| I'm writing this with tears in my eyes, I came down here to London England for a short vacation unfortunately i was mugged at the park of the hotel where i stayed,all cash,credit card and cell were stolen off me but luckily for me i still have my passports with me. I've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and my flight leaves in less than 3hrs from now but am having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave until i settle the bills,I'm freaked out at the moment.Got nothing left with me..i was mugged off all i got,can you please help me out with some cash?So freaked out here |
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Advocates say urban farming feeds the poor, provides jobs – Duluth, Minnesota
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Emily Kniskern (left) and Michael Latsch, with the program Seeds for Success, prepare a new garden plot on a vacant lot in Duluth last week by digging up the ground and removing roots and rhizomes of the ubiquitous quack grass. Photo by Bob King.
Duluth could soon be awash in home-grown vegetables if two new programs taking seed this spring sprout as organizers hope.
By John Myers,
Duluth News Tribune
May 17 2010
Duluth could soon be awash in home-grown vegetables if two new programs taking seed this spring sprout as organizers hope.
One program, Seeds of Success, sponsored by Community Action Duluth, is turning vacant lots into urban vegetable farms where seasonal workers will grow produce to sell to local restaurants.
The workers might earn a little money for their efforts, and Duluthians will see more home-grown vegetables in the local market. The city and other groups already have donated use of seven vacant lots to be turned into gardens.
"From what we hear, stores and restaurants just can't get enough locally grown, organic produce,'' said Angie Miller, executive director of Community Action Duluth. The group has hired both a community sustainable agriculture expert and a food marketing expert to help the program succeed.
Participants in the city's Youth Employment Service work program, 18- to 21-year-olds, will be trained to garden and grow vegetables. The goal is for them to be able to keep some vegetables and sell the rest.
Seeds of Success is modeled after a program called Growing Power in Milwau kee that helps low-income urban residents grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner — meaning low impact on the environment with few if any chemicals and reduced use of fossil fuels.
"It's starting as a green jobs program to put a few people to work in a garden,'' said Michael Latsch, coordinator of the Seeds of Success program. "We hope it can become nearly self-
sustaining, so there are enough sales of produce to pay for the program, or at least get close.''
No garden? No problem
In another effort, the Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank has received 20 free container garden sets that include nearly everything someone needs to start a vegetable garden on their deck, driveway, patio or yard. The kits — seeds, containers, directions and more — were donated by Sydney's Green Garden, a new Duluth-based company trying to preach the gospel of locally grown, sustainable agriculture.
All participants do is add is dirt, water and elbow grease.
Each of the container gardens can grow up to 15 varieties of vegetables that will offer low-income families who use the food shelf a chance to grow their own fresh, nutritious foods that are often out of economic reach at retail stores.
"If your money is limited, fresh vegetables often are too expensive to purchase,'' said Shaye Morris, executive director of the food bank. "For the right family, this is a great opportunity to supplement their food needs and do it in such a positive way.''
Most of the produce Northlanders buy at retail groceries come from far away — California, Florida or Latin America. That shipping requires a lot of fuel and creates a lot of carbon emissions. Moreover, large commercial vegetable operations use large amounts of chemicals and fossil fuels for fertilizer, pesticides and field work. Some have been criticized for poor worker health and safety.
Local options are available, such as buying shares in the Food Farm or similar cooperatives and buying from farmers markets or retail stores like Whole Foods Co-op. But those outlets can't supply an entire region.
Scott Vesterstein, founder of Sydney's Green Garden — named after his daughter — usually sells his vegetable container sets for $89. The 12 containers in the system take up only 16 square feet and grow 15 varieties of vegetables. The system will fit almost anywhere there's a little sunshine.
"You'd be amazed how much you can grow in such a little space,'' said Vesterstein, noting he has a wealth of fresh vegetables from mid-June into September, including carrots, lettuce, peas, spinach, cucumbers, beets, beans and more. "This is a legitimate way to grow pesticide-free, organic food — and lots of it — right outside your window. It's not that hard.''
Little gardens save big oil
Vesterstein, owner of the Fitgers Brewery Complex in Duluth, started container gardening on his driveway in 2003 and has been expanding his interest and efforts ever since. That includes selecting seeds specific to the Northland environment. He's even become certified in designing space for new homes to fit vegetable garden space into the design, and now he's donating kits to local third-grade classes and developing kits for Third World communities.
According to the Organic Consumers Association, every American uses about 400 gallons of oil each year just through the food they eat. Some 17 percent of our nation's energy use goes to agriculture, from tractors working the fields to packaging to trucks to store shelves. The groceries Americans buy have traveled an average of 1,500 miles from field to table.
Vesterstein says that, if every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week of organically and locally raised produce and meats, the nation could cut oil use by 57 million barrels each year. Even more would be saved if the veggies came from right outside each home's own kitchen.
