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Giovanni Del Brenna – Paris Agricole
Each photograph reveals innovative ways to grow organic products in the very heart of one of the main European capitals
JUNE 6, 2019
Giovanni Del Brenna documented the evolution of a particular Parisian urban project that aims to turn more than 100 hectares into areas intended for agricultural production.
Each photograph reveals innovative ways to grow organic products in the very heart of one of the main European capitals: strawberries grown in containers, vertical farms that are directly connected to one of the biggest French supermarket, vegetable gardens on the rooftop of some historical buildings as the Opera Bastille.
“Urban agriculture” is an oxymoron that has become reality, a new way of life that challenges the photographer’s eye. A magnificent visual playground that shows a very positive evolution in Paris – two worlds, a priori contrasting, connected: the countryside and the city, the natural and the artificial.
Giovanni Del Brenna – Paris Agricole
3rd June • 1st July 2019
Hotel de Ville
rue de Lobau – rue de Rivoli
75004 Paris
New York City: Elected Officials, Urban Ag Coalition Rally for Development of Comprehensive Urban Agricultural Plan
Urban Ag Coalition Rally for Development of Comprehensive Urban Agricultural Plan
Council Member Espinal,
Brooklyn Borough President Adams,
Elected Officials,
Urban Ag Coalition Rally For
Development of a
Comprehensive Urban Agricultural Plan
WHO: Council Member Rafael Espinal, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Urban Farmers, Community Gardeners
WHEN: Tuesday, June 11th, 10:30am
WHERE: Jacob Wrey Mould Fountain in City Hall Park, New York, NY 10007
WHAT: Elected officials, supporters of urban agriculture, environmental allies, along with leaders of the City's community gardens will rally in City Hall Park for the development of a comprehensive urban agriculture plan prior to the City Council Hearing on the legislation.
In lifting restrictions and clearing up land use policy, the plan will promote the expansion of large-scale urban agriculture, making it easier for the City to protect New Yorkers' health and the environment while bolstering the economy. Advocates have long argued that the expansion of green spaces and access to local food is necessary in closing the 'freshness gap’ in the under-served communities of the city.
Q&A: Kim Hookway On Buckeye Fresh’s Giant Eagle Deal
Buckeye Fresh’s co-founder and president explains why the deal makes sense for the business, if it has met her expectations and why it’s important to market locally.
March 25, 2019
Chris Manning
Photo: Allison Krieg
In late 2018, Buckeye Fresh — a Medina, Ohio, vertical farm — expanded its relationship with a one-year deal with Midwest grocery chain Giant Eagle. As part of the agreement, some of Buckeye Fresh’s lettuce blends will be sold in clamshells designed with Giant Eagle’s Market District branding, marked as “grown locally” and placed in endcaps reserved for locally grown products at different stores.
“It’s been great,” says Buckeye Fresh co-founder and president Kim Hookway. “I think it was better received than they anticipated.”
Produce Grower: Why do you think the program has gone better than expected?
Kim Hookway: So going into a new product launch, and not having any data points whatsoever, they gave us a certain projected number [that we’ve beat]. Promoting it through ads I think is helping. You have those shoppers that shop those flyers weekly and when you see a good deal on a great product, if you’re like most consumers you’re going to jump on that. A lot of them have been, which has been great. Their goal this year is to promote this Market District brand and see how far they can take it. And so we have ads planned every month. It’s been good.
PG: Has this deal lived up to your expectations?
KH: It’s definitely exceeded ours. Although I will tell you, going in the beginning, they gave us their numbers, which I thought were very conservative. But I guess from the initial launch I thought their numbers were light. So I guess the numbers to me, not that I knew what the numbers would be exactly, but I knew they were a little conservative only because we had Buckeye Blend [Buckeye Fresh’s main lettuce mix] out there under our brand, so it was already a product that I kind of had history on myself of what Giant Eagle and other stores were taking. We do have another product for them that was introduced [Summer Crisp, a crunchier lettuce] — I didn’t have a good feel on that one. But I did anticipate Buckeye Blend would be a winner.
PG: When you’re working with a brand, how important do you think it is that they know that you’re a local business and market that to the end consumer?
KH: I think it does matter, and I think the goal is, on their marketing side, to have more about the farmers and the growers — a little side note. Whether it’s a display in the store of how things are done and where things are located, I think there is more of an education focus that will be placed on this whole local branding. So I think there is more to come, I don’t think this is it.
Vertical farms Lettuce Local food Retail Grocery Instagram
Urban Farming In The US: Breaching The Urban-Rural Divide
Farming is one of the oldest professions there is. But as society has urbanized, we have gradually lost our connection with the industry that puts food on our plates
Tuesday, June 04, 2019
Farming is one of the oldest professions there is. But as society has urbanized, we have gradually lost our connection with the industry that puts food on our plates. One jarring survey in the U.K. found that nearly 1 in 10 elementary school children think that tomatoes grow under the ground.
In parallel with urbanization has come the severing of our relationship with the people and land that grows our food. But now we are hearing that a new urban revolution in food is apparently sweeping through our city centers… so, can urban farming change our relationship with food? And can it be part of our reimagining of urban land uses?
Cutting down the food miles
Politically, agriculture tends to be treated as a "rural" issue — remote from the concerns of urbanites and left for farmers to battle over, as long as the food arrives on our supermarket shelves safe and sound.
So why bother bringing food production back into our cities? Surely we don’t have enough space left as it is.
When our societies were far less urbanized than they are today, food growing was woven into communities — indeed, the extraordinary and complex way we have developed to eat and source our food is a relatively new phenomenon.
Well before the advent of the Brooklyn urban-homesteading-hipster, the first settlers in the U.S. were growing their own, as were abandoned inner-city neighborhoods in the 1960s. Globally, small farmers still control the largest share of the world’s agricultural land.
One of the major benefits of farming within the city is that it brings the grower much closer to where it is eaten, cutting down dramatically on food miles. It can act as green infrastructure — absorbing storm water, combatting the urban heat island and filtering the air — and has a key role in injecting fresh produce into the nation’s "food deserts."
Finally, urban farms can transform the fractured relationship between farm and city into something more symbiotic. At Chicago’s City Farm, growers make use of one resource that is all too plentiful in American cities — food waste — to enrich the poor urban soil for producing vegetables. The strategy harks right back to that used by market traders in 19th century Paris, where the mess left behind by the horses of the market traders would be used to nourish local urban gardens.
Finding fertile ground
With a growing population, space within our cities is at a premium as never before. We also have more mouths to feed. But that doesn’t mean there is no fertile ground for growing.
The pressure on cities like Tokyo and New York have also been forcing agriculture onto rooftops.
