lawn Island Farms, at the home of Cassandra Trimarco in Bay Shore on Long Island. Ms. Trimarco volunteered to allow the couple to turn her front yard into a farm in exchange for a share of weekly produce. CreditJames Estrin/The New York Times
BAY SHORE, N.Y. — Jim Adams met his wife on a trip to Uganda a decade ago. Rosette Basiima Adams, 35, grew up in Kasese, a town, she said, where “everything we ate, we grew.”
“I went to see the gorillas in the Congo,” Mr. Adams, 42, recalled recently. But he left his tour group and ended up meeting Rosette, who was working at a hostel where he stayed.
Today, the couple are trying to grow a business cultivating crops on suburban lawns on Long Island. Their business, Lawn Island Farms, is the result of research and a desire to find a way to farm on the island.
“A lot of it was seeing America through Rosette’s eyes,” Mr. Adams said. In his wife’s hometown, he added, “all their food comes from within miles.”
With lots of ideas and little money, the Adamses began looking for land to farm. They started an online fund-raiser and posted fliers asking area residents to consider turning their lawns into small farms.
“There’s definitely an interest,” Mr. Adams said. “People say, like, ‘How do we replace the lawn and make it into a productive system?’”
The Adamses have received more inquiries than they can handle.
For now, the couple is farming at two locations in Bay Shore: one is a homeowner’s front lawn; the other is behind St. Peter’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church.
They sent the additional inquiries they received to Pennie Schwartz, a home-farmer in Southold, farther east on Long Island.
Ms. Schwartz, 61, a retired chiropractor, said she wanted to help the Adamses turn each inquirer’s lawn into “an edible space.”
“It’s called foodscaping,” she said. “It’s really getting people to understand that lawns are really environmental energy suckers, for lack of a better word.”
Ms. Schwartz studies permaculture, a phenomenon that she said “combines landscape design with sustainability and environmental ecology” — and holds a certificate from Cornell.
“I don’t want to put the lawn guys out of business,” she said. But, “with all the chemicals that go into it, and all the watering we have to do to keep it green, there are better ways and better things to do.”
Ms. Schwartz wants to set up systems that landowners can maintain independently; each system should meet the landowner’s needs.
In other words, a family with children can still have a swing set.
On the two properties they farm, Mr. and Mrs. Adams are cultivating crops that grow quickly and that do not require much space, like salad greens and radishes.
One evening last month, the Adamses’ 9-year-old twins, Daisy and Curtis, ran through the front yard farm here on Hyman Street in pursuit of a rabbit.
Ms. Adams planting sunflowers in Ms. Trimarco’s lawn. Ms. Adams grew up in Kasese, Uganda, a town, she said, where “everything we ate, we grew.” CreditJames Estrin/The New York Times
Mr. and Mrs. Adams had just planted sunflowers when the homeowner, Cassandra Trimarco, drove up.
Ms. Trimarco, a physician assistant, contacted the Adamses after noticing their flier at a coffee shop.
“It’s me kind of donating in a way rather than controlling, because I don’t control anything, and it’s wonderful,” she said. “They think they’re lucky, but I think I’m lucky.”
Ms. Trimarco’s neighbors did not feel lucky, at first.
“We got yelled at,” Mr. Adams said. “One time, a lady pulled up on me and yelled at me for 10 minutes, like, ‘How could you do this? This is disgusting. You’re ruining the neighborhood.’”
Several neighbors declined to comment.
Ms. Trimarco originally volunteered her backyard, but there were too many trees, Ms. Adams said. So they asked about the front yard.
Ms. Trimarco gets $30 worth of produce each week. She also saves on landscaping costs because Mr. and Mrs. Adams do all of the work.
The couple are still working on their business plan. Currently, they sell the crops at two farmers markets and to one restaurant, Henley’s Village Tavern, in nearby Brightwaters.
“When you can deal with a farm directly, and watch it come from that farm, you know you’re getting the freshest product,” said Daniel Kitson, 41, who owns the tavern.
Recently, the Henley’s menu featured a crispy artichoke and chickpea salad with roasted peppers, capers, raspberry vinaigrette and Lawn Island Farms mixed greens.
Cars slowed as they passed the farm lawn. A woman in a truck waved; a man in a minivan said, “Nice!”
Robert Carpenter, administrative director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, said it was not too long ago that a farm in western Suffolk or Nassau Counties would not have looked so out of place.
“Farming was actually very prevalent in that area, going back as little as maybe 75 or 80 years ago,” Mr. Carpenter said.
