Urban Agriculture: A New Kind of Fast Food

Written by Tara Campbell Co-authored with Emily Rodgers

For many of us, we fly through our jam-packed days with hardly any time for breaks - let alone healthy meal planning. So, it's no wonder fast food becomes an option when it otherwise wouldn't be. A considerable amount of planning is required in order to feed ourselves healthy food regularly. Thankfully, technology is providing us with a new kind of fast food in the form of growing your own - and the options are endless.

Gardening technology has brought us automated soilless growing methods such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics. Systems like the Tower Garden or edible wall units offer you a way to grow your food, in your own home, at anytime of year. There are even indoor gardening services that will set systems up for you in your home or office.

An increasing number of individuals and families are insisting on knowing where their food is coming from. Several years ago, a lack of awareness and information had many of us buying into the stories about how our food was being produced and where is was coming from. Now, there is a new kind of movement: the right to know how your food is being produced.

Fast Food Grown in Indoor Urban Gardens

1. Indoor Garden Plants
There are several plants that grow indoors using hydroponics. Growing these plants gives you the ability to eat well by harvesting your own lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and even your kale, all year.

2. Microgreens
Growing microgreens in your kitchen can be fun, decorative, good for your air quality and rewarding. Not to mention it's a great way to improve your health. Growing your own microgreens gives you instant access to fast, healthy food choices.
It's easy to grow your own microgreens using grow trays or all-in-one start up systems. You can even try growing them vertically on your wall!

3. Herbs
Herbs can be grown anywhere and take up very little space. Consumer demand for herb gardens is so high that there are now several self-contained units that make it easy and mess free. Once you've started growing these herbs hydroponically, it will only take 10-20 days to regenerate the plants.

Did you know that many restaurants grow their own microgreens and herbs or have them sourced locally?

Food Grows Faster In Controlled Environments
Fast food seems to still be a concern for many individuals as our days get busier and busier. Having healthy fast food at our fingertips is needed for our fast-paced lifestyles. Soil-less growing provides solutions for controlling your options, even when you are rushed and don't have much time. In fact, soil-less agriculture using hydroponic technology is making the goal of healthy fast food choices a reality.

Hydroponic technology has developed systems that are controlled to optimize growing times, reduce pests, and remain impervious to weather conditions. There are even automated systems available which can be controlled from your smartphone! A hydroponic system makes a lot easier to maintain an ideal gardening environment.

Urban Agriculture Feeds High-Paced Cities
There are certainly benefits to both traditional agriculture and urban agriculture. As a matter of fact we need both. Indoor gardening in the city makes our food more accessible, while cutting down on transportation costs and pollution. Many of the harmful effects that agriculture has on the environment is mitigated by hydroponically-grown produce. This is because crops grow faster and deliver higher yields than through soil.

Hydroponics has the potential to produce maximum yields. For example, cayenne chilies grown hydroponically can be ready in 55 days, while when grown in soil it can take 90 days. It has been proven that urban agriculture through hydroponic methods results in growth rates of up to 20-30% faster with up to a 50% larger crops*.

*Results may vary depending on controlled conditions.

Source

Mapping Urban Agriculture From the Sky

Our best estimates of the scale of urban agriculture typically come from self-reported lists and non-profit groups trying to keep tabs on shared community gardens. These lists are, like the gardens themselves, informal. One frequent estimate floating around Chicago for several years figured there were maybe 700 food-producing plots in the city.

But when researchers from the University of Illinois tried to visit some of them, they more often found planter boxes or ornamental gardens, nothing that could truly be considered part of the city’s food supply. It then occurred to John Taylor, a doctoral candidate in crop sciences at the university, that Google Earth images might reveal what ground-level surveys of the city had not: the true extent of its urban agriculture.

Taylor spent some 400 hours twice poring over aerial images of every corner of the city. "And lo and behold," he says, "it’s possible to tell whether or not the gardens had vegetables based on these visual indicators."

A vegetable plot in fact has a distinct fingerprint – apart from neighborhood parks and plain old backyards – that’s visible even from thousands of feet overhead. Witness the telltale linear geometry of these sizable gardens on vacant lots in what appear to be railroad rights-of-way on either side of these tracks:

Taylor and collaborator Sarah Lovell, who’ve published their findings in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, ultimately discovered that many of the city’s suspected community gardens weren’t producing food at all. But it turned out that backyard farmers all over Chicago – the keepers of "invisible" gardens no one sees from the sidewalk – may be seriously supplementing communities’ food supply in a way that researchers and advocates haven’t recognized before.

