{"id":3111,"date":"2015-06-24T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=3111"},"modified":"2016-12-20T09:59:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T14:59:05","slug":"urban-farming-is-booming-in-the-us-but-what-does-it-really-yield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=3111","title":{"rendered":"Urban Farming Is Booming in the US, but What Does It Really Yield?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .<\/p>\n

An article from Elizabeth Royte, Ensia<\/a> (abridged)<\/p>\n

. . .. That researchers are even bothering to quantify the amount of food produced on tiny city farms \u2014 whether community gardens, like those of Camden and Philly, or for-profit operations, like Leadley\u2019s \u2014 is testament to the nation\u2019s burgeoning local-foods movement and its data-hungry supporters. Young farmers are, in increasing numbers, planting market gardens in cities, and \u201clocal\u201d produce (a term with no formal definition) now fills grocery shelves across the U.S., from Walmart to Whole Foods, and is promoted in more than 150 nations around the world.<\/p>\n

\"urbanfarming\"<\/a>
\nphoto by Martin Szczepanski
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that 800 million people worldwide grow vegetables or fruits or raise animals in cities, producing what the Worldwatch Institute reports to\u00a0be an astonishing 15 to 20 percent of the world\u2019s food. In developing nations, city dwellers farm for subsistence, but in the U.S., urban ag is more often driven by capitalism or ideology. The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn\u2019t track numbers of city farmers, but based on demand for its programs that fund education and infrastructure in support of urban-ag projects, and on surveys of urban ag in select cities, it affirms that business is booming. How far \u2014 and in what direction \u2014 can this trend go? What portion of a city\u2019s food can local farmers grow, at what price, and who will be privileged to eat it? And can such projects make a meaningful contribution to food security in an increasingly crowded world? . . . <\/p>\n

Despite their relatively small size, urban farms grow a surprising amount of food, with yields that often surpass those of their rural cousins. This is possible for a couple reasons. First, city farms don\u2019t experience heavy insect pressure, and they don\u2019t have to deal with hungry deer or groundhogs. Second, city farmers can walk their plots in minutes, rather than hours, addressing problems as they arise and harvesting produce at its peak. They can also plant more densely because they hand cultivate, nourish their soil more frequently and micromanage applications of water and fertilizer.<\/p>\n

As social enterprises, community gardens operate in an alternate financial universe: they don\u2019t sustain themselves with sales, nor do they have to pay employees.<\/p>\n

Though they don\u2019t get as much press as for-profit farms and heavily capitalized rooftop operations, community gardens \u2014 which are collectively tended by people using individual or shared plots of public or private land, and have been a feature in U.S. cities for well over a century \u2014 are the most common form of urban agriculture in the nation, producing far more food and feeding more people, in aggregate, than their commercial counterparts. As social enterprises, community gardens operate in an alternate financial universe: they don\u2019t sustain themselves with sales, nor do they have to pay employees. Instead, they rely on volunteer or cheap youth labor, they pay little or nothing in rent, and they solicit outside aid from government programs and foundations that support their social and environmental missions. These may include job training, health and nutrition education, and increasing the community\u2019s resilience to climate change by absorbing stormwater, counteracting the urban heat island effect and converting food waste into compost.<\/p>\n

Funders don\u2019t necessarily expect community gardens to become self-sustaining. These farms may increase their revenue streams by selling at farmers markets or to restaurants, or they may collect fees from restaurants or other food-waste generators for accepting scraps that will be converted into compost, says Ruth Goldman, a program officer at the Merck Family Fund, which funds urban agriculture projects. \u201cBut margins on vegetable farming are very slim, and because these farms are doing community education and training teen leaders, they\u2019re not likely to operate in the black” . . .<\/p>\n

(continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\n

What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?<\/a> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from the left column)<\/p>\n

In the world\u2019s poorest nations, city dwellers have always farmed for subsistence. But more of them are farming now than ever before. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, it\u2019s estimated that 40 percent of the urban population is engaged in agriculture. Long-time residents and recent transplants alike farm because they\u2019re hungry, they know how to grow food, land values in marginal areas (under power lines and along highways) are low, and inputs like organic wastes \u2014 fertilizer \u2014 are cheap. Another driver is the price of food: People in developing nations pay a far higher percentage of their total income for food than Americans do, and poor transportation and refrigeration infrastructure make perishable goods, like fruits and vegetables, especially dear. Focusing on these high-value crops, urban farmers both feed themselves and supplement their incomes.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., urban farming is likely to have its biggest impact on food security in places that, in some ways, resemble the global south \u2014 that is, in cities or neighborhoods where land is cheap, median incomes are low and the need for fresh food is high. Detroit, by this metric, is particularly fertile ground. Michael Hamm, a professor of sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University, calculated that the city, which has just under 700,000 residents and more than 100,000 vacant lots (many of which can be purchased, thanks to the city\u2019s recent bankruptcy, for less than the price of a refrigerator), could grow three quarters of its current vegetable consumption and nearly half its fruit consumption on available parcels of land using biointensive methods.<\/p>\n

No one expects city farms in the U.S. to replace peri-urban or rural vegetable farms: cities don\u2019t have the acreage or the trained farmers, and most can\u2019t produce food anything close to year-round. . .
\nThat doesn\u2019t mean that community gardeners, who don\u2019t even try to be profitable, aren\u2019t making a big difference in their immediate communities. Camden\u2019s 31,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of produce might not seem like a lot, but it\u2019s a very big deal for those lucky enough to get their hands on it. \u201cIn poor communities where households earn very little income,\u201d says Domenic Vitiello, an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, \u201ca few thousand dollars\u2019 worth of vegetables and fruit grown in the garden makes a much bigger difference than for more affluent households.\u201d
\nHistory tells us that community gardening \u2014 supported by individuals, government agencies and philanthropies \u2014 is here to stay. <\/p>\n

And whether these gardens ultimately produce more food or more knowledge about food \u2014 where it comes from, what it takes to produce it, how to prepare and eat it \u2014 they still have enormous value as gathering places and classrooms and as conduits between people and nature. Whether or not cultivating fruits and vegetables in tiny urban spaces makes economic or food-security sense, people who want to grow food in cities will find a way to do so. As Laura Lawson says, \u201cCity gardens are part of our ideal sense of what a community should be. And so their value is priceless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . . An article from Elizabeth Royte, Ensia (abridged) . . .. That researchers are even bothering to quantify the amount of food produced on tiny city farms \u2014 whether community gardens, like those of Camden and Philly, or for-profit operations, like Leadley\u2019s \u2014 is testament to the nation\u2019s burgeoning local-foods … Continue reading Urban Farming Is Booming in the US, but What Does It Really Yield?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,10],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-north-america","category-sustainable","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}