According to 2012 agricultural census data, the most recent available, Suffolk County is the third-largest agricultural county in New York, Mr. Carpenter said. There remain 35,000 to 40,000 acres of farmland in production in Suffolk County, he said.
“There is agriculture taking place; it’s just not the way that it was 100 years ago or 50 years ago, when you had farms interspaced with houses,” he said. “The days of somebody growing 500 acres of a vegetable, and sending it into the city through the Hunts Point Market, those days are few and far between now.”
At the lawn farm, a Jeep stopped.
“Young man, I want you to know this is fantastic,” the passenger, Bruce F. Stelzer, 64, told Mr. Adams.
Mr. Stelzer said he grew up on a farm in Southold.
“This impressed the hell out of me,” he said. “Except I think a lot of people are going to be picking tomatoes from the street, though, when they walk their dogs.”
“That’s kind of the point,” Mr. Adams said.
A version of this article appears in print on July 24, 2017, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: For Farmers Without Land, a Long Island Lawn Will Do Fine.
LePage Signs Food Sovereignty Law, The First Of Its Kind In The Nation
Anne Weinberg of Chase Stream Farm in Monroe smiles next to some of the produce she was selling recently at the new United Farmers Market of Maine in Belfast. Thanks to recently enacted food sovereignty legislation, small producers like Weinberg will have an easier time selling their products locally.
By Julia Bayly, BDN Staff
Posted June 20, 2017, at 6:02 a.m.
Last modified June 22, 2017, at 11:57 p.m.
With a stroke of his pen, Gov. Paul LePage last week enacted landmark legislation putting Maine in the forefront of the food sovereignty movement.
LePage signed LD 725, An Act to Recognize Local Control Regarding Food Systems, Friday legitimizing the authority of towns and communities to enact ordinances regulating local food distribution free from state regulatory control.
According to food sovereignty advocates, the law is the first of its kind in the country.
“This is a great day for rural economic development and the environmental and social wealth of rural communities,” said Rep. Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop. “The Governor has signed into law a first-in-the-nation piece of landmark legislation [and] the state of Maine will [now] recognize, at last, the right of municipalities to regulate local food systems as they see fit.”
Sponsored by Sen. Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, LD 725 does not include food grown or processed for wholesale or retail distribution outside of the community from which it comes.
Supporters of food sovereignty want local food producers to be exempt from state licensing and inspections governing the selling of food as long as the transactions are between the producers and the customers for home consumption or when the food is sold and consumed at community events such as church suppers.
“This is definitely a big deal,” Jackson said Monday. “This is going to allow small producers to become more engaged in the market and free enterprise.”
Hickman introduced similar legislation last year, but it was killed by the Senate. His bill would have made food sovereignty part of the Maine constitution by amendment.
For his part, Jackson credits the work done by Hickman in the past for getting the legislation enacted and said the bill’s emphasis on decreasing regulations for local food producers likely appealed to LePage.
“The governor is not a fan of red tape,” Jackson said.
LePage’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Hickman said. “Food sovereignty means the improved health and well-being of the people of Maine by reducing hunger and increasing food self-sufficiency through improved access to wholesome, nutritious and locally produced foods.”
To date, 20 municipalities in Maine have enacted food sovereignty ordinances, with Canton becoming the most recent last week.
“I think we are going to see a real groundswell of towns that will not even hesitate to pass [food sovereignty] ordinances because they now won’t have any problems with the state,” said Betsy Garrold, the acting executive director of Food for Maine’s Future. “Maine is that shining beacon on the hill [and] I have been in touch with friends across the country in the food sovereignty movement and they say we are doing it right.”
Garrold, who said she was fighting back tears of happiness on Monday with the news of the law’s enactment, said it is impossible to overstate its impact.
“This means face-to-face transactions are legal if your town has passed a food sovereignty ordinance [and] you can sell food without excessive government regulations,” she said. “If we can feed ourselves, no one can push us around.”
As word of the law spread over the weekend, Garrold said she has been fielding phone calls from people who want to get on board.
“My phone has been ringing off the hook with people from towns saying that now the law says they can [enact food sovereignty ordinances] they will do it,” she said. “It’s hard to say this early where it’s going to go, but we are figuring it out.”
Jesse Watson, owner of Midcoast Permaculture Design, helped craft language adopted as a resolution in Rockland supporting local food production, called Friday’s signing a huge win for the food sovereignty movement.