Of the 1,236 documented "community gardens," recognized by various groups throughout the city, it turned out only 160 – or 13 percent – were really growing food (according to aerial images from June of 2010). But trolling over the city, frame by frame on Google Earth, Taylor found what looked like 4,494 possible sites of urban agriculture, many of which appeared to be small residential gardens. Their total mass adds up to 264,181 square meters of urban agriculture, much of it on the city’s South and West sides and far northwest where minority and immigrant communities are located.

"There is often this idea that urban agriculture is something that’s new and sometimes perceived to be trendy," Taylor says. "But of course it’s just been going on for generations in people’s backyards and in these interstitial spaces, like right-of-ways and vacant lots. Across the city, there are lots of folks who are doing this on their own, or with support from their neighbors."

One garden in the city’s South Shore neighborhood has even been continuously cultivated since it was first planted as a victory garden during World War II. In other neighborhoods, particularly around Chinatown and in Eastern and Southern European communities of the northwest side, nearly every backyard viewed through Google Earth appears to be growing something.

A neighborhood on Chicago's far northwest side. LPG, MPG and SPG are large, medium and small private gardens.

Chicago's Chinatown.

These types of backyard growers seldom figure into public discussion and policy debates about urban agriculture. We more often focus on community gardens. But these images suggest we might think instead about urban agriculture, food deserts and neighborhood sustainability with an eye toward a network of smaller growers rather than a few epicenters.

Taylor followed up on his aerial tours with some “groundtruthing,” by visiting some of these neighborhoods and peering through alleys to ensure that he saw on the ground what Google Earth seemed to be suggesting from above. Some images from his verification:

Large multiplot vacant lot garden on the far South Side.

A backyard garden on the South Side.

A front yard garden with tropical corn and cucumber in a Mexican neighborhood.

Automated technology hasn’t yet reached the point where a computer program can find vegetable patterns in aerial imagery so that a human researcher doesn’t have to. But for now, Taylor’s technique is replicable in other cities, if anyone has the patience.

"Community groups could use it," Taylor says. "And there also may be opportunities for crowdsourcing of this kind, using social media to get multiple people involved so that it’s not just one lone graduate student sitting in a darkened room for 400 hours."

All images courtesy of John Taylor.

Original Article Here

The sprouting of the urban agriculture movement in Fenway

On a cloudless mid-November day in one of 500 plots in the Fenway Victory Gardens, Mark Slater maneuvered through his Texan curry plant, perfect-for-mojitos mint, horseradish, chive and tomatoes. Slater has been gardening in the park for four years, roughly every other week from March through November.

“I think it’s important, no matter where you live today,” said Slater, a freelance illustrator, “to not disassociate yourself from the earth.” The Fenway Victory Gardens, set up during World War II, afford many this opportunity, at a plot rent of $30 per year.

While community gardening of this nature is nothing new, recent years have shown a burgeoning interest in urban agriculture. Non-profits are teaching gardening methods to inner-city youth, governments are passing related ordinances, and “locavores” are on the rise. While the movement has its zealous supporters, others question its practicality and supposed merits.

Slater represents many who garden for fun, perhaps bringing the fruits (or vegetables) of their labor home for dinner, but others want to do it for profit. Yet public policy is not on par with them.

“As it stands, many urban agriculture activities are forbidden use in the Boston zoning code because they are not overtly listed in the land use table,” said Marie Mercurio, senior planner for the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA). “If the use is not in the land use table, then it’s implicitly forbidden.”

The land use table is broken down into residential, commercial, industrial and exempt, and urban agriculture does not fit into any of the subcategories in this breakdown.

Currently, if someone wants to make a profit on farming in Boston, he cannot simply apply for a permit, but must go through a six-month waiting process. This stems from concern about health and safety risks.

Mercurio believes residents may be worried about bees for stinging, hens for noise, sanitation, traffic and the unsightly appearance of hoop houses.

“There’s contamination issues with the soil,” added Hal Kreher of Kreher’s Farm Fresh Eggs in New York, which owns about 1.3 million chickens, “because a lot of the urban areas have had… some kind of industry there.”

The wastes were not treated properly and there were no environmental regulations until the 1950s, he said.

When there are heavy metals in the soil, the planting must be done on raised beds.