"Maybe the beginning of becoming a less energy-dependent nation starts one garden at a time,'' Vesterstein said.
Anyone interested in obtaining one of the food bank's free container kits should call Amy Hildre at (218) 727-5653.
For more information on purchasing container kits from Sydney's Green Gardens, go to www.sydneysgreengarden.com.
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Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development proposes changing codes to ...
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From the highest spot in the lovely community garden in Seattle's Chinatown. Photo by Megan Driscoll.
Urban Agriculture Seattle
Specifically, the Department of Planning and Development (DPD)_is proposing the following code changes to support and encourage urban agriculture:
1. Add and/or clarify definitions for the following key terms: horticulture, aquaculture, animal husbandry, community gardens (including P-Patch community gardens), and urban farms. These refined definitions have additional recommendations (below) for regulation by zone.
2. Allow community gardens (including P-Patch community gardens) as permitted uses in all zones, with some limitations in industrial zones.
3. Allow urban farms in all zones as follows:
Commercial: Allow urban farms as a principal or accessory use. Horticulture uses are currently limited to 10,000 sq. ft. in NC1 zones and 25,000 sq. ft. in NC2 zones; there are no size of use restrictions in NC3 or C zones. In commercial zones, urban farms and horticulture uses are measured by planting area and floor area of a structure.
Industrial: Allow urban farms as an accessory or principal use outside of designated MICs, and on tops and sides of buildings in all industrial zones. Currently, horticulture uses are not allowed in industrial zones, and DPD proposes no change to this provision as based on the new definition of a horticulture use.
Residential: Allow urban farms as an accessory use up to 4,000 sq. ft. of planting area and as a principal use greater than 4,000 sq. ft. of planting area, subject to an administrative conditional use permit process. Currently, agriculture uses are not allowed in residential zones.
4. Allow rooftop greenhouses a 15 foot exception to height limits as a rooftop feature, if the greenhouse is dedicated to food production in MF/C/I/SM/Downtown zones.
5. Add farmers' markets to the definition of multipurpose uses.
6. Increase the number of chickens allowed on residential property from three to eight, and regulated by lot rather than by dwelling unit or business. DPD also proposes to add that roosters are not allowed in any zone.
7. Allow existing urban horse farms greater than ten acres to operate as a permitted use in all zones. Current regulations allow farm animals based on lot size. Allowing horse farms greater than 10 acres to be a permitted use would allow for building accessory structures that are not permitted to be built under existing regulations for nonconforming uses.
Urban agriculture in Seattle
Urban agriculture is a type of infill development that fits into growth strategy for Seattle and the region, by adding a missing element of livable communities and stimulating small-scale economic development. There is a tremendous opportunity to develop local sources of healthy food by turning existing lawn and garden space into productive agricultural plots. Small-scale urban agriculture can help create livable, walkable and sustainable communities, and implement City goals of sustainability and economic development.
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Friday, May 7, 2010
Urban Agriculture Takes Root in Rochester
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Gardeners and Food Bank Planting Seeds for Urban Farming
Rachel Ward
WXXI Centre for Public Affairs
2010-05-06
Audio story: Listen here.
WXXI's Rachel Ward reports on a coalition of urban agriculture advocates hoping to find a new way to deal with hunger in Rochester neighborhoods.
Excerpt:
ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) – At first glance, the farm does not look promising. It's overgrown with tall grasses and weeds. There's a high brick wall surrounding it, which casts deep shadows over the cluster of apple trees. And there are kids running around everywhere.
But there's also a warm, sunny greenhouse full of long tables of seedlings – a sign that some serious farming is going on here, according to coordinator Jan McDonald. She says the tiny farmers here at Franklin Montessori are growing 90 different varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers in the courtyard of their school.
The students are part of Rochester Roots. They tend the plants and then take the harvest home, or sell it. But the program isn't just about farming – it's also about sustainability and nutrition. And soon, Rochester Roots will join forces with the area's biggest food bank, Foodlink, to teach legions of people how to grow their own food, right inside the city of Rochester.
"Bigger than just agriculture"
Tom Ferraro is the founder and president of Foodlink, something of a local food bank empire.
"We really see this as part and parcel of how we correct some of the ills that are making that people are hungry. There's just a lack of wealth and a lack of jobs."
So Foodlink has stepped up its efforts, to make itself more sustainable, in the hopes of transferring that knowledge to the community. It has a farm where it grows produce to give away, and to sell. It's cutting its delivery costs by brewing waste food into ethanol. And the food bank is hoping that soon it will be able to sell the leftover gunk from ethanol production to gardeners, as nutrient-rich soil, according to Ferraro.
"This is much bigger than just urban agriculture, I think as we begin to as a society be able to turn our waste stream into energy and do a variety of other things, the world as we know it is going to change rather quickly and dramatically."
