Urban agriculture movement is growing like a Texas turnip

Caption Joshua Alder (right) spends time in his backyard near Hildebrand and Interstate ten with his daughter Storey,4. Alder and his wife Emily are raising four chickens that yield about a dozen eggs a week.

 Photo: San Antonio Express-News / SA

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By William Pack

Linda Lamm, a part-time health care provider, started growing vegetables in her yard about six years ago to “know what's in my food and in the food I'm feeding my children.”

For remodeling contractor Joshua Alder, growing up around chickens, cows and a huge garden at his childhood home in Leon Valley made it natural for him to put a vegetable garden and a couple of chickens in his own family's backyard. A beehive, Alder said, is next.

Holly Hirshberg's husband lost his job when the recession hit about four years ago, and she started growing tomatoes, onions and other veggies in her backyard to keep nutritious food on the table.

The urban agriculture movement has been growing across the country for a variety of reasons, and San Antonio, where lush vegetable gardens have dotted the landscape for decades, is claiming more and more converts.

“It's hugely popular. There is a lot of interest,” said Leslie Provence, a USAA analyst who has her own vegetable garden and laying hens and is the co-chairwoman of the Food Policy Council of San Antonio. “A lot of people want to do more.”

It's a trend rooted in the growing interest in origins and quality of food that some expect to continue for the long term.

“I think it's gone beyond the food itself,” said Blake Bennett, an agricultural economist at the Texas AgriLife Research & Extension Center at Dallas. “There's a satisfaction that comes from planting a seed and watching it grow. Once we get accustomed to that kind of lifestyle, it's very difficult to change.”

A National Gardening Association survey of U.S. households showed that 25 percent of the nation's households had vegetable gardens in 2011.

Bruce Butterfield, the association's research director, said the survey could not identify which of those were in cities and which were in rural communities. But he said the percentage jumped from 23 percent to 27 percent from 2008 to 2009 as the recession hit, and it has stayed high since then.

In Bexar County, the best indicators of the popularity of urban agriculture come from retailers who supply the emerging farmers and ranchers.

John Dieckow, assistant manager at St. Hedwig Feed & Supply, said both chicken feed and the number of baby chicks it sells have been increasing at double-digit rates for five years. The store sells close to 3,000 baby chickens a year now, when before the total was closer to 500, he said.

Alder said chickens were added to his home near Interstate 10 and Hildebrand Avenue a few years ago for the eggs, not for the meat.

“They're our friends,” Alder said about his hens. “They follow us around like dogs.”

While he doesn't believe he's saving much money on eggs because of the operating costs associated with the chickens, he's happy he's raising chickens because of quality of the eggs he gets.

“The eggs themselves are incredible,” he said.

At Peterson Brothers Inc., a plant wholesaler, larger vegetable plants aimed at home and apartment gardeners have been taking over the market, said Rodney Peterson, the company's president. Vegetables in 1-gallon containers have grown by 200 percent in the past year, he said.

“It's like people are almost stockpiling,” Claudette Rogers at Milberger's Landscaping & Nursery said about the amount of vegetable sales there. “I think there are a lot more people trying to be self-sufficient.”

“This is definitely growing,” said Bryan Davis, an agent for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Bexar County who is developing a program for urban dwellers interested in backyard poultry operations and other agricultural pursuits.

Those involved in the agricultural activities say they expect it to continue growing.

Lamm, who grows in the front yard and backyard of her Northeast Side home, has gotten neighborhood children involved in her garden and believes some of them will become gardeners themselves.

“This is something you can slow down with and see the progress that you're making,” she said. “You have a real sense of achievement.”

Hirshberg, who lives in the Thousand Oaks area, saw what she gained from the garden and turned that experience into a nonprofit organization called The Dinner Garden that gives away vegetable seeds to families facing the same stresses her family once did so they can plant on their own.

With donations from individuals, agricultural corporations and even families who received assistance from The Dinner Garden, her group has donated almost 80,000 packets of seeds to families across the country and has assisted 190 community gardens.

“We want everybody to have good, nutritious food every day of their lives,” Hirshberg said.

wpack@express-news.net

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