But there are some obvious benefits to rooftop farms once you give it some thought. There are not quite so many rats on rooftops, and certainly fewer deer to nibble at your wares, even if dealing with high winds can take a bit of ingenuity.
In contrast, in some post-industrial cities like Detroit, urban agriculture has sprouted up in disused lots left over as the inner city was deserted as manufacturing declined. Indeed it was in such urban areas where the roots of the modern community gardening movement began in the 1970s.
The Michigan Urban Farming Initiative in Detroit has been described — only slightly wincingly — as one piece in the nation’s first urban "agrihood." Taking it up a level is the Hantz Group, who are controversially attempting to build the world’s largest urban farm, on land they snapped up in 2008 when land prices plummeted.
Scaling up urban farming
For many of us, our vision of urban farming is the rustic urban allotment or volunteer-led community garden. While those ventures are empowering and provide huge dividends in social capital and physical and mental health, urban farming is attracting the attention of commercial growers, too. They are trying to prove that urban farms can not only be environmentally beneficial but can turn a profit as well.
For many, this means embracing new technologies — and this is where we depart from the nostalgic vision of the urban homestead. Tokyo, one of the cities with famously intense pressures on land use, has been one of the cities experimenting with vertical urban farming — where crops are stacked up in warehouses and lit with UV lights.
Many of these crops use hydroponic technologies, which are a method of growing plants without soil. Instead of being embedded in the soil, nutrient-rich water or very moist air (known sometimes as “liquid soil”) is trickled or misted over their roots. New York-based Gotham Greens grow bok choy, basil and lettuce like this.
Others, including celebrated Milwaukee-based urban farm Growing Power have gone a step further by experimenting with aquaponic solutions — which throw fish into the mix.
NASA has been testing hydroponics out with a view to feeding colonies on the Moon. But, at the other end of the spectrum, hydroponics also made an appearance this year at the staunchly traditional Chelsea Flower Show in London.
Despite some teething problems (not least around energy use), the benefits of this "controlled-environment agriculture" (CEA) are considerable. The sun can always shine, and conditions can be controlled to an extent impossible on traditional farms.
As a consequence, the yields tend to be much higher and plants grow faster. The burden on water resources is also much lower compared to traditional methods and — handily for deindustrializing cities — the systems pack well into disused carpet factories.
We might recoil from this vision of vertically stacked lettuces, so distant is this futuristic image from the rural agricultural idyll we grew up with. But the precision that these technologies allow enable these growers to grow pesticide-free, which is more than can be said for most traditional farms.
Whether or not it makes you feel warm and fuzzy about the source of your food, we are likely to see a lot more of technologies like this.
Planning cities for a food revolution
Like many of the best ideas, urban farming is not a new idea but the revival of a tried and tested one. But despite the immediacy of the food crisis, one of the most exciting things about the supposed urban farming "revolution" are its co-benefits.
Urban growing projects are not only a response to the environmental and nutritional crisis posed by a growing population and a hungry planet, but it is also a response to the breakdown of community.
As advocates of "food sovereignty" tell us, the act of urban farming also answers a deep need in the modern world to take back control, and gardening has long been a reaction to periods of economic instability. The Victory Gardens encouraged during the Second World War are the most well-known example, and Cuba’s self-sufficiency experiment a more recent one.
Urban planners and city authorities have to lend a hand. Planners until recently have seen urban farms as too "low value" of an activity to afford urban space, but that is starting to change.
This might mean tweaking zoning laws to allow these uses to creep back into the city. In 2013, Detroit’s urban agriculture ordinance finally made the city’s hundreds of gardening plots legal, which is at least somewhere to start.
About the Author
Lucy is a UK-based urban and environmental planner, with a background in Open Data policy and energy policy. She is fascinated by how we grow our cities and towns, and how we can learn from place, as well as how apparently dull policy details can transform the experience of our everyday built and natural environment. She writes here about urban spaces in the U.S. and beyond from all kinds of perspective — from the busker to the policy maker.
Boston, MA - Farm To Sprout On A Mattapan Street
By adamg on Fri, 05/10/2019
Rendering of proposed Flint Street farm from filing with BPDA.
The Urban Farming Institute of Boston is getting ready to break ground on quarter-acre farm on Flint Street in Mattapan, behind the Wave gas station.
The institute will use $135,000 in city funds - allocated from the revenue from the Community Preservation Act surcharge on local property taxes - for a permanent farm that will train local residents in urban farming - and to develop better techniques for urban farming - while adding a new source of fresh food to the area.
The institute has used the site for a couple of years for several temporary raised beds in which to grow vegetables. The city money will help pay to clear the entire site of poison ivy and ready it for more permanent cultivation.
The new farm will be a couple blocks from the institute's Fowler Clark Epstein Farm on Norfolk Street.
More details and schematics (10.7M PDF).
Tags: Flint Street Urban Farming Institute of Boston
Rendering of proposed Flint Street farm from filing with BPDA.
UK: Sheffield Scientists Are Growing Food Ten Times Faster Without Soil At An Urban Farm in Tinsley
Jacob Nickles at the urban farm in Tinsley where scientists are using pioneering hydroponics techniques to grow food without soil. Picture by Chris Etchells.
By BEN BARNETT
05-19-19
“It is estimated that 35 Mount Everest’s
worth of soil a year is lost to erosion.”
Ceaseless world population growth and worrying levels of soil erosion mean new ways of producing food perhaps matches mitigating climate change as the biggest global challenge of our time.
Some 24 billion tons of fertile soil is being lost globally to erosion every year and such is the mounting crisis that academics at the University of Sheffield predict the UK has fewer than 100 harvests left.
Enter hydroponics, the science of growing plants using nutrient solutions in a controlled unit without using soil. It is a ground-breaking technique that is now gaining greater traction internationally as scientists explore ways of ensuring the world does not go hungry in the future.
An attempt to harness the potential of hydroponics is underway on the border of Sheffield and Rotherham, where a team of scientists are using a disused building at the former Tinsley Infant School to grow a range of fresh produce, from salad to tomatoes, using specialist foams that chemically, physically and biologically resemble soil - a product developed by University of Sheffield PhD student Harry Wright.
Such has been the so-called “urban farm” project to date that scientists have found that they can grow plants up to 10 times faster than in soil.
A public open day at the facility was held on Saturday, where project leader Jacob Nickles, a knowledge exchange associate from Sheffield University’s new Institute for Sustainable Food, explained how the system worked.
“This technology is the way forward,” Mr Nickles said.
“By 2050, we are facing having to feed 10bn people worldwide and we don’t have the space or resources to do so. Both hydroponics - and aquaponics to raise fish - solve a number of issues in one go.
“For example, you can build these units upwards rather than outwards.”