Read the rest of the story and listen to the audio story here.
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Friday, April 30, 2010
Will Allen and term ‘Urban Farm’ make Time Magazine’s list of TOP 100 in 2010
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Photo by Jimmy Fishbein, Time
In our annual TIME 100 issue we name the people who most affect our world
By Van Jones
Time Magazine
Apr. 29, 2010
At one time, the term urban farm sounded like an oxymoron. No longer. (My red ink. Mike) A new movement is sprouting up in America's low-income neighborhoods. Some urban residents, sick of fast food and the scarcity of grocery stores, have decided to grow good food for themselves.
One of the movement's (literally) towering icons is Will Allen, 62, of Milwaukee's Growing Power Inc. His main 2-acre Community Food Center is no larger than a small supermarket. But it houses 20,000 plants and vegetables, thousands of fish, plus chickens, goats, ducks, rabbits and bees.
People come from around the world to marvel — and to learn. Says Allen: "Everybody, regardless of their economic means, should have access to the same healthy, safe, affordable food that is grown naturally."
The movement's aim is not just healthier people but a healthier planet. Food grown in cities is trucked shorter distances. Translation: more greenhouses in the 'hood equals less greenhouse gas in the air.
Just as important, farm projects grow communities and nourish hope. The best ones will produce more leaders like Allen, with his credo "Grow. Bloom. Thrive."
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Researchers Work to Ensure Safety of Urban Gardens
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K-State's National 'Brownfields' Research Funded by EPA
By Staff of Kansas City infoZine
April 29, 2010
Excerpt:
Manhattan, KS – infoZine – Spring is in the air and urban gardens are sprouting up all over the country.
"Increasingly, urban agriculture is being done on a community basis, rather than an individual basis," said Kansas State University assistant professor of agronomy, Ganga Hettiarachchi. "There are now more than 18,000 community gardens in the U.S. and Canada," she said, citing American Community Gardening Association data.
Some of those gardens are on once-vacant lots and land where buildings once sat. Such locations are convenient for city-dwellers and make productive use of land that otherwise might be weedy, trash-strewn lots. There is a potential downside, however.
The problem in using properties – typically called brownfields – that may have been the site of anything from auto body shops to manufacturing facilities to gas stations, is that the soil on some of those properties can pose health risks if it is contaminated with heavy metals, metalloids or organic compounds, Hettiarachchi said.
She and a team of K-State researchers are working in several states around the country to ensure that growing crops in some urban locales are safe for gardeners and consumers. Other scientists involved include Sabine Martin, brownfields coordinator and Blasé Leven, associate director, both with the Center for Hazardous Substance Research; Larry Erickson, professor in chemical engineering; Gary Pierzynski, professor and DeAnn Presley, assistant professor, both in agronomy; and Rhonda Janke, associate professor of horticulture. Pierzynski is currently serving as K-State interim dean of the College of Agriculture and director of K-State Research and Extension.
The five-year project began in January, 2009 with guaranteed funding from the Environmental Protection Agency of $750,000 and a possibility of up to $900,000.
Brownfield sites are defined by the EPA as vacant, abandoned property, the reuse of which may be complicated by the presence of a hazardous substance or contaminant, Hettiarachchi said. Examples include vacant residential lots, including those adjacent to industrial facilities and abandoned gas stations.
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Growing organic: integrating natural systems education at the land-grant level
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Learning opportunities expand for organic agriculture at many universities.
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Girls Inc of NYC on Rooftop Farm
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Girls Inc of NYC on Rooftop Farm from Mary Matthews on Vimeo.
Girls Inc. of NYC
Girls Inc. of NYC members from the Urban Assembly Institute answered the President's call to service by volunteering at Rooftop Farms in Brooklyn, NY. The girls helped clean, plant and compost, and learned that they can help the environment by growing and eating local produce…even in New York City.
At its very heart, Girls Inc. of NYC is about offering girls the opportunity to discover their intellectual and emotional strengths. We celebrate and empower girls!
Since 1993, our programs have successfully helped urban girls grow into urbane girls who discover how limitless their opportunities are—and then go after those opportunities.
What we do
Challenge girls to discover and fulfill their potential
Foster gender equity in a positive way
Show girls that they can access all worlds, from the science lab to the boardroom
Inspire girls to take pride in success
Take a community-minded approach that inspires girls to "give back," locally and globally
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Brooklyn Grange will be a 1 acre rooftop farm
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Brooklyn Grange – New York
Brooklyn Grange will be a 1 acre rooftop farm situated in New York City. Such a commercially-viable rooftop farm has yet to be realized in this country. We will use simple green roof infrastructure to install over 1 million pounds of soil on the roof of an industrial building on which we will grow vegetables nine months of the year. Being in the country's largest city, the farm will create a new system of providing local communities with access to fresh, seasonal produce. We plan to expand quickly in the first few years, covering multiple acres of New York City's unused rooftops with vegetables. The business has many environmental and community benefits, and allows our city dwelling customers to know their farmer, learn where their food comes from, and become involved.