“We have always been focused on the municipal scale,” Watson said Monday. “The [food sovereignty] agenda — if you will — was never focused on changing state laws, it’s really about the authority of the municipality to produce for for itself.”
With enactment of LD 725, Watson anticipates that movement to speed up.
“This really clears the way for it to keep spreading from town to town to town,” he said.
Stressing that supporters of food sovereignty are not anti-safe food regulations, Garrold said the movement is about recognizing the one-size-fits-all model of costly regulations does not work when it comes to small farmers and producers.
“Now if a small vegetable farmer wants to diversify their holdings and run a few meat birds, they can,” she said. “It decreases one of the major hurdles of getting into farming.”
Given that Maine is the the only state in the country in which the average age of farmers is falling, Gerrold said it’s important to give those young farmers every advantage possible.
“This law will help young folks who want to start small and build,” she said. “They can get started selling face-to-face by selling the same food they are feeding their own families.”
That is a key point, Garrold said.
“We believe face-to-face transactions with your neighbors is safe and beneficial to both parties,” said Garrold, “They know you, you know them and, frankly, poisoning your neighbors is a very bad business plan.”
Hickman said he has heard equal parts disbelief and jubilation from food sovereignty supporters around the state and he predicted this is just the beginning.
“Today we import 90 percent of the food that we consume and too much of it is processed junk,” he said. “Many more towns will now take up consideration of [food sovereignty] ordinances as soon as they can.”
A Stunning New Smog-Eating ‘Vertical Forest Tower’ Will Feature Luxury Apartments And 300 Species of Plants
A Stunning New Smog-Eating ‘Vertical Forest Tower’ Will Feature Luxury Apartments And 300 Species of Plants
By Business Insider | July 22, 2017 10:00AM
Stefano Boeri Architetti
A smog-eating tower will soon go up in the Netherlands city of Utrecht.
On the outside, 10,000 trees and shrubs — nearly half the amount found in New York’s Central Park — will fill the skyscraper’s facade, roof, and balconies. Inside, it will feature 200 luxury apartment units, restaurants, a fitness center, and offices.
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Called the Utrecht Vertical Forest, the 300-foot-tall tower will host around 30 different plant species. The plants will absorb 5.4 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year — the equivalent of about one car, according to designers from Italian architecture firm Stefano Boeri Architetti. In addition, the company said the tower will produce about 41,400 tons of oxygen annually, roughly the same as what 2.5 acres of forest generates.
Stefano Boeri Architetti
The mixed-use building is being billed as the “new healthy center of Utrecht,” since the plan calls for healthy eateries, a gym with yoga studios, bike parking, and a small public park. The Vertical Forest Hub, a new research center on urban forestation, will also have offices on the ground floor.
First of Its Kind ‘Food Sovereignty’ Law Just Legalized Local Food Trade Without Govt
Maine has taken a bold step toward freedom, becoming the first state in the U.S. to enact a ‘food sovereignty’ law giving communities power to regulate their local food economy
First of Its Kind ‘Food Sovereignty’ Law Just Legalized Local Food Trade Without Govt
Raw milk? Free Range Eggs? Organic Vegetables? No Problem. State's 'Food Sovereignty' Law just legalized their food trade once again.
By Justin Gardner | July 21, 2017
Maine has taken a bold step toward freedom, becoming the first state in the U.S. to enact a ‘food sovereignty’ law giving communities power to regulate their local food economy. The bill, titled An Act To Recognize Local Control Regarding Food and Water Systems, was passed unanimously by the state Senate and signed into law by Governor Paul LePage.
“LePage signed LD 725, An Act to Recognize Local Control Regarding Food Systems, Friday legitimizing the authority of towns and communities to enact ordinances regulating local food distribution free from state regulatory control…
Supporters of food sovereignty want local food producers to be exempt from state licensing and inspections governing the selling of food as long as the transactions are between the producers and the customers for home consumption or when the food is sold and consumed at community events such as church suppers.”
What this means is that neighbors can sell their eggs, milk, and other wholesome food to neighbors, without fear of state-level interference. This includes raw milk sales, a particular area where government has cracked down on those who dare engage in voluntary exchange.
Maine’s move is very welcome at a time when freedom is generally being chipped away by the police/surveillance state and the corporatocracy. Longstanding alliances between corporate food giants and government agencies have come to exert vast control over what we put in our bodies.
Almost every large food and beverage brand is controlled by 10 corporations, which pay off politicians to stifle smaller, more localized competitors. Regulatory burdens are created which do little or nothing to actually help the consumer or environment, but create enormous burdens that the little guy operating in a more localized area can’t handle.