This is one issue that may be addressed in the citywide initiative that Mercurio and Tad Read, the other senior planner for the BRA, have drafted. Its goal is to make urban agriculture easier to commercialize while monitoring the food’s standards.

The initiative would cut the process to 10-14 days but also regulate composting, the keeping of chickens and bees, rooftop gardens, greenhouses and other uses.

“Until the article gets adopted,” Mercurio said, “we’re very behind the times in Boston.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, about 15 percent of the world’s food is now grown in urban areas, but figures are lower for the U.S.

Mercurio and Read hope to present the proposal to the Mayor’s Urban Agriculture Working Group this month. The group comprises 25 members, including farmers, consultants, health advocates and scientists.

Another effort toward the commercialization of local food is the Boston Public Market Association’s efforts to open ayear-round public market. The future location is 136 Blackstone St., and the association anticipates an opening in June 2014, according to it website.

The Boston Public Market is anticipated to open in June 2014 at 136 Blackstone St., by Haymarket Station

Other groups, such as The Food Project, engage youth in urban agriculture.

The non-profit was founded 20 years ago, executive director Selvin Chambers said, for young people “to know and learn about each other but also to learn about sustainable agriculture and also the impact it has on the communities and the body itself.”

Students aged 14-17 become involved with The Food Project in its paid Summer Youth Program. Crews of 10 youths work with a crew leader cultivating farmland. In Boston, the sites include the West Cottage Street Farm, a small farm at Lincoln Street and the Dudley Greenhouse.

Afterward, they may participate in the Academic Year Program or the Internship Program. These have more specialized areas of focus and allow the students to run workshops.

The opportunity teaches not only urban farming practices, but also social justice issues and leadership development, Chambers said.

Some of the food is sold at farmers markets and local restaurants, while 40 percent goes to hunger relief organizations, such as the Pine Street Inn and Rosie’s Place.

The Food Project also sponsors workshops and programs, such as Build-a-Garden, which helps residents grow food, and Farm to Family, which offers reduced-price produce to low-income families.

Chambers said the heart of the organization is the intersection of youth, food and community, which he called the “triangle of hope.”

“I think the most important element of urban agriculture is that it’s a very different source of food from what we’re normally used to,” said Peter Ladner, author of “The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities.” “But more than that it gives people the opportunity to connect with their food, and know the people that grew their food, and participate in the growing of it.”

Catherine Tumber, author of “Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World,” said this “generalized interest in where our food comes from” is one of three reasons the urban agriculture movement has gained traction in recent years.

The second reason is Michael Pollan’s “groundbreaking” book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” published in 2006. It talks about sustainability, genetic modification and cruelty to animals, said Tumber, who is also a visiting scholar at Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.

Catherine Tumber, author of “Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World,” sits in her office at Northeastern University

The third reason, she said, is that we’re paying more attention to the structure of our cities. Rust Belt cities that formerly relied on manufacturing, such as Detroit and Cleveland, “were in a state of utter catastrophic fall.”

The land in Detroit is relatively inexpensive because there is no market for it, Tumber said, making agriculture a viable use.

Another appeal of urban farming is that “people are losing confidence in the food system,” Ladner said. They are “realizing how perilous it is and how fragile it is and how broken it is, and they’re starting to wonder what the heck will happen when it breaks down.”

This is particularly relevant in food deserts, areas with little access to supermarkets. This is not the case with Boston.

“In Illinois one day, everywhere I looked was cornfields and wind turbines, and I could not find fresh fruit to eat,” Tumber said. “I’d even be willing to go to McDonald’s.”

Supermarkets don’t want to open in certain places because there’s so much crime, Tumber said, and they don’t want to pay the insurance and run the risk of liability.

Some view urban agriculture as a solution, while others argue that it is too expensive for the inner-city poor, or that one cannot live off the “100-mile diet.”

“You’ve got a lot of the locavore trendy people, who just hate big farming, who are using this, who are using the misery of people in big cities,” said Richard Longworth, journalist and author of “Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.” “I am offended by that… because I know a lot of people who are hungry who are not interested in local farms.”

He believes that it’s fine for people to seek out local sources for their own food, but using the urban agriculture movement for political ends is selfish. In addition, many experts agree that urban farming does not make for a profitable or effective business model.

“Realistically, it’s a hard model to break, the supermarket model, and I don’t think that’s what urban farmers are trying to do,” said Novella Carpenter, who wrote the memoir “Farm City” on her farming experience in Oakland, Calif. “It’s kind of too much work for us.”