Click the image to play the video.
The farm will be run by Ben Flanner, who started and ran a proof of concept rooftop farm in the summer of '09. The beyond-organic produce will be sold directly to the community at an onsite stand, affording shoppers a direct relationship with the farm and farmers. Additional produce will be sold to a small group of market-driven local restaurants.
Our model capitalizes on an unused resource – rooftop space – and has the potential to change the way densely populated cities produce, distribute and consume food.
Your contribution will go towards ordering our lightweight rooftop soil, renting a crane to install that soil, and seeds and irrigation for our summer crops.
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Do Community Gardens Change the Food System?
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via Worldchanging: Bright Green by WorldChanging Team on 4/28/10
Weighing the benefits of public garden allotments.
by Eric Hess
Spring has sprung and for thousands of northwesterners, thumbs are turning green. But for apartment or condo dwellers—like me—urban gardening can be a challenge. Many new buildings are being outfitted with rooftop gardens for tenants' use, but they're still spendy and scarce; most of us will have to look to home-owning friends with a few square feet to spare or vie with neighbors for a plot in high-demand community gardens.
How does a community garden work? Typically, the city or program (some are run by private developers) sets aside a patch of land—portions of parks, undeveloped lots, etc—ranging anywhere from 2,000-200,000 sq. ft. in size. The land is parceled into individual plots ranging from under 100 sq. ft. to over 400. Individuals pay under $100/year for a plot. Each location may have different specific requirements, but they generally make sure gardeners are actually using the plot.
I've heard a lot of hype in the last couple of years, and wondering where the vegetable starts on my windowsill will be planted next month got me thinking more about community gardens in the Northwest: How common are they? And how competitive can they really be?
Just a quick perusal of city gardening sites confirmed what I'd heard through the grapevine—there are far more green thumbs than available plots, leaving some waiting for as many as five years.
Here's a quick run-down of where the Northwest's three major metropolises stand on community gardens:
* Vancouver, BC (4.3 plots per 1,000 people): The Community Gardens program has expanded greatly in the last four years—from 950 plots to 2,500 across 50 gardens. The city also has a great program helping to match garden-owners with neighbors looking for an empty patch of soil.
* Portland, Oregon (5.2 plots per 1,000 people): The city's Community Gardens program hosts 32 gardens, used by about 3,000 gardeners (with another 1,000 on the waiting list). Additionally, the city sponsors programs to connect urban gardeners with surplus food with families in need, and to teach youth about gardening and food production.
* Seattle, WA (6.3 plots per 1,000 people): Heralded as one of the US's best urban gardening programs, the P-Patch program has more than 70 gardens over 23 acres—used by 3,800 urban gardeners with another 2,000 on wait lists (which take anywhere from three months to five years). Over half of the gardeners are low income, and the program donates 7-10 tons of fresh produce each year through Solid Ground's Lettuce Link program.
Yet despite all the positive press and demand, I have to question the ability of p-patches to make a large impact on our food systems. A dedicated community garden owner on 200 square feet might produce a substantial portion of their vegetables (see end note), but a hobbyist on 90 square feet may simply contribute some tasty additions to their spring and summer suppers. And with an average of only 5 plots per 1,000 residents of the biggest Northwest cities, the programs have a long way to go before they are a major part of our food system or a solution to poor nutrition.
Instead, I think of community gardens along the same lines as food carts—maybe the measurable benefits aren't so great, but they have an important place in a vibrant urban culture: they often fill land that would otherwise go unused; provide green spaces in some of our cities' densest neighborhoods; contribute a significant chunk of fresh, healthy produce for those who otherwise might lack access; give kids hands-on experience to understand where food comes from and how ecosystems work; and, as I mentioned before, add a certain je ne sais quoi to dense, urban living by providing non-homeowners with one of the more fun advantages of having a yard.
Perhaps most importantly, there's an enhanced sense of community when a group of neighbors get together and dig into the earth. Certainly the Victory Gardens of both World Wars provided a morale booster to civilians who felt like they were contributing to war effort (if Wikipedia is to be trusted—and it probably isn't—they contributed 40 percent of the US's vegetable consumption). Maybe community gardens provide a similar morale boost for those engaged in the slow-motion sustainability revolution.
Unfortunately, with a waiting time of at least a year, it doesn't look like a p-patch will be the answer for my veggies this year. But it's good to see such enthusiasm for public green spaces. I'm curious to hear if any of our readers have a community garden plot—and if so, what you think about it?