He said there was “absolutely” still a place for traditional farming methods but it was important globally to help soils recover.
“The whole purpose of using synthetic soil is an attempt to move away from conventional soils,” the scientist explained.
“It is estimated that 35 Mount Everests worth of soil a year is lost to erosion. We need to give our soil time to recover by pulling some of the growth away from traditional technology.”
Mr Nickles has grand hopes for the technology.
“The unit we have here is small at the moment but an ambition for the future is to repurpose an derelict urban building, like a warehouse, so that people can use it for hydroponic growing.”
He anticipated a mixed reaction to soil-free food production from the public.
“Most people mistrust something foreign to them but we have done a lot of analysis and this system can produce food that is just as healthy, if not more so. It’s about getting the knowledge out there.”
US - OHIO - New 'Micro Farm' Model Tested At OSU Mansfield Urban Agriculture Project
During a recent project training session, growers gathered around their trial run beds of radishes and baby lettuce. [ideastream / Lecia Bushak]
AUTHOR: Lecia Bushak
PUBLISHED: May 20, 2019
During a recent training session, a group of urban farmers in Mansfield, Ohio huddled around a small raised bed of radishes, examining the crop’s growth after a cold spring week.
They aren't on your typical farm. Dozens of small beds of greens are lined up under tunnels in this “micro farm” on the Ohio State University Mansfield campus, which is built on top of a parking lot.
They’re being trained as part of a project at the school, which recently received a $2 million grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to create a new model for urban agriculture. The project connects and supports dozens of small micro farms so they’re both economically and environmentally sustainable.
The long-term goal is to expand the project to hundreds of micro farms and to bring healthy foods to urban food deserts — neighborhoods where access to grocery stores or fresh foods is lacking — all while researching and tracking the project's impact on the community, on green space, and on the environment.
Increasing Yield Per Acre
While urban farms have taken off in recent years, it’s difficult to keep them afloat. A study out of NYU found that about two-thirds of urban farmers were failing to make a living, with sales under $10,000 per year.
Project lead and assistant professor of environmental history Kip Curtis says the micro farm system is different from a typical urban farm because it maximizes the number of crops produced in a small space — in this case, only one-third of an acre — and takes a whole food system approach to be more profitable.
That involves training, growing the same things in the same way, and marketing and selling all the produce before it’s harvested.
The small, nimble size of the micro farm may also allow the model to complement city living well. Squeezing rows of crops into beds without needing the space between rows for the use of trucks can be 4 to 5 times more productive per acre than field agriculture.
“So it’s sustainable in kind of a systemic way,” Curtis said. “We anticipate being a positive part of the life of the community, and that’s really what sustainable means.”
Micro Farms and the Environment
Agriculture currently contributes 10 to 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a significant contributor to climate change. Fertilizer, for example, produces high levels of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas; cattle produce methane during the digestive process.
Sustainable farming, meanwhile, aims to reduce the negative impact on the environment by incorporating practices like avoiding pesticides or chemicals, conserving ecological resources, and reducing soil degradation.
One of the main goals of the project is to be sustainable and environmentally sound, while still being efficient and profitable. Researchers will also be tracking if the micro farm model could reduce the carbon footprint.
“One, [the micro farms] are organic, so we’re not going to be using excessive amendments, toxic chemicals, none of that stuff will be in the garden so it won’t be washing out into the surrounding environment,” Curtis said.
He added that small, sustainable farms like this one provide food directly to the local community, cutting travel emissions.
“The second is, because these are production sites in the community where the food is being consumed, you’re shrinking your supply chain — which means instead of driving your vegetables from Arizona or California, you’re literally bringing them across the street," Curtis said. "So you’re reducing your carbon footprint of agriculture as well.”
Health Benefits
The 10 participating farmers, or producers, used their most recent gathering to check up on their first test run of crops — radishes and baby lettuce. Once more of their micro farms are up and running, they plan to expand to more participants and a diverse variety of vegetables.
“Over across the way we’ve got some bok choy, swiss chard, basil, tomatoes, carrots, beets, ocra, eggplant,” Curtis said. “You name it, we’ve tried to get some of it in there.”
Researchers will track the finances of the micro farms over the next three years but will also try to measure if they’ve had an impact on the health of the local community.
“It’s exposing people to local food, which we know is a subtle way of going, you know, you should eat better,” Curtis said. “And so, what if we saw diabetes reduction, we saw obesity reduction, we saw some of the health benefits of fresh food production. This is an effort to say, can we apply, and study, and leave something behind.”
Walter Bonham is one of the producers who was born and raised in Mansfield.
"We can try to take better care of ourselves in our own communities, versus needing to depend on other states, or even other countries sometimes to provide all of our produce," Bonham said. "Doing it locally would help our economy, and help our communities. By having this program and by them pursuing this ambitious goal, it allows other people to attach themselves to this, which makes it easier for the community to make changes."
This year’s pilot growing season will be a good indicator of the micro farm project’s potential to deliver on its goals.
TOPICS Health & Science
TAGS Be Well
Building a Circular Economy in Charlotte
May 22, 2019
By Amy Aussieker
As the circular economy grows in Charlotte, our dependence on foreign imports would decrease and one area to benefit is local food production.
From growing locally both traditionally and through aquaponics/hydroponics to the reuse of organic waste – this opportunity has the possibility of transforming the food culture in Charlotte to a more sustainable, healthy, and accessible system.
Read Article
UAE: Architects Reimagine Dubai Road With Urban Farm
Machou Architects has designed the world's longest urban agricultural park for Dubai, transforming the city's vital Sheikh Zayed Road into an eco-valley.
Developed to increase the city's public space and improve its connectivity, the project proposes to sink the highway underground and convert the above-ground land into 25km of "prime urban agricultural land". The park, called 'Super Park', would be a catalyst for social capital development, said the architects, generating economic value and sustainable growth.
"Recent developments in Dubai are proving that well-designed spaces can offer a viable outdoor leisure option for people, despite the city's notoriously high summer temperatures," the architects said.
They added, "Heat can be controlled with good urban design elements and vegetation placement."
Read more at Middle East Architect (Rima Alsammarae)
How Urban Agriculture Can Meet Its Potential
New York City’s urban agriculture has not been found to provide benefits to either hungry people or the environment. How could city farms work better?
Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, Brooklyn, NY
By: James MacDonald
May 27, 2019
Interest in urban agriculture on both personal and commercial scales has grown in recent years. With land in short supply, and transportation carbon-intensive, why not place more farms in cities? It’s a way to improve land use, the environment, and food security all in one blow. But can it actually help?
According to a recent article in Anthropocene magazine, urban agriculture in New York City has provided few benefits to either hungry people or the environment. The main products are leafy greens for high-end restaurants. Moreover, a glut of indoor farms consume vast amounts of energy. New York, however, is not the only center of urban agriculture.