The result is more unhealthy processed foods, massive factory farms poisoning humans and polluting the environment, more pesticide use from industrial monoculture which damages ecosystems, and loss of family farms.
The food and agriculture biotechnology Industry spent more than half a billion dollars over a decade to influence Congress for the privilege of feeding America. To politicians running DC, that kind of money makes the will of the people meaningless.
Betsy Garrold of Food for Maine’s Future summed up the simple, undeniable rationale behind food sovereignty.
“We believe face-to-face transactions with your neighbors is safe and beneficial to both parties,” said Garrold, “They know you, you know them and, frankly, poisoning your neighbors is a very bad business plan.”
Food freedom is certainly popular among the people, as 20 municipalities had already enacted food sovereignty ordinances prior to the bill being signed. Garrold said her phone “has been ringing off the hook” with townspeople who have every intention of using this freedom to build a thriving local, healthy food economy.
This demonstrates the hunger that likely exists all across the nation to take back control of our food supply, bringing a more localized, diverse approach which in turns provides health and environmental benefits.
“This is a great day for rural economic development and the environmental and social wealth of rural communities,” said Rep. Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop. “The Governor has signed into law a first-in-the-nation piece of landmark legislation [and] the state of Maine will [now] recognize, at last, the right of municipalities to regulate local food systems as they see fit.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Hickman said. “Food sovereignty means the improved health and well-being of the people of Maine by reducing hunger and increasing food self-sufficiency through improved access to wholesome, nutritious and locally produced foods.”
Maine’s move seems like an unusual and novel idea in these times, but food freedom has been around for most of humanity. Other states, including California, are considering similar food sovereignty measures.
USGBC-LA Announces Veggie Bus Project
“The veggie bus is a bright, inspiring endeavor for our volunteers to get involved in a hands-on project that has direct benefits for the local community in South LA,” says USGBC-LA Executive Director Dominique Hargreaves. “Urban agriculture is an important facet of sustainable communities and this project is at the intersection of urban ag and sustainable building.”
USGBC-LA Announces Veggie Bus Project
The project uses a reclaimed bus as a mobile classroom, plant nursery and seed library.
The U.S. Green Building Council-Los Angeles (USGBC-LA) Chapter is working on its summer endeavor, the veggie bus classroom project. Proposed by Community Services Unlimited Inc. (CSU), Los Angeles, the veggie bus was selected by the USGBC-LA as its 2017 Legacy Project due to its reuse, recycle and upcycle and additional sustainability goals.
USGBC-LA is providing funding and volunteers to help CSU transform an old diesel school bus, no longer in use, into a classroom, plant nursery and seed library. The beneficiaries of the project will be residents of South L.A. who participate in educational programs and classes offered by CSU.
The Legacy Project is a permanent project by USGBC-LA with the goal to provide a means of service and education. The LA chapter decided to continue awarding annual Legacy Projects after last year’s eco-tech makerspace project, a gift to the city for hosting the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, was deemed a success for and by the local community of Gardena and Two-Bit Circus Foundation, formerly T4T.org, who runs the makerspace.
“The veggie bus is a bright, inspiring endeavor for our volunteers to get involved in a hands-on project that has direct benefits for the local community in South LA,” says USGBC-LA Executive Director Dominique Hargreaves. “Urban agriculture is an important facet of sustainable communities and this project is at the intersection of urban ag and sustainable building.”
The veggie bus will become a permanent part of the urban farm and wellness center that is being developed at CSU’s headquarter, the Paul Robeson Community Wellness Center in South L.A., and will include and feature sustainable design elements such as: reclaimed materials; solar panels; and water catchments systems.
To date, USGBC-LA volunteers have worked with CSU and community members to strip old flooring and seating from the bus, help with design specs for its interior, organize material donations by USGBC-LA member companies and retouch the exterior mural. Upcoming volunteer opportunities to work on the bus are:
Saturday, Aug. 12—install solar panels and electrical, interior design elements and vertical planters;
Saturday, Sept. 9—prepare seed library, install awnings, plant native and edible plants and install signage; and
Saturday, Oct. 28—bus unveiling/USGBC-LA Green Apple Event.
“We are working to help a decommissioned bus get back into the business of moving people from point A to B. While, the bus can no longer physically transport people, it can and will move people to rethink and reimagine what is possible,” says Legacy Project chair Maya Henderson of Kilroy Realty Corp. “CSU and this project are showcasing what engaged development looks like and why it is critical to the health and sustainability of a community, both social and ecological.”