*End note: A quick search suggests gardens yield about 0.6 lbs of vegetables per square foot per season, and Americans consume 428 lbs of vegetables per capita per year, on average.
Seedlings image courtesy of Jackal of All Trades and Gardeners picture courtesy of sbcg08 via Flickr under the Creative Commons License. P-Patch picture is of the Belltown p-patch, taken by author.
This article originally appeared on Sightline.org
For more resources and information on urban gardening at Worldchanging see:
Community Land Sharing
Urban Farming Takes Root in Surprising Ways
Help us change the world - DONATE NOW!
(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Food and Farming at 11:20 AM)
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Cities Grapple with Rise of Urban Agriculture
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via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 4/28/10
Photo by growpittsburgh.
Pittsburgh plans for urban farmers
By Erika Beras
Ohio River Radio Consortium
2010-04-28
Excerpt:
PITTSBURG, PA (WEKU) – Urban agriculture is growing. And its not just city-dwellers frequenting farmer's markets for their vegetables, eggs and honey – more of them are interested in growing or cultivating it themselves. That's leaving officials scrambling for ways to regulate the new farmer that's cropping up in American cities, farmers like Jana Thompson.
Thompson grew up on farms. Seven years ago she moved to Pittsburgh. Although she had a garden she missed having a connection to nature. So, first came the bees. (Nat Sound from the Hives) 70,000 of them, in open-bottomed hive boxes on her roof. Then came the chickens – three Salmon Bantams. (Nat Sound of Chickens) Next, she wants to raise rabbits for meat. But then she received an email with some troubling news.
"The first code the city proposed everything I'm doing here would have become illegal," says Thompson.
As an urbanite with a growing farm-stock, Jana Thompson isn't alone. As a nationwide consciousness about where food comes from increases more city-residents are growing their own food – and keeping farm animals. Which is leaving city officials struggling to figure out how to codify the practice.
"In order to protect the people that were doing urban agriculture and also the neighbors of those people doing urban agriculture we thought it was the perfect time to start going down creating an ordinance for urban agriculture. Before, well actually currently there is nothing on the books for urban agriculture. And that's pretty prevalent in a lot of cities"
That's Jason Kimbitsis, a senior city planner who's working on the urban agriculture code. When the proposed one was released earlier this year, there was a bit of an outcry from the urban agriculture community. The required square footage per chicken and the distances bees needed to be from a neighbor's house would have nearly negated the chance for anyone to practice urban agriculture in the densely packed, narrow streets that make up the majority of Pittsburgh's landscape.
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Saturday, April 17, 2010
Inka Biospheric Systems: A Modern Vertical School Garden
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Inka Biospheric Systems: A Modern Vertical School Garden
There is now an Inka Biospheric Systems vertical garden installed at Sanchez Elementary School in San Francisco. It was good to see this sign of modernity in the school gardening movement.
In my view the students at this school will learn much more about plant science and urban food production then they do when growing in the dirt.
Systems of this type have broad applicability in space-short urban schools all across America. Kudos to Inka Biospheric Systems and Slow Food San Francisco for their involvement.
The soil-less vertical garden, which was installed by Inka Biospheric Systems and can be mounted on a chain-link fence, is an option for campuses where space is an issue. As well, solar panels and a wind turbine will power the circulation of nutrient-enhanced water, adding another level of sustainability to this project. Students at Sanchez Elementary will monitor the garden's energy use, water nutrient levels, and produce outputs over the course of the spring and compile the results in May. The way that the Sanchez Elementary School administration has embraced the garden project makes the school a model on which Slow Food San Francisco can base future Slow Food in Schools projects.
Monday, April 5, 2010
City buses feature photos of local food and farmers
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Naomi Johnson's photos of local food and farmers
Transit's 'art buses' make their debut in Asheville, North Carolina
Mountain Xpress
03/27/2010
Three Asheville area artists have won the city's first "Art on Transit" competition, the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department announced recently. Each artist will be awarded a $750 honorarium, and their design will grace both sides of a single bus. The winners were: Ray Noland's "Jeweled Forest," a color-splashed, whimsical forest; Naomi Johnson's photos of local food and farmers; and Nina Ruffini's "Message," featuring bunnies adrift in boats.
A five-member jury, which included a bus driver, met and considered more than 60 submissions. The jury picked six finalists and suggested the three winners, which were unanimously confirmed by Asheville's Public Art Board.
The work will remain on display for at least four months, according to Diane Ruggerio, the city's superintendent of cultural arts. Ruggerio said she hopes "Art on Transit" will become an annual project.
See more about the project here.
See more photos of Naomi Johnson's images on the buses here.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Health benefits of ‘grow your own’ food in urban areas: implications for con...
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Implications for contaminated land risk assessment and risk management?