While the stereotypical city farmer might be a Brooklyn hipster tending to backyard kale, urban agriculture is not a new concept. Sustainability expert Milica Koscica writes in The Journal of International Affairs that cities have been incorporating farms almost as long as there have been cities. Ancient urbanites, from the Maya to the Byzantine Empire, maintained farms in urban centers as a backup in case of supply disruptions. During the world wars, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany encouraged citizens to keep Victory Gardens in order to supplement a food supply that was drained by the war effort.
Today, urban farming is widely practiced in the developing world, mostly by low income, food insecure urban residents. In some places, up to 70% of urban residents supplement their food supply with some form of agricultural. In parts of Africa, for example, a small urban plot can provide up to 60% of a family’s food supply. Urban plots produce everything from eggs to mushrooms, using space-saving methods such as hydroponics. Given the poor transportation in many developing countries, an agricultural side hustle allows access to fresh, nutritious foods that low-income urban residents could otherwise never afford. Surplus can be sold, providing critical income.
But this is difficult to scale up beyond subsistence level. Despite various ingenious workarounds, space is at a premium in urban areas, and vertical farms are mostly experimental. According to horticulturists Leigh J. Whittinghill and D. Bradley Rowe, the use of green roof technology might be the answer. Many areas are trying to encourage so-called green roofs to improve energy efficiency and wildlife habitat. Potentially, roofs could be adapted for urban farming, preventing the energy use problems of indoor farming and the contamination risks of marginal soil. Some analysis is required to make sure that the benefits of green roofs would carry over to a green farm roof.
So while urban agriculture may be off to a rocky start in New York City, it may meet its full potential yet.
US: Lidl Reveals Plans For 25 East Coast Stores
As part of its continuing growth along the East Coast, Lidl US has revealed plans to open 25 new stores in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia by the spring of 2020
As part of its continuing growth along the East Coast, Lidl US has revealed plans to open 25 new stores in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia by the spring of 2020.
By the end of next year, the deep discounter expects to operated more than 100 U.S. stores and create more than 1,000 new jobs in nine states. “We are committed to long-term growth in the United States and always strive to locate in the most convenient locations for our shoppers”, noted Lidl US CEO Johannes Fiber.
“These new stores are part of the next steps in our U.S. expansion.
Over the next year, we are excited to introduce more customers to Lidl’s award-winning quality, reliably low prices and convenient shopping experience.”
Source: progressivegrocer.com
Tom Dixon and IKEA's Urban Farming Solutions Will Be Available as Early as 2021
The two-level garden will feature over 4,000 plants, as well as a horticultural lab that integrates technology into the system
By Emily Engle - May 14, 2019
As part of the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Tom Dixon and IKEA have designed an experimental model for urban farming. Titled "Gardening will Save the World," the exhibition demonstrates how people can grow food at home and do their best to reduce food waste, through the combination of design and technology.
The two-level garden will feature over 4,000 plants, as well as a horticultural lab that integrates technology into the system. "Aiming to give back to cities and create productive landscapes within urban zones, the garden includes a raised modular landscape with edible and medicinal plants and an enclosed based garden fueled by hydroponic systems and controllable lighting," says Dixon.
IKEA has explored gardening systems in the past, but this is the first time the company is working on a scalable system that can be applied to both large spaces and the individual home. "We want to create smart solutions to encourage people and to make it easier for them to grow plants anywhere they can, whether that's in their community garden, rooftop or in containers on balconies and window sills," says James Futcher, Creative Leader at IKEA Range and Supply.
A few of the solutions for urban growing that resulted from this collaboration will actually be available at IKEA stores globally in 2021. After the Chelsea Flower Show comes to a close, "Gardening will Save the World" will be donated to Participatory City and moved to East London for at least three years.
Emily is Core77's Editor, footwear enthusiast and resident stress baker.
Urban Agriculture, An Agricultural Model Unlike Any Other
April 26, 2018
The city and the countryside sharing the same space. Jonathan V. Larocca / Flickr , CC BY
Author Lionel Garreau
Lecturer HDR in Strategy & Organization, University Paris Dauphine - PSL
Declaration of interests
Lionel Garreau does not work, does not advise, does not own shares, does not receive funding from an organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his academic position.
Partners
Université Paris Dauphine provides funding as a member of The Conversation FR.
See the partners of The Conversation France
Agriculture is undergoing profound changes . Various forms are developing: smart agriculture , permaculture , agroecology, etc. There is today an ideological competition between these forms of agriculture, as evidenced by many works that propose ways of improving agriculture as it is currently practiced, without questioning the foundations of these models. .
The book by Benoît Biteau, resistant farmer, advocates the validity of the model of organic agroforestry. The book shows the benefits of this type of agriculture, both for economic reasons for farmers, and ecological for society. For its part, the work of Xavier Beulin (former president of the FNSEA) persists in a conventional but improved model (what could be called a smart agriculture ) in his book Our agriculture is in danger, what to do . Or the book Organic farming, hope or chimera presenting a debate between two opponents, pro and antibio, who each camp on their positions.
Bio, scandales sanitaires, guerre des prix : l’agriculture française à la croisée des chemins
Practices in "simple loop"
Despite their interest in improving agricultural practices, these forms of agriculture actually offer only "simple loop" learning , that is, an adjustment of practices that improve the way agriculture is implementation, without, however, calling into question the frames of reference in which it is developing.
Therefore, the competition between these various forms is always based on the same arguments: for or against the use of phytosanitary products (the famous pesticides) and its practical consequences, the yields per hectare, respect for the environment, etc. The founding principles are never questioned by their supporters, making the dialogue unproductive.
The single loop and double loop learning model, according to Argyris and Schön (1978). Author provided
Despite their differences, these currents of thought are based on three shared pillars: land would necessarily be needed to produce agricultural commodities; agriculture is practiced "horizontally" in fields; finally, agriculture requires dedicated plots, separated from plots of housing.
The new model of urban agriculture
An agricultural model, however, seems to implement what is called "double-loop" learning; that is, a correction of past mistakes by re-examining reasoning processes, problem-posing ways, underlying values, and goals.
This model is that of urban agriculture. This one is extracted from the foundations evoked above: necessary use of the land, horizontal agriculture and separation of agricultural parcels and dwelling. And, beyond challenging these frames of reference, it incorporates in its reflection other parameters shared by the scientific community: CO 2 consumption related to the transportation of agricultural products; the ever-increasing rate of urbanization; soil depletion or the need to consume less water.
By combining the questioning of certain factors and adding others, based on empirical observations, a new model has emerged with urban agriculture, which proposes a different future. It helps rethink how agriculture can develop today.