“More and more people are coming to the conclusion that while urban agriculture can support a series of cottage industries,” Tumber said, “it’s less likely to become a major economic driver.”

Similarly, Longworth does not see it as anything other than niche farming, and Carpenter believes the only practical business model is growing a specialty cash crop.

“I think the future of urban agriculture probably lies more with small businesses and restoring community engagement and pride,” Tumber said.

While experts disagree on urban agriculture’s ties with health, the environment and business, the general consensus is that it is a positive driving force for community building.

This is the case for Finn Hewitt, a third-year biology grad student at Boston University who is applying for a plot in the Fenway Victory Gardens.

“I think the most important thing about these gardens is the sense of community,” he said, “and it really invests people in where they live.”

This article first appeared on Erica Moser's blog. is being published under an arrangement between the Boston Globe and Northeastern University.

Original Article Here

Green living: What do you think about urban agriculture?

Enthusiasm for urban agriculture seems to be sweeping the country. For many people, this is an idea for which time has finally come. Urban agriculture involves growing, processing and distributing food in towns and cities.

Supporters of urban agriculture see it as a way to combat many of the ills that they perceive in our modern food systems. For people in towns and cities, this is the ultimate way to produce food locally. Using the land to grow food may be seen as the ultimate best use of that land. During the harvest season, urban farms provide the freshest foods possible. Urban agriculture combats food deserts and improves food security.

Beyond those aspects of urban agriculture that relate directly to the food it produces, there are many other potential benefits for a community. The people involved find the joy of seeing the fruits of their efforts, and many people see it as a form of recreation. There is a community building aspect to these endeavors. There are potential economic benefits and opportunities for entrepreneurship. From a landscape perspective, food-producing gardens can add beauty and diversity plus environmental benefits.

It’s a great thing to see people becoming more conscious of their food supply and enthused about producing some of their own food. As long as there is a commercial food supply that still provides the bulk of people’s dietary needs, urban agriculture seems like a great way to supplement and diversify our food systems.

However, there are some additional considerations.

Production of vegetables is fairly straightforward and may lead naturally into the next step of the urban agriculture scheme: animal production. However, at this point, things get much more complicated. It may seem wonderful to have a few chickens that produce the ultimate fresh eggs. But it’s worth considering some of the downside risks that virtually all farm families live with on a daily basis.

Do those who champion introducing production animals into urban settings really consider the less wonderful sides of agricultural production? Beyond the standard concerns about protecting the animals from predators such as foxes, skunks and dogs, do people consider animal and human health concerns? There are many such concerns, and they should be carefully thought through before a community commits to charging farther down the road with urban food production.

Original Article Here

Weak policy commitment hits agriculture strategy

KATHMANDU: Weak commitment to policy and weak implementation capacity will be an obstacle to get the desired results from the Agriculture Development Strategy, according to participants at the ‘Policy Dialogue: Workshop on Agriculture Development Strategy’, here today.

The strategy has a target to increase agriculture exports by almost seven times, land productivity by more than three times, labour productivity by three times, and contribution of agriculture to the GDP by three times. However, society has to completely change its perception of farming from being unattractive and full of drudgery, to an honourable professional activity, according to senior agriculturist at the Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD) Sabnam Shivakoti.

Similarly, the exodus of youth from rural areas, growing rural-urban gap, loss of agricultural land, weak smallholder farmer organisations, and adoption of improved technology 

are some of the key challenges to transform the agriculture sector that includes broader areas from crops to livestock, forestry and fisheries, production, trade, processing to marketing, and spans across different ministries and agencies, and includes not only government agencies but farmers, private sector enterprises, cooperatives, NGOs, and service providers.

The strategy is trying to address the current agriculture system that has become less important as a share of labour and GDP, she said, adding that after the implementation of the strategy, agriculture could become more productive in terms of higher agricultural labour income and GDP.

For better results, technology development and dissemination that is demand-driven and responsive to farmers and enterprises, needs to be developed, besides ensuring that input supply and distribution system provides timely, quality, and reasonably priced inputs to farmers, providing a favourable environment and specific measures to increase the level and effectiveness of public and private investment including investment in infrastructure and irrigation.

However, market development and commercialisation of agriculture is key to achieve growth potential of agriculture, driven by expanding domestic and regional demand, emergence of innovative and competitive enterprises, and increased value addition, added Shivakoti. “Along with proper land management that ensures effective implementation of land planning and management to promote productive use of land, rights of tillers, and environmental protection must also be ensured.”