By Jonathan R Leake 1 , Andrew Adam-Bradford 2 and Janette E Rigby 3
1 Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
2 Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
3 National Centre for Geocomputation, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
Environmental Health
Published: 21 December 2009
Excerpts:
Abstract
Compelling evidence of major health benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and outdoor interaction with 'greenspace' have emerged in the past decade – all of which combine to give major potential health benefits from 'grow-your-own' (GYO) in urban areas. However, neither current risk assessment models nor risk management strategies for GYO in allotments and gardens give any consideration to these health benefits, despite their potential often to more than fully compensate the risks. Although urban environments are more contaminated by heavy metals, arsenic, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins than most rural agricultural areas, evidence is lacking for adverse health outcomes of GYO in UK urban areas.
Rarely do pollutants in GYO food exceed statutory limits set for commercial food, and few people obtain the majority of their food from GYO. In the UK, soil contamination thresholds triggering closure or remediation of allotment and garden sites are based on precautionary principles, generating 'scares' that may negatively impact public health disproportionately to the actual health risks of exposure to toxins through own-grown food. By contrast, the health benefits of GYO are a direct counterpoint to the escalating public health crisis of 'obesity and sloth' caused by eating an excess of saturated fats, inadequate consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables combined with a lack of exercise.
These are now amongst the most important preventable causes of illness and death. The health and wider societal benefits of 'grow-your-own' thus reveal a major limitation in current risk assessment methodologies which, in only considering risks, are unable to predict whether GYO on particular sites will, overall, have positive, negative, or no net effects on human health. This highlights a more general need for a new generation of risk assessment tools that also predict overall consequences for health to more effectively guide risk management in our increasingly risk-averse culture.
Conclusion
Growing your own food in urban areas has many potential health benefits which may positively improve the physical and psychological health of participants, and these health benefits may significantly offset or compensate for the apparently minor risks that follow from the higher loads of environmental pollutants in urban as compared to rural environments. The health benefits of GYO- which directly addresses some of the key national problems with diet and lifestyle- are likely to more than fully compensate risks at most sites that exceed current soil guideline values. This reveals a serious limitation in current risk assessment methodologies which, in only considering risks, are unable to assess to overall net effect of GYO on human health, and therefore may result in closure of sites that are providing significant overall health benefits to the GYO practitioners. This highlights the need to develop more sophisticated risk assessment tools that predict overall consequences for health from assessment of risk and benefits to health using a common metric and which can be built onto existing risk assessment tools such as CLEA. This will enable the individual and overall risks to health to be established to fully inform risk management decisions.
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
City of Philadelphia offers sub-acre plots for urban farming
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City of Philadelphia offers sub-acre plots for urban farming
Manatawna Farm Site
Philadelphia's Department of Parks and Recreation, Request for Information, to identify city farmers to manage small plot commercial, chemical–free farms at Manatawna Farm.
Excerpts:
The Program at Manatawna Farm offers emerging or established farmers the opportunity to explore the advantages of commercial, chemical-free urban farming by providing farmers more land than is traditionally available in the City for growing crops. The Program removes many of the start-up barriers farmers typically encounter, including, but not limited to, access to land, capital improvements, equipment and utilities, and isolation. The site is zoned and primed for agricultural use and will be prepared for commercial farming through identified grant funds. The site will be operated as a commercial farming venture and in turn support entrepreneurial farming initiatives.
The City of Philadelphia acting through its Department of Parks and Recreation (the "City") is issuing this Request For Information ("RFI") to gather indications of interest and experience in operating and managing sub-acre commercial, chemical-free farming plots on a City property called Manatawna Farm, located at 100 Spring Lane, Philadelphia.
Background
In 2008, Mayor Michael Nutter articulated his commitment to making Philadelphia The Greenest City in America and the City adopted sustainability as a fundamental approach for all of the City's operations. Fostering further growth of a regional food and urban agriculture system is a key component of achieving this goal and is supported by MAyor Nutter's food initiative, Philadelphia Food Charter, which calls for the use of City-owned spaces for urban agriculture, and Mayor Nutter's sustainability plan, Greenworks Philadelphia, which recommends 12 commercial agriculture projects be established in the City by 2015.
See also: Farming in Philadelphia? A Proposal for a Sustainable Urban Farm Incubator
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The urban farming explosion
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via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 3/26/10
Photo by Tony Dornacher
More city dwellers are growing their own food. It's good business
By Peter Ladner
Vancouver Sun
March 24, 2010
Peter Ladner is a former city councillor who is a Fellow at the SFU Centre for Dialogue. He is writing a book entitled Planning Cities as if Food Matters.
Excerpt:
Will Allen, 60, is a 6-foot 7-inch former professional basketball player and sales executive for Procter and Gamble and KFC, who can't keep his hands out of the dirt.