This mode of agriculture is also based on various formats: home farming, decentralized agriculture in modules intended for production (premises inside the building, containers, gardens on the ground or on roofs, etc.), vertical farms urban.
Sensitize city dwellers to the problems of food production. artefatica / Flickr , CC BY-SA
What development?
This new model breaks the codes of agriculture ... to the point that a company like Agricool- which produces strawberries in urban containers using no chemical pesticides - can not claim the organic label because it does not use no land!
We see here that the frameworks defined by the public authorities become obsolete. The latter will have to adapt to the new practices that are inventing each day in this sector: because the consumer would not understand that a product of the same quality as another, organic, can not eventually benefit from the same label.
Urban agriculture has, of course, not only advantages: a cost of production currently above the market average, a strong energy requirement, an impossibility to exploit very large plots (although the yield annual strawberries in 30m 2 containers at Agricool is the equivalent of 4 000m 2 in the field), the difficulty of ensuring livestock breeding, etc.
But it contributes to profound changes in the classic frames of reference of modern agriculture. While not forgetting to rely on new resources, using, for example, digital data from sensors to better manage water consumption.
Horticulture + Engineering + Data Science + Nutrition = A New Kind of Farm AeroFarms is passionately working to fundamentally transform our food system, in an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible way. http://aerofarms.com/environmental-impact/ …
The development of urban agriculture will not only go through a niche population and the development of startups such as Agricool , AeroFarms , Topager (realization of vegetable gardens on the roofs) or Roof Green (which will open soon). a vertical farm in Paris).
It will also be of interest to large companies in the real estate construction, energy or data management sector for this type of opportunity. This is also the interest of this new model: developing devices that make it possible to bring together actors who until now met little, while reconnecting the urban population with the problem of food production.
This article is based on the study conducted by the students of the Master's degree "Corporate Policy and Business Strategies" at Paris-Dauphine University as part of the Economic Intelligence Trophy, which took place on the 9th April 2018.
Agriculture town planning food cities farmers urban agriculture organic farming alternative consumption greening farming lands
Sheffield Scientists Launch Soil-Free Urban Farm
May 13, 2019
Posted by: Joanna Jones
A team of scientists have transformed an abandoned school building into a soil-free farm.
The abandoned school in Tinsley has been fitted with hydroponics systems by Jacob Nickles, a Knowledge Exchange Associate from the new Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield.
Using a network of pipes, nutrient solutions, controlled growing environments and polyurethane foams, Jacob is growing everything from salad to tomatoes using a soil-free technique.
With 24bn tons of fertile soil lost globally to erosion every year and University of Sheffield experts predicting the UK has fewer than 100 harvests left, PhD student Harry Wright has developed specialist foams that chemically, physically and biologically resemble soil. So far, Harry and Jacob have found that plants in this controlled urban setting grow two to ten times faster than they do in soil.
After an open day this Saturday, the farm will provide fruit and vegetables to the community in Tinsley, as well as training for local unemployed or low-skilled workers and an educational environment for schools.
Involving the local community is a crucial aspect of the project, which was inspired by an initiative to install hydroponics systems at a refugee camp in Jordan, led by Professor Tony Ryan and Professor Duncan Cameron at the Institute for Sustainable Food.
Jacob Nickles said: “The Urban Farm is a physical manifestation of some of the groundbreaking work that happens at the University of Sheffield. Rather than speaking about it and publishing papers, we’ve actually built a working system for growing food.
“This Saturday is a chance for us to start engaging with our local community – learning from them about what food they want to see the farm grow, and talking about how members of the public can get involved.”
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Rooftop Garden Takes Urban Agriculture To Another Level
Of all the places on campus you’d expect to find a garden brimming with kale, Swiss chard and collard greens, the second floor of University Crossing probably isn’t one
UNIVERSITY, MILL CITY GROWS PARTNER ON GREEN ROOF GARDEN AT UNIVERSITY CROSSING
Photo by Ed Brennen
PhA student walks past the new Green Roof vegetable garden at University Crossing. Photo by Ed Brennen
04/29/2019
By Ed Brennen
Of all the places on campus you’d expect to find a garden brimming with kale, Swiss chard and collard greens, the second floor of University Crossing probably isn’t one.
But thanks to a collaboration between the university and Lowell-based urban farming nonprofit Mill City Grows, there’s a new rooftop vegetable garden outside the windows of the busy second-floor landing at the student and administrative center.
“It’s such a wonderful use of this space. I love it,” said Senior Vice Chancellor for Finance, Operations and Strategic Planning Joanne Yestramski, admiring the freshly planted crops through the floor-to-ceiling windows during the university’s Earth Day celebration. “It shows our commitment to sustainability right here, front and center, in one of the busiest places on campus.”
The primary purpose of the rooftop garden, according to Director of Sustainability Ruairi O’Mahony, is to educate passersby about the university’s Urban Agriculture Program. A wall sign provides details about the “Green Roof” garden and other urban agriculture sites around campus. Producing fresh, leafy vegetables for the university community is an added bonus.
Photo by Ed Brennen
Macayla Cote of Mill City Grows helps transfer vegetables to growing containers at the new Green Roof garden at University Crossing.
“It helps tell the story about our program and shows people what the campus is about,” says O’Mahony, who notes that the project highlights the important campus-community connection.
The Office of Sustainability and Mill City Grows, working in collaboration with the Student Government Association, designed the 500-square-foot space, which is tucked between a conference room and elevator bay on the south-facing side of the building, overlooking Salem Street.
The modular garden consists of about 180 plants growing in individual milk crates filled with nutrient-rich compost. The compost, which originated from the university’s dining halls, was developed and donated by Casella Organics. The garden is watered by an efficient, on-demand smart drip irrigation system that adjusts to local weather data.
“I’m excited to see how much yield we get in a small space,” says Mill City Grows co-founder and UML alum Lydia Sisson ’12, whose organization will oversee the day-to-day operations of the garden and harvest the produce several times a week. Most of the produce will be made available to the community through Mill City Grows’ Mobile Market.
Mill City Grows manages nearly a dozen community gardens and urban farms around the city, including two others in partnership with UML, the Urban Agriculture Greenhouse on East Campus and the community garden on Dane Street. This is their first rooftop garden.
Photo by Ed Brennen
Student Society for Sustainability President Akbar Abduljalil helps transplant crops at the new Green Roof garden at University Crossing.
“We’ve visited a lot of rooftop farms, but this is our first rooftop experiment. It’s going to be fun,” says Sisson, who notes that there are several advantages to the elevated location. “You get the heat from below, which is good, and it will definitely get a lot of sunlight. There should also be a lot less pests. But we’ll have to be careful with the wind.”