The policy dialogue shared the process and content of the strategy with the wider public so that its assumptions, analyses, priorities and thematic thrusts could be scrutinised. Its aim was to also identify weaknesses and strengths in the process and its content, and review viable changes and suggestions if needed. The dialogue had an objective to also review the initiatives taken in mainstreaming organic agriculture integration, and to provide inputs.

The strategy that envisions ‘a competitive, sustainable and inclusive agricultural sector that contributes to economic growth, improved livelihoods, and food and nutrition security,’ also has to include the voice of farmers and practitioners in the planning process and engage key policy shapers and makers, according to the civic society that blamed the policy for being donor driven and of techno-bureaucratic interest and orientation.

Nepal is on the threshold of a new socio-cultural, political and economic change, and reshaping agricultural policies and strategies could play a vital role in economic development.

There have been a number of policies and programmes for the development of the agriculture sector since 1995.

Original Article Here

The Future of Agriculture Is Not Conventional

This organic nonsense has to stop. I'd like to politely request that those who don't know agriculture cease writing about it as though they do, stoking an already divisive debate that misses the heart of the problem we face: We're not sure how we should be growing food, and thus we're not sure how to eat.

Anyone who suggests that a crop can be raised without the provision of nutrients and pest management should not opine on agriculture. Roger Cohen, I'm talking to you.

Saturday's opinion piece in the New York Times, "The Organic Fable," shows me just how far off course the discussion of agricultural production has gotten, because it spreads misinformation and focuses squarely on the wrong problem. If we continue to debate organic versus conventional, continue to view food choices as an emblem of class, and continue to use the nine billion future people of the world as a gauntlet that the human race must run, we are in trouble because the question is not first about production. It's about distribution.

We produce enough to feed 1.3 billion more people than we actually do. And that's in American proportions. In 2000, the USDA reported that Americans consumed almost 2,000 pounds of food per person per year. Meanwhile, 1.3 billion tons of global food production goes to waste each year. Production by any method, standard or label is not our most pressing problem.

Getting production where it is needed and wanted is another story. We've got a billion or so people on this planet consuming too much of the wrong kinds of calories and another approximate billion getting too few of the right nutrients. Most food production happens far from population centers, and timing is everything, whether you're moving kale to market or wheat to a mill, so properly matching supply with demand is tricky. Here we are in 2012, endowed with information and technology that together can make just about any transaction instantaneous. Yet we rely on supply chains that emerged in the 19th century to connect us with our food.

The diversity that agricultural products present complicates matters too. Because of weather, seed variety, origin, soil conditions and a host of other factors, not every tomato tastes the same and sweet corn from my home state of Minnesota is like corn from nowhere else. I value that distinction in my food.

On the whole, our economy does not.

We produce and consume food within a structure that was built for undifferentiated, commodity products. The processes that move vast amounts of crops from harvest, to processing, to wholesale, to retail, to you, keep the producer and the consumer conveniently separated -- by about $0.84 for every dollar you spend. The anonymous middle of merchants, distributors, sellers and superstores has driven consumers to rely on certifications like organic to tell them more about the products they're buying than anyone else will. Producers, in turn, seek that certification as a way to distinguish their products in the marketplace.

Because so far they are all we've had to rely on to see something, anything, through the haze of the modern food system, labels have an inflated value. But don't let that fool you into thinking that only spoiled rich folks, as Cohen would have it, feel strongly about the short- and long-term effects their food has on themselves, their families and their environments.

Look at Growing Power, where Will Allen has built an urban farming empire-of-everyman. Look at the Bed-Stuy CSA of Brooklyn, where middle income families subsidize shares so their lower income neighbors can participate in getting food directly from farms. Look at the verdant farmers market culture in northern Iowa. Look at the efforts of farmers in Tchula, Mississippi, to grow food -- not corn, not soy, not cotton -- to feed their county first, and everyone else they can thereafter.

If anything, the debate surrounding how we produce and move food should unite us. Articles like Cohen's are a soap box, and soak up our energy with debate when they should instead focus on shared principles: sufficient food to feed our people, production technology and innovation (from nutrient-rich composting techniques and drip irrigation, to GPS systems in John Deere tractors) that facilitate efficient and sufficient food production, soil and water systems that promise years and years of sustained agricultural production, and access for every single person to the abundance that we now know, but that our great-grandparents did not.