"I'm a farmer first," he tells his weekend class of 80 people who are crammed into one of his 14 greenhouses in a working class neighbourhood of Milwaukee. They're paying $150 a day for a weekend course at the at the epicentre of the North American urban agriculture explosion. Biceps the size of tree trunks hanging out of his cut-off hoody, he strokes and pokes the moist black soil swarming with red wriggler worms as he repeats his lessons.
"Let's go over it again," he shouts. "What's the proper mix of nitrogen and carbon for healthy compost? They taught me at Procter and Gamble that you have to hear something five times before you remember it."
Will Allen is not easily forgettable. His 17-year-old Growing Power Community Food Center employs 39 people, engages 2,000 volunteers, and cranks out 2,000 trays of sprouts a week. He figures he's getting $30 for every square foot of sprouts. The centre has a 33,000-square-foot warehouse down the road that helps feed low-income people, with production boosted by a nearby farm and community gardens in Chicago. Between the low-income food boxes and the sales to local chefs, Growing Power produces enough food for 10,000 people a year.
His success in mixing local food production, low-income-job creation and business skills earned him a $500,000 MacArthur Genius award in 2008 and a $400,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation. In our January class, huddled around warm water in the tilapia fish tanks while the frigid Wisconsin winds chills the composting class outside, an executive from JP Morgan Chase watches over the fruits of his company's $150,000 donation to Growing Power.
Will Allen is the pivot for what he calls the "Good Food Revolution"– getting a reliable source of fresh local organic affordable fruits and vegetables to ill-fed low income people. He's determined to work from the ground up to reverse the way our current diet is, literally, killing us. In February he stood alongside First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to kick off her campaign to end childhood obesity. The next week he was in Seattle launching the city's Year of Urban Agriculture.
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Inquirer Local and Regional News: Battle over development of community garde...
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via Plan Philly: Engaging in Urban Dialogue aggregator on 3/27/10
For 19 years Warren Harrison grew potatoes, beans, corn, and tomatoes in the community garden across West Venango Street from his home.Things you can do from here:
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Urban farming touted as tool for neighborhood revival in Buffalo
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via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 3/24/10
Wilson Street Urban Farm
Improving Buffalo's distressed neighborhoods
By Brian Meyer
The Buffalo News
March 23, 2010
Community gardens and urban farms could be valuable tools to help improve Buffalo's distressed neighborhoods, speakers from several local groups told Common Council members this afternoon.
Advocates are prodding the city to take early but key steps aimed at making it easier for people to create community gardens and pursue urban agriculture. The measures would include setting up a "diggable database" to help aspiring gardeners and farmers pinpoint land that has been cleared for planting.
Other steps would involve creating a model lease based on agreements used in other cities that address a variety of unique issues. Supporters also want assurances that neighborhood gardens and urban farms are taken into account as long-delayed efforts move forward to overhaul Buffalo's antiquated zoning codes.
Among the speakers at a City Hall hearing today was Mark Stevens, whose family made headlines last year in a struggle to create an urban farm on Wilson Street, not far from the Broadway Market.
The farm is continuing to expand, Stevens reported today. He's convinced that urban agriculture and neighborhood gardens are assets that can help revive "dying communities."
"Hopefully, the vision for the City of Buffalo becomes pro-community gardens, and it also sees how urban farming fits into that at just a little bigger level," said Stevens.
A task force has been working for 20 months on a multipronged strategy for promoting gardens and urban farms. Many groups are involved, including Grassroots Gardens, a nonprofit organization that oversees about 70 community gardens.
Group president Kirk Laubenstein is a legislative staffer to Niagara Council Member David A. Rivera, who sponsored a resolution that was recently approved by lawmakers. The bill endorses efforts that would promote ornamental gardens, vegetable gardens and farms.
Council Majority Leader Richard A. Fontana agreed that gardens can make a positive difference in neighborhoods. But he warned that when they're neglected or abandoned, they can be ugly messes. Fontana dubbed them "gardens gone bad."
"I like them a lot, but they have to be done right," said Fontana.
Advocates concurred that oversight is an important element as efforts are stepped up to promote more gardens throughout the city.
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Above the Pavement – the Farm! – forthcoming June 2010
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via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 3/24/10
Above the Pavement—the Farm! Architecture & Agriculture at PF1
By Amale Andraos, Dan Wood
June 2010
Forty years after French protestors took to the streets with the rallying cry Sous les pavés, la plage! (Beneath the pavement, the beach!), a new form of radical expression took shape at MoMA's P.S.1 courtyard in Queens, New York. Above the Pavement—the Farm! reveals the groundbreaking efforts of architecture firm WORKac and their team of more than 150 collaborators—farmers, politicians, horticulturists, technicians, soil scientists, engineers, architecture students, and artists—to create a working urban farm, hoisted 30 feet high, using industrial cardboard tubes filled with more than 50 varieties of locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Called Public Farm 1 (P.F.1), this new breed of sustainable infrastructure, capable of generating its own power, recycling rainwater, cultivating crops, and encouraging leisure, demonstrated that even the most impossibly utopian visions of green city living are within our reach.