The space is one of three green roofs originally installed on the second floor of University Crossing when the building opened in 2014 (the others still exist over the main entrance and on the Merrimack Street side of the building). Designed to mitigate stormwater runoff and provide a layer of insulation to enhance the building’s energy performance in summer months, the green roofs consist of a thick carpet of sedum, a hardy perennial that holds water well.
O’Mahony says the vegetable garden will make the space even more eye-catching.
“They’re the type of crops that come up like a fountain,” he says. “It’s going to be a beautiful visual.”
Sean Cloran, who completed his biology degree last fall and is now doing an internship with the Office of Sustainability, helped O’Mahony prepare the area for the new garden.
“Hopefully it inspires people to check out the greenhouse and community garden,” Cloran says. “I think it’s going to help break down the barrier between where food comes from and where people think food comes from.”
Philly Names First-Ever Farm Czar
Philadelphia has named city planner Ashley Richards as its first-ever urban agriculture director. Richards will direct the creation and implementation of Philadelphia’s forthcoming urban agriculture plan
The Philadelphia Orchard Project plants at Bartram's Community Farm.
APRIL 24, 2019
Ashley Richards (City of Philadelphia)
Philadelphia has named city planner Ashley Richards as its first-ever urban agriculture director. Richards will direct the creation and implementation of Philadelphia’s forthcoming urban agriculture plan.
Richards got their start as a planner in New York, where they facilitated the creation of an urban farm cooperative led by Black and Latinx Bronx residents. Most recently, Richards was working for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission on development issues in North Philadelphia.
Richards, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s city planning program, also served as co-chair of the city’s Food Policy Advisory Council Urban Agriculture subcommittee. Their new role will be based in the Parks and Recreation Department and linked to its urban agriculture program, FarmPhilly. Richards was unable to comment for this article.
“It’s very exciting,” said Jenny Greenberg, executive director of Neighborhood Garden Trust (NGT), a land trust affiliated with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society that acquires and preserves community gardens in Philadelphia. “They’re very committed on these issues.”
Greenberg hopes the urban agriculture master plan will produce a better system for gardeners and urban farmers to secure the land they’ve been tending for years, sometimes generations.
The seeds for the plan were planted about three years ago at a city council hearing where residents asked the city to step up with a long-term strategy to support new and long-tenured community gardens and urban farms.
Nearly half of the city’s estimated 470 farms operate on formerly blighted land that the farmers don’t own or control. The squatter farmers often cleaned up vacant eyesore lots and turned them into safe places to grow food. These spaces have become green respites in neighborhoods with little access to fresh food and high rates of crime. Studies have shown such spaces reduce crime, improve health and increase land values.
But as real estate appreciates and some neighborhoods gentrify, many farmers have found themselves locked out of the land they made bloom. One North Philadelphia family recently filed a lawsuit against the city over a community garden behind their home that was sold at a sheriff’s sale, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The family transformed the abandoned land into a community space and tended it for nearly 40 years before the city sold it, the Inquirer reported.
For growers who don’t have a clear title to the land they are tending, acquiring rights can be complicated and costly. The planning process Richards was tapped to lead is intended to address this problem, among others.
Christine Knapp, director of the city’s office of sustainability, said she hopes the plan will help the city coordinate between agencies that work with community gardens and those that control public land such as the Philadelphia Land Bank, so the city can expand its urban agriculture practices in a way that works better for everyone.
In addition to creating a framework for expanding urban agriculture in the city, the plan will explore how “to better support those gardens that have been out there for a long time,” Knapp said.
The city expects to select a vendor to begin working on the plan in June and have it ready in 18 months or less for a budget capped at $120,000. A request for proposals closes on April 30.
More land earmarked for gardens
One year ago, Public Interest Law Center attorney Ebony Griffin was frustrated with the city’s process for transferring vacant land into the hands of community gardens.
“The Land Bank is not really responsive,” Griffin said. “It almost feels like it’s a facade.”
In a recent interview, Griffin said things have improved.
“I can tell that they've really put forth some effort into making sure that they're addressing the needs of the growing community. And I do think that a lot of our initial concerns could be attributed to the fact that they were in transition and they were a little short-staffed,” Griffin said.
Griffin’s organization recently updated a website — Grounded in Philly — with information about how to navigate the legal process to secure garden land. The online resource includes tools for growers to communicate and organize online.
It’s not only growers trying to get organized. Between last April and now, a few things have changed at the Land Bank. The staff grew by two, from a team of 15 to 17 — and they’ve begun to hit some of the agency’s internal targets. For instance, the agency acquired 20 properties for community gardens in the last fiscal year, meeting a goal.
But progress remains slow and incremental.
Last year’s goal was to transfer 33 lots to garden groups. Only four made the jump in ownership — all four going to the Neighborhood Gardens Trust.
This year’s goal is 40. But so far only one garden sale has been approved but not yet settled — the formerly at-risk New Jerusalem farm.
“The challenge is that the real estate market is moving faster than the city’s bureaucracy, and politics and policy,” said NGT’s Greenberg.“We are in a race, it feels like, in a lot of neighborhoods.”
The four parcels Greenberg’s group acquired from the Land Bank came in addition to 15 from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Agency and five from the city’s Department of Public Property. Another five tax-delinquent properties will soon be transferred from the Land Bank to the trust, according to Greenberg.
Justin Trezza, director of garden programs at PHS, said the numbers reflect progress.
“I think we're seeing a positive trend right now,” said Trezza, whose group already supports about 150 gardens around the city. “The Land Bank is making a concerted effort to make their processes clear for individuals. And then, beyond that, there has been a lot of other individuals and entities putting pressure on the City Council to be more supportive of community gardens.”
Kirtrina Baxter is with Soil Generation, a Black and Brown-led coalition of growers and the Public Interest Law Center. She said there is still work to be done.
“It hasn't gotten any better,” Baxter said. “The [Land Bank’s] strategic plan wasn't done in 2018 so we still don't have any transparency around how the Land Bank is being used to service gardens. Outside of the work that they do with NGT, there's really nothing to show for that.”
Last year, Baxter and her coalition organized rallies demanding community control of gardens, farms, and green spaces throughout Philadelphia. This year, they’re looking closely at the City Council election. Through Philly’s tradition of councilmanic prerogative, council representatives have a lot of control over how city-owned land is used or sold. Soil Generation is calling its followers to vote only for “green friendly” candidates, or those who have been supportive of gardens.
Baxter also has her hopes on the urban agricultural plan coming up this year.
“Once the city hears back and gets the strategic plan back from the community, saying these are the things and these are the services that we want, these are the supports that we want — then hopefully they'll move in a different way to support gardens better,” Baxter said.