The science should focus on how we get there. I'd like to see, for example, a comparison of per-acre nutrient yields and revenue for six different production systems: conventional and certified organic commodity, conventional and certified organic fruit and vegetable under mass production, conventional but diversified fruit and vegetable production, and fruit and vegetable production under what we might call "beyond organic," "practical," "sustainable" or whatever term most effectively conveys the rational approach of a growing number of farmers to use the best means they have to produce a crop that is healthy, high-yielding and good to eat. Personal experience suggests that the last of these, which takes place right now on small- and mid-sized enterprises, is our greatest hope.

The future may not be organic but it is also not conventional. We should set aside the debate about organics and start identifying at a large scale an alternative path for the production, distribution, purchase and consumption of the food that we all rely on for sustenance.

Original Article Here

Iron Chef-style competition showed off urban agriculture

MONTREAL - On paper, there were three awards handed out at an Iron Chef-style competition organized by Santropol Roulant last Thursday evening as a fundraiser for its urban agriculture program: one for best dish, one for team spirit and one for most money raised. But judging by comments by members of all six teams and from the enthusiasm and interest shown by the 150 or so spectators, nearly everyone came away from the community event a winner of sorts.

I was one of four judges at the community organization’s third annual Iron Chef Cook-Off, with Mariève Savaria, a Montreal blogger (brutalimentation.ca) who holds a dietetics degree and teaches cooking classes, engineer and science writer Dominique Forget, and Daniel Pinard, who for many years hosted television programs on food-related topics.

The event is a fundraiser for Santropol Roulant’s (santropolroulant.org) urban agriculture program; participating restaurants, who had to raise at least $500 to be involved, were Fabergé, Holder, La Khaïma, Rumi and Sala Rosa; in addition, there was a community team, made up of Gabriel Couture, Cai Rintoul and Grace Bulmer.

The challenge for each team was to prepare a dish featuring vegetables fresh from the earth, a dish that reflected their culinary sensibilities and their creativity, and a dish created and executed in under an hour. The event was held at Santropol Roulant’s Edible Campus Garden, located on McGill University’s lower campus. The garden is brimming this time of year with produce — from green beans to silver thyme, celery to dinosaur kale.

Each team had 60 minutes to harvest enough of that produce to prepare a dish intended to serve one, although all the participants prepared portions large enough to serve at least three. They were to use as much as possible of what they harvested, with points lost for waste, and they were judged on such factors as taste, presentation and creativity: several chefs said they drew inspiration from their walk around the garden.

Each team worked at an outdoor station equipped with only basic materials: a two single-burner propane-powered hot plate, a pot and a frying pan, a couple of knives, a spatula, a wooden spoon, a mixing bowl and oil, salt and pepper. No more.

The weather was fine and the mood mellow as the spectators sipped beer, munched on freshly boiled corn on the cob, listened to live music and looked on as the cooks worked intently. Each team was entitled to bring along a single special ingredient: The Holder team chose preserved lemons, for instance, and Ken Buckland of Sala Rosa brought saffron. The Rumi team used pomegranate paste and the Équipe communautaire brought buttery tartlets.

Once the hour had elapsed, each team presented its dish to the judges, describing its components and how it had come together.

The Rumi team produced a vegetable-based dish that included eggplant, celery and Swiss chard fried in a wok and a shepherd’s salad featuring a vinaigrette incorporating the pomegranate paste. The vegetables were served over basmati rice.

The Holder team created a dish chef dubbed by Simon Laplante and cook Dominique Cloutier a vegetable cannelloni: It featured vegetables wrapped in leaves of Swiss chard and leek; the roll was lined in quinoa, which had been cooked in water boiled with preserved lemon peel to flavour it and it was garnished with discs of fried eggplant, some strips of crispy slivered eggplant peel — talk about minimizing waste — and a salsa featuring the preserved lemon and the chard stems.

Équipe communautaire prepared a lively ratatouille enriched with caramelized vegetables and bocconcini cheese, which they “won” — participants were able to win extra ingredients by answering skill-testing questions or submitting to a game of Truth or Dare — and served over the buttery tartlets they had brought.

The Fabergé team prepared eggs Benedict — the restaurant, known for its breakfasts and brunches, had chosen eggs as its special ingredient — and served it over sliced eggplant “breaded” with quinoa and fried; the plate was garnished with nasturtiums and radishes from the garden.

