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Urban Farm Hub tries to answer the question
Urban Farm Hub is launching a series of articles addressing the long-term economic viability of urban agriculture. We know commercial agriculture enterprises pencil in shrinking midwest cities such as Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, but what about thriving metropolitan areas such as Seattle where there's a shortage of developable land?
We'll be interviewing small business owners, design professionals, urban farm entrepreneurs, and commercial developers in rapidly growing metropolitan areas to see what they have to say about reaping the green from urban agriculture.
Last week we highlighted the work of Little City Gardens, a micro market garden based in San Francisco. This week we talk to the founder of Seattle Urban Farm Company, one of Seattle's most successful edible landscaping businesses and award winning designer of the Crops For Clunkers exhibit at the 2010 Northwest Flower and Garden Show.
Seattle Urban Farm Company
What's one of the most interesting projects your company has worked on?
Bastille Rooftop Garden
The Bastille rooftop garden is really interesting. The owners bought a historic building and retrofitted it with extra trusses to support the garden, which was pretty expensive. We have it set up for high-volume production, much more like traditional farming. We're trying to produce as much food per square foot as possible. Last year we did all salad greens and this year we're bringing 40-50 tomato plants up there and a few beehives from Ballard Bee Company to provide honey for desserts.
It's such a shame to see all of these new buildings going up without rooftop gardens. The best time to put one in is definitely at the time of construction. Retrofits later down the road can be pretty cost prohibitive.
Little City Gardens
What is Little City Gardens' revenue model?
Caitlyn: Our marketing strategy is to create a value added product so we can achieve the greatest monetary value with the smallest amount of space. In 2009 we marketed an artisanal salad mix with 30 different ingredients. We were selling to one restaurant weekly and 4-5 caterers sporadically. We also had an email list with 50-60 people on it. If we had extra produce we'd send out an email and host an informal farmers' market.
This coming year we hope to start a CSA and be selling to four restaurants. The restaurants are definitely the most profitable. It's easier for them to spend more on produce because they have such a higher profit margin. There's also way less administration involved. The informal farmers' market took way more time and coordination, but we realized other benefits. We've now built an alternative structure of support.
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