About the author
Catalina Jaramillo, Reporter
Catalina Jaramillo is a part-time reporter for PlanPhilly and StateImpact PA. She covers community development issues, environmental/sustainability stories, and neighborhood narratives. For most of her career, she has worked toward social justice, writing about inequality and creating real and virtual spaces for people to communicate.
She is a freelance correspondent for Chilean newspaper La Tercera, collaborates with Feet in Two Worlds – a news organization that brings the work of ethnic media journalists to public radio and the web – and teaches journalism at the first Spanish-language program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. She was born and raised in Santiago, Chile, and has lived in Spain, Mexico and the US.
She’s been living in Philadelphia since 2014, in front of Norris Square Park, in Kensington. She tweets as @cjaramillo and you can email her at cjaramillo@whyy.org.
Melbourne Gives Green Light To City Skyfarm
Georgia Clark
13 May, 2019
Melbourne will soon have a new public rooftop farm.
City of Melbourne Council has approved plans to transform a car park on top of a city building into a 2000-square-metre urban farm.
Known as the Skyfarm, the project will sit atop a new $450 million development at Melbourne’s Docklands directly overlooking the Yarra River, with a nursery, beehives, eco education centres, a shop, sustainable café and even a live music venue.
The plans were unanimously approved by council at a Future Melbourne Committee meeting last Tuesday, where a plan to create more ‘urban forests’ across the city was also endorsed.
The farm, funded with $300,000 from Melbourne’s Urban Forest fund, will produce five tonnes of produce each year – which will be used to supply the café and donated to charities like Aus Harvest.
The project, set to be completed as soon as late next year, is a collaboration between urban farm specialists Biofilta, not-for-profit Odonata and the Sustainable Landscape Company.
Commercial and philanthropic space
Brendan Condon from Australian Ecosystems told council that the farm is inspired by New York’s Brooklyn Grange – a community farm which is a hybrid commercial and philanthropic space.
“We believe the proposal represents an exciting opportunity to revitalise the rooftop of an existing building and provide a working example of urban farming in Melbourne central city,” Josh Maitland from Ethos Urban told council.
It’s hoped the farm will act as a cool space in the city to counteract growing carbon emissions.
The approval comes after council last week injected $1.9 million to implement the first year of its Green Our City Strategic Action Plan.
“We will work with the Victorian Government to create a demonstration green roof in the central city and increase the quality of green roofs and vertical greening across the municipality. There are currently around 40 green roofs in the municipality,” environment portfolio chair Clr Cathy Oke said.
Councillors received a number of objections to the proposal, with most citing concerns about noise pollution, light pollution, waste and privacy intrusions.
But the committee was told that the venue will be noise-insulated and equipped with dim lights. There will also be limits on patron numbers to avoid disrupting neighbours.
Nature in cities to become the norm
Director of Skyfarm Nigel Sharp says the project showcases the future of sustainable cities.
“Melbourne Skyfarm represents a fundamental shift in what is means to do business in this day and age. It is a bold and exciting step towards a future where nature in cities is the norm,” he said.
“It is a demonstration of how nature, people and our economy can thrive together and provides a much needed platform in the inner city for interaction, education and story-telling about the wonders of nature.”
The Skyfarm features a number of elements of sustainable design including passive solar design, renewable energy, zero emissions buildings, carbon neutral transport and rainwater harvesting.
The farm will also divert waste produced during the coffee roasting process to a composting system which will be used to grow food.
High-tech classrooms will be used at the farm to educate students and community groups about sustainability.
Marc Noyce, director of Biofilta, said the project is an illustration of the integration of urban landscapes with sustainable design.
“Melbourne Skyfarm is the perfect site to show how cities can build abundant urban farms in any location, and become prolific closed loop food producers.”
The Urban Farming ‘Revolution’ Has A Fatal Flaw
Commercial urban agriculture in New York City has provided questionable environmental gains, and has not significantly improved urban food security
By Emma Bryce
April 15, 2019
Commercial urban agriculture in New York City has provided questionable environmental gains, and has not significantly improved urban food security.
These are the findings of a recent case study of New York City which shows that, despite the fanfare over commercial urban farming, it will need a careful re-evaluation if it’s going to play a sustainable role in our future food systems.
The rise of commercial controlled-environment agriculture (CEA)—comprised of large scale rooftop farms, vertical, and indoor farms—is a bid to re-envision cities as places where we could produce food more sustainably in the future. Proponents see CEA as a way to bring agriculture closer to urban populations, thereby increasing food security, and improving agriculture’s environmental footprint by reducing the emissions associated with the production and transport of food.
But the researchers on the new paper wanted to explore whether these theoretical benefits are occurring in reality.
They focused on New York City, where CEA has dramatically increased in the last decade. Looking at 10 farms that produce roof- and indoor-grown vegetables at commercial scales, they investigated how much food the farms are producing, who it’s reaching, and how much space is available to expand CEA into.
They found that the biggest of these 10 commercial farms is around a third of an acre in size. Most are on roofs spread across New York City, and some are inside buildings and shipping containers. Mainly, these farms are producing impressive amounts of leafy greens such as lettuce, and herbs; some also produce fish.
But while rooftop farms rely on natural sunlight to feed the crops, indoor farms use artificial lights. These farms potentially have a greater energy footprint even than conventional outdoors farms, the researchers say–challenging the assumption that urban farms are less impactful than conventional ones.
Some farms also embraced high-tech systems, such as wind, rain, temperature, and humidity detectors and indoor heating, to enhance growing conditions in environments that aren’t naturally suited to agriculture. These elevate the energy costs of the food produced, and may be giving CEA an unexpectedly high carbon footprint, the researchers say.
Furthermore, the predominantly grown foods—such as lettuce—aren’t of great nutritional value for the urban population, especially those threatened by food insecurity. Most produce from CEAs is sold at a premium, something that partly reflects the cost of the real estate used to grow the food. Consequently, that produce is typically grown for high-end food stores and restaurants, meaning it’s unlikely to reach low-income urban populations who need it most.
The researchers also think it’s unlikely that CEA—which currently occupies just 3.09 acres in New York City—could expand into the roughly 1,864 acres they estimate is still suitable for urban farming in New York City.
The rising cost of real estate might put these urban acres beyond the reach of new farming start ups, they think. These companies also face increasing competition from a growing number of farms springing up on the outskirts of cities—where land is cheaper and there’s space to produce more food, while also benefiting from urban proximity.
With its one-city focus, the research isn’t representative of what might be unfolding in other places around the world. Other cities may be having more success—for instance, Tokyo has gained global attention for its large scale vertical farming efforts. Yet as a case study, it does reveal useful lessons—especially for cities wanting to meet the original twin goals of urban agriculture: equitably increasing access to food, at a lower environmental cost.