Attigh Ould of La Khaïma prepared a spicy purée featuring eggplant, onions and other vegetables and flavoured with a dried green vegetable in powder form he called morenga: he described the vegetable, which he said was grown by his father in his native Mauritania, as high in protein and vitamins.

Sala Rosa chef Ken Buckland, working alone, prepared a tian of steamed vegetables served with a ragout of leeks, turnips and saffron. He showed ingenuity in fashioning a steamer from a fork, a spatula and an inverted mixing bowl; a small plastic bowl served as a mould for the tian: he lined it with leaves of Swiss chard before adding other vegetables, then steamed it.

The judges tasted the dishes carefully, then headed to a quiet part of the garden area to complete their deliberations — as the spectators finished off the plates.

At the end of the evening, three prizes were awarded: one for the most money raised went to Holder, the award for team spirit went to Rumi, add the award for the best dish went to the community team.

But the others had enjoyed themselves as well. “This was amazing; so much fun,” Buckland of Sala Rosa said as he presented his dish to judges.

“It’s the spirit of the event that’s important,” he said later to Iron Chef Cook-Off organizers Armel Nevo, kitchen manager at Santropol Roulant, and to Noémi Desbiens Riendau, community-life co-ordinator of Santropol Roulant’s urban agriculture program.

sschwartz@montrealgazette.com

twitter: @susanschwartz

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Wednesday at noon: Discuss urban agriculture, forestry with Green of Detroit's Salminen Witt

The environment is factoring into Detroit's resurgence in a significant way. And a key voice behind that movement is Greening of Detroit's President Rebecca Salminen Witt, who has helped grow the nonprofit's budget from $250,000 about 20 years ago to $6 million today.

Rebecca will join Detroit Free Press Business Writer John Gallagher for a live chat to talk about urban forestry, urban farming and environmental policy among other issues.

Land use codes inhibit urban agriculture

Urban Agriculture is a community priority in Fort Collins. It is written in the City Plan. But city planners have found that outdated land use codes prohibit some local food production. So the city is asking for community input through a survey on urban agriculture practices.

Direct farm-to-consumer food purchases have steadily increased, and a 2012 survey revealed that nearly half of all Americans have gardened in the past 12 months. People are doing it — they’re raising their own food and supporting local. And cities are changing codes to support this grow-your-own movement.

Alongside this increase in local food production looms an increase in food insecurity. In 2011, 14 percent of Larimer County residents were considered food insecure (FeedAmerica.org), meaning they skipped meals because they couldn’t afford food. Only 45 percent of those are eligible for food stamps; the other 55 percent are about $15 a week short of the money needed to feed their families.

In these days of rising gas and food prices, increasing food insecurity, and decreasing government aid, we need to be able to provide for ourselves. Urban homesteading is one way to improve food security in a world where more people have less money and less to eat. Studies show that when communities practice urban agriculture, food security improves, an added benefit being that low-income families become less dependent on government food programs. (Community Food Security Coalition)

Current land use codes prohibit some urban homesteading practices such as the keeping of small goats for milk production, while allowing large, sometimes dangerous, dogs on city lots. It’s time for land use codes to reflect the needs of residents. How can we in good conscience allow dogs, while disallowing food-producing animals as benign as miniature female goats?

So many of us have grown up separated from farm animals and our food supply that we lack understanding of these gentle creatures. Miniature goats weigh less than 60 pounds. Only un-neutered males are smelly. Females are gentle, friendly animals that smell no worse than fresh hay. Goat droppings are dry and good for grass or gardens right out of the goat — one of only a few “cold” manures that can be applied directly to plants.

Along with the “smelly-goat myth” lives the “goats are noisy” myth. In reality, goats are quieter than most dogs. With another goat or companion mammal to live with, adequate food and shelter, goats are content. And content goats are quiet goats.

Oakland, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Madison, Kansas City, Steamboat Springs, Denver — all are among the cities that have changed land use codes to allow goats on city lots. Our capital city allows two miniature female goats and eight hens or ducks, so Denver residents can feed themselves on their own urban homesteads with the help of productive pets. They can grow a garden, consume homegrown eggs, and produce milk for drinking and cheese making. It’s time for Fort Collins to join these progressive cities and have our land use codes reflect our sustainability values.

As Fort Collins residents, you have already said yes to urban agriculture. Now you can tell the city that you would like the land use codes to be compatible with your goal of independent local food production. So visit fcgov.com/developmentreview/urbanagriculture.php and say yes to updating the land use codes.