Above the Pavement—the Farm! presents a delectable range of ideas and issues situated at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and food. Featuring a lively mélange of voices depicting the making of P.F.1—with contributions by artist and agricultural activist Fritz Haeg, architectural historian Meredith TenHoor, architect Winy Maas, and head chef Michael Anthony of New York City's Gramercy Tavern—this book introduces a new era of ecological thinking and urban sustenance.
Amale Andraos and Dan Wood are the founders of New York City–based WORK Architecture Company.
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Detroit officials work to create zoning code for urban farming
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Detroit officials work to create zoning code for urban farming
Image from A Greener Indiana.
Detroit officials work to create zoning code for urban farming
By Nancy Kaffer
Crain's Detroit Business
Mar. 23, 2010
With a growing number of urban gardens and farms across Detroit, city officials are working to incorporate zoning for such projects into the city's code.
A City Planning Commission draft report submitted to the Detroit City Council today suggests a number of policy changes that could legitimize urban farming in Detroit.
Detroit's city code doesn't address urban farming, according to the report, which means large- and small-scale projects are flying "under the radar," according to the report, but the lack of complaints regarding such gardens indicates that such plots have had a positive or neutral impact on neighborhoods.
A letter accompanying the report, signed by CPC Director Marcell Todd Jr., notes that the Urban Agriculture Work Group, comprising a wide range of stakeholders, intends "to craft both a draft policy and draft zoning code to allow for and facilitate urban agriculture in its many forms."
The letter also notes that the group intends to get additional input from an even broader range of community members before submitting a final draft.
Among the zoning and land use changes the group suggests:
• Small farming operations and community gardens should be sold city land at reduced rates, and taxed at a reduced rate.
• Large farming operations that want to purchase reduced-rate land and receive a lower tax rate "must commit to tangible and measurable benefits to the community and/or small farm operations."
• City-owned land sold for agricultural projects will revert back to the city if not used for agriculture.
• Soil testing and remediation standards should be set; policy should dictate what types of agricultural chemicals would be allowed.
• Ordinances should be developed that allow for farmers' markets and farm stands.
• Ordinance should allow the keeping of bees, rabbits, chickens and other farm animals under set conditions.
• Farming projects should have a sustainability plan.
The report notes that these policy suggestions are draft items only, and require greater definition of terms like "small farm operations" or "agricultural purposes" before any formal recommendations may be made.
The report says that six farmers markets operated during the 2009 growing season, and said the Grown In Detroit cooperative sold more than 23,000 pounds of local produce in 2009, earning more than $37,750, with 1,100 pounds donated to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and Spirit of Hope Church.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
San Francisco Mayor’s urban agriculture plan soon to bear fruit
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via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 3/23/10
Mayor Gavin Newsom helps plant edible garden at City Hall. Photo by Scott Chernis / Slow Food Nation
"Urban agriculture is about far more than growing vegetables on an empty lot" says Mayor
Heather Knight,
San Francisco Chronicle
March 23, 2010
Vegetable gardens will soon be sprouting in unlikely places throughout San Francisco including a building that produces steam to heat the Civic Center, Department of Public Works land in the Bayview, outside McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park and at the San Francisco Police Academy in Diamond Heights.
The public library has installed gardens outside its Mission and Noe Valley branches with plans for more and is leading classes for teens on how to cultivate them.
And the city may soon adopt proposals from private groups to install easy-to-assemble chicken coops in its gardens and send mobile vegetable markets to school pick-up zones and other busy destinations.
It's all the result of Mayor Gavin Newsom's executive directive eight months ago to reshape how San Franciscans think about food and choose what to eat.
"Urban agriculture is about far more than growing vegetables on an empty lot," Newsom told The Chronicle. "It's about revitalizing and transforming unused public spaces, connecting city residents with their neighborhoods in a new way and promoting healthier eating and living for everyone."
Newsom unveiled the unusual plan in July. His directive required that all city departments conduct an audit of unused land – including empty lots, windowsills, median strips and rooftops – that could be converted into gardens.
He also demanded that food vendors that contract with the city offer healthful food and that vending machines on city property do the same. He required that farmers' markets accept food stamps, though some already did. He also put a stop to doughnuts and other junk food at city meetings and conferences.
The plan was deemed silly by some who said it shouldn't be a priority for the cash-strapped city, but Newsom remains adamant there are long-term benefits to urban agriculture.
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Inspiring South Bronx video about urban agriculture
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via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 3/23/10
Video from The Point, a TGC (The Growing Connection) site in South Bronx, New York!
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