The researchers note first of all that CEA is optimal in places where less supplemental heat and light is needed to grow food. More thought might also be given to the nutritional value and cost of foods grown, to generate benefits for all the city’s residents, not just high-income ones. The researchers question whether smaller, community-driven plots of urban agriculture—like community gardens, school, and prison farms—might actually do a better job of providing food to at-risk city residents, compared to commercial urban farms that inevitably have to focus on profits.
Based on the study of New York, the researchers caution: “CEA may be touted as an exciting set of technologies with great promise, but it is unlikely to offer a panacea for social problems or an unqualified urban agricultural revolution.”
It’s easy to be drawn in by the dystopian allure of vertical farms and underground greens nestled into our cities. But until we’ve streamlined its role, we should perhaps not overstate what commercial urban agriculture can do—or, instead be guided by cities where there are stronger signs of social and environmental success.
Source: Goodman et. al. “Will the urban agricultural revolution be vertical and soilless? A case study of controlled environment agriculture in New York City.”Land Use Policy. 2019.
This piece was originally published on Anthropocene Magazine, a publication of Future Earth dedicated to creating a Human Age we actually want to live in.
Urban ‘Farmers’ Plant Acres of Field High Above Streets of New York on Rooftops
(Facebook | Brooklyn Grange)
May 1, 2019
The last place you’d expect to see a massive, organic farm is in New York City.
High above the sidewalks in one of the dense metropolis’s outer boroughs, though, a group of sustainable farmers have been cultivating a 2.5-acre plot of greens and goodness for locals to consume. And its success bodes well for the future of big cities—and the planet in general.
Corn! Growing on a terrace in mid-town. Love this shot from one of our design / build clients the architecture firm, CookFox. Learn more about our landscaping services: https://www.brooklyngrangefarm.com/landscaping-services #BGbuilds #BGgrows
Join us for an inspiring workshop from longtime urban farmer and Farm School NYC's Growing Soils teacher Molly Culver as we take a deep dive into the complex world of minerals and living organisms at work beneath our feet.
In this workshop, you'll learn about the basic components of soil, and how soil's natural processes can be supported by us to grow healthy food, flowers and herbs. Some basic concepts to be covered in this introductory class are: soil's physical chemical p...
Brooklyn Grange was founded in 2010 by a former Wisconsinite using loans and local city grants to build a pair of rooftop farms in Astoria and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They grow everything from vegetables to herbs, providing fresh, local produce to both the Brooklyn and Queens communities while proving that sustainable, green farming is possible in even the most unlikely of places.
It wasn’t easy to create the massive farms. It took six days of using massive cranes to get 3,000-pound (approx. 1,361-kilogram) soil sacks up onto the roof of the building in Astoria, which stretches along Northern Boulevard, and they couldn’t just build the farm up on top of a regular roof. There’s a root-barrier at the very bottom of the farms, preventing the roots from penetrating the top of the roof, then a layer of felt and a series of drainage mats that contain small cups to hold excess water. Finally, the soil was added on top, completing the man-made farm in the middle of America’s most bustling metropolis.
Spring has sprung! It’s always so exciting to see the transplants make their way out of the greenhouses and into the great big world. Sometimes it takes them a few days to find their footing on our windy rooftops but once they do, they thrive. These kohlrabi babes will be ready to harvest by mid-June. #BGseason9 #BGgrows
The drainage cups under the soil store water close enough for the plants to eventually use it, limiting the amount of additional water needed to keep the farms alive, and the soil used to grow the plants isn’t real soil at all—it’s actually a special man-made blend that breaks down into special nutrients to keep the plants thriving.
Since the company was founded a decade ago, they’ve moved on from just farming their own rooftop plots. In addition to hosting weddings and brunches, they also provide a consulting service that helps others learn how to turn their own rooftops into sustainable gardens. The goal is to provide an opportunity for anyone who wants to use nontraditional spaces to grow plants and food, making healthy options more accessible and contributing to the improvement of the environment in the process.
Next Saturday 3/23, Anastasia will be leading her day long Modeling an Urban Agriculture Business class. It’s a really great one, and if you haven’t already checked it out, please do (https://www.brooklyngrangefarm.com/upcoming/muabdaylong). To get her ready for all the great questions the students are bound to ask, we’ll be doing our first ever AMA! Tomorrow morning tune into our instagram stories where we’ll be asking all of you to send us all of your questions and we’ll do our very best to get you answers. See you there. It’s going to be great. 📷@rlespinal
Making ourselves right at home in the new house. #movingin #greengreengreen #bgbuilds#sunsetparkfarm #micromadness
They’ve been able to provide consulting to help building owners grow corn in Midtown, tomatoes in Queens, and have even announced plans to open up a third farm in Sunset Park, a diverse community along the water in Brooklyn.
The world still has a ways to go before the offset of pollution and industrialization is widespread. Industrial processes have proven detrimental to both the ecosystems and ourselves; inventing technological solutions, as good as they are, has always been fraught with obstacles. Yet, returning to the basics—seeds, soil, and sunlight—shall remain a safe place to start.
On the darkest night of the year, we want to wish you all a happy solstice and a reminder that tomorrow the days will start to get longer, little by little.
Gotham Greens To Open New Greenhouse In Rhode Island
A rendering of Gotham Greens' forthcoming greenhouse in Providence
Photo courtesy of Gotham Greens
The 110,000-Square-Foot
Facility Will Open In Fall 2019
April 25, 2019
According to a press release, urban grower Gotham Greens is opening a new 110,000-square-foot facility in Providence, Rhode Island. The facility, according to Gotham Greens will produce 10 million heads of lettuce and leafy greens annually for customers in Providence and the greater New England region.
The greenhouse, located on the site of a former General Electric facility that has sat vacant for two decades, is set to open in fall 2019.
"We are thrilled to partner with the City of Providence and State of Rhode Island on this project," said Gotham Greens Co-Founder and CEO Viraj Pur, according to the release. "Providence is the perfect location for us, strategically located at the gateway to New England, the city has a rich legacy of manufacturing, world-class institutes of higher education, and a thriving local food culture. Geographically, New England is farthest from the West Coast, where the majority of leafy greens distributed across the U.S. today are grown. Once we're operational, Gotham Greens will be able to supply this region's supermarket retailers and foodservice operators with a consistent and reliable supply of fresh produce grown right here in New England year-round."
Pur announced the new greenhouse alongside Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, Rhode Island Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor and other community leaders. An estimated 60 full-time jobs at the greenhouse and 100 construction jobs are expected to be created by the project, which will cost $12.5 million. The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation has committed up to $2.3 million in tax credits, payable over a 10-year period contingent on job created.