crowdsourcing
Our illustrator and friend Brooke Budner has a question for the crowd:
“I’m looking, looking for grants to fund our little city gardens work. We frame it as a social experiment in the economic viability of small scale urban farming/market-gardening. we want to be able to do it full time, keep records, data, charts pictures, write essays, experiment with creative ways to build resilient community support surrounding a piece of land or a patchwork of land. collect it all into useful information on the challenges and benefits to shift city policy, cultural priorites. If you think of any appropriate money sources to look into….please tell.”
I think that many other young farmers growing in cities are thinking similarly about what most makes sense. What most makes sense about growing food intensively in cities — obviously chickens are great small scale converters of food waste, raised bed production of leafy greens makes a lot of sense. If our motive is to grow food so that it is accessible and affordable to citydwellers then it seems like some kinds of food make more sense to grow in the city, and other kinds of food make more sense to grow on extensive acreages outside the city. Hashing out exactly what that translates to in terms of greenhouses on the roofs of restaurants is the research project of this century. Thankfully we’ve already got a great headstart wtih John Jeavon’s book: How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine. Published by Ten Speed, which also publishes those nice big colorful posters of heritage apples, peppers etc. So, go! research. And if you know about foundations that support this type of things please tell brooke, she ought to be able to succeed. <bbudner@gmail.com>
- sev
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November 20, 2009 at 5:25 am
This is indeed a question i think of often. How can we make it as urban farmers if our goal is food justice and access- and dont want to be dependent on grants. Im in the process of starting a new farm in Brooklyn, with a spot out of the city as well.
Ill be starting with a acre plot on school land that will grow food for a local market and a low income csa targeted at the school community. Im hoping that working directly with a set consumer group that wants fresh local food, will allow us to become financially sustainable while doing what we love in accordance to our values.
Id love to share data and work on new models of urban farming, not just growing produce for fancy restaurants and grocers.