The veggie bus will be incorporated into CSU’s existing and future programming “designed to foster the creation of communities actively working to address the inequalities and systemic barriers that make sustainable communities and self-reliant life-styles unattainable,” according to its proposal. It will be accessible to residents of the greater Los Angeles area during joint CSU and USGBC-LA events.
July, 2017
New City Council Bill Would create a Comprehensive Urban Agriculture Plan For New York
New City Council Bill Would create a Comprehensive Urban Agriculture Plan For New York
JULY 21, 2017 | BY MICHELLE COHEN
Image courtesy of Gotham Greens.
A new bill introduced in New York City Council Thursday addresses the need for an urban agriculture plan that doesn’t fall through the cracks of the city’s zoning and building regulations, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bill, introduced by Councilman Rafael Espinal and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and assigned to the Land Use Committee, also raises the possibility of an office of urban agriculture. If a New York City farm bill seems surprising, you may also be surprised to know that NYC has the country’s largest urban agriculture system, including community gardens, rooftop farms and greenhouses.
Image: 6sqft
The city’s urban farmers have been facing a regulatory system that doesn’t know quite what to do with them, making logistical needs like insurance even more thorny than they’d otherwise be. Brooklyn Borough President Adams said, “We’re not talking about our mom and dad growing tomatoes in the backyard, we’re talking about the potential of having major farming on rooftops to deal with food deserts. This is the wave of the future.” He’s referring to the 14,000 acres of rooftop space that’s currently unused and, if converted to gardens, could have the potential to feed millions.
But according to a recent report by the Brooklyn Law School, current zoning codes make little or no mention of small hydroponic operations that, for example, supply microgreens and rare herbs to the city’s Michelin-starred restaurants. Rooftop gardens are only allowed in non-residential areas, and there are restrictions on where produce can be sold.
Councilman Espinal believes a comprehensive food plan should lift restrictions, untangle regulations and make it easier for the city to encourage agriculture, creating jobs and more access to fresh produce as well as reducing the carbon footprint associated with transporting food. “It would be a win, win, win across the board for the entire city.”
Clearer regulations would also attract more investors. John Rudikoff, head of the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship at Brooklyn Law School points to nearby Newark, which has revamped its zoning code to include urban agriculture-specific language. The city is now home to AeroFarms, which is among the country’s largest indoor farming businesses. Less confusion around urban farming rules could also benefit nonprofits that use agriculture as a teaching and community-building tool.
BrightFarms CEO Paul Lightfoot reports that doing business in big cities like New York, Chicago and Washington is, “devilishly difficult and expensive and slow.” And according to Jason Green, co-founder of Edenworks, a Bushwick aquaponic farming company that has raised $3 million in investment in two years, “There’s a barrier to entry here. It’s often up to the operators to work through a fragmented regulatory and incentive environment and figure out who you are accountable to.”
Square Roots Is Looking For Its Next Class of Urban Farmers
Square Roots doesn’t just offer a crash course in the mechanics of urban farming. After the farms yield their first harvests a few weeks into the program, participants are expected to begin making sales. They receive guidance from program mentors in creating sustainable business plans.
Jul. 19, 2017 9:55 am
One of Square Roots' vertical hydroponic farms. | (Photo courtesy of Square Roots)
Square Roots Is Looking For Its Next Class of Urban Farmers
The program equips participants to launch their own food businesses in a matter of months.
By April Joyner / CONTRIBUTOR
Square Roots, the urban farming accelerator based in the Pfizer Building, is taking applications for its second cohort of resident entrepreneurs. The next round of the program will begin in October.
The 13-month program includes access to the distinctive shipping-container farms, made by Boston-based Freight Farms, that participants use to grow food. Participants pay a $5,000 deposit to cover operating expenses for the first three months, but those funds are returned to them at the end of the program. To help front those costs, participants can apply for microloans through the Department of Agriculture, with which Square Roots has partnered.
Square Roots doesn’t just offer a crash course in the mechanics of urban farming. After the farms yield their first harvests a few weeks into the program, participants are expected to begin making sales. They receive guidance from program mentors in creating sustainable business plans. Members of Square Roots’ first class, for instance, have devised a variety of sales strategies for their products, from setting up shop in greenmarkets to courting the CrossFit crowd. The accelerator does not take equity in the participants’ resultant businesses, though it does take a percentage of their sales.
Applications for Square Roots’ second program are due July 31.