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

Original Article Here

Editorial: Urban agriculture should be a vegetarian affair

There is a lot to be said for the growing urban-agriculture movement, but also a lot to be said for keeping it within reasonable limits.

Evidence of its popularity in Montreal is that a group promoting the concept, the Groupe de travail en agriculture urbaine, readily collected more than 29,000 signatures on a petition asking for public hearings on the future of urban agriculture in the city. That was nearly double the number required for the petition to be considered by city hall, and hearings on the matter will be held in various boroughs this month.

Urban agriculture has been practised here for some time already, though until recently it was more prosaically called gardening. There are nearly 100 community gardens in the city already, with 12,000 devotees tilling a total of 26 hectares of urban soil in all but three of the city’s 19 boroughs. People in increasing numbers are taking to growing vegetables, fruits and herbs on balconies, rooftops and alleys along with the more traditional garden plots in front and back yards.

The most evident benefit of the exercise is that it is a source of cheap fresh food. Experts suggest that a garden plot the size of an average living room can produce enough fresh vegetables to feed two people for half the year at minimal cost, as opposed to the $150 to $300 the produce would cost at the supermarket.

Additional benefits include the family and community spirit that urban farming can generate, the satisfaction and empowerment to be derived from producing one’s own food, and the increased respect it induces for food production, something from which urbanites have become progressively removed. In addition, urban agriculture makes for a greener city and helps reduce the heat-island effect in city cores. And the more food people produce close to home, the less has to be transported from the countryside by gas-guzzling and pollution-spewing trucks.

Advantageous as it is, urban agriculture is not something to be blindly rushed into, as there are downsides of which to beware. Pesticide use has to be carefully regulated in the interest of public health. Urban growers need to be beware of contaminated soil in inner-city plots; five years ago the Southwest borough had to close 167 garden plots after the city’s health department found their soil to be contaminated. As well, fruit and vegetable yards could attract thieves.

Where the line should be drawn is at keeping livestock in residential neighbourhoods.

Part of the urban-agriculture movement includes advocacy on behalf of animal husbandry within city limits. Particularly popular is the notion of having backyard chicken coops to provide eggs even fresher and more wholesome than the organic and free-range variety now widely available in stores. A New York Times food writer recently rhapsodized about the “muscle tone” and intensely rich taste that the yolks of such backyard eggs possess, and the quality of their whites, said to be never runny and to stand up immediately when whipped.

However, the downside of inner-city chicken coops outweigh any benefits. The birds tend to be noisy and unless scrupulously tended give off noxious odours and spread bacteria. They tend to attract roaming animals and are liable to engender conflicts between neighbours. Many people drawn to the temptation of fresh eggs and the quaintness of keeping the birds are likely to be overwhelmed by the work of keeping them properly, and allow the birds to suffer along with the health of the neighbourhood.

And once chickens have been allowed to invade urban precincts, expect some people to clamour for ducks, rabbits and even goats.

Rather than progress, allowing chickens or any other form of agricultural livestock into urban residential environs would be a regression. In years past, keeping livestock in the city was common practice, and something civic authorities over the years wisely discouraged and banned.

It should be kept that way. Urban agriculture should be a strictly vegetarian enterprise. There is a place for livestock, and it is on a proper farm.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Urban agriculture

youngstown

Global Green has partnered with Youngstown State University to incorporate an urban-agriculture roundtable into the 2012 Youngstown State University Sustainable Energy Forum.

Walker Wells, director of the organization’s Green Urbanism Program, will moderate the roundtable Tuesday, the second day of the forum.

Urban agriculture is emerging as a strategy to combat blight and a creator of job opportunities. It can take the form of community gardens, market gardens and urban farms that include more traditionally rural pursuits such as bee keeping and maintaining chickens, livestock and aquaculture.

Turning at No. 1

youngstown

Turning Technologies attained the No. 1 market position in a first-quarter 2012 report delivered by independent research firm Futuresource Consulting. The report confirms that Turning has grown for the seventh-consecutive quarter. During the first quarter, more than 34 percent of all “clicker” response devices shipped worldwide were distributed from Turning Technologies, more than the second- and third-largest providers combined.

Rate increase

Dominion East Ohio has increased its standard choice and standard service offer to $3.03 per thousand cubic feet.

This is an increase of 14.9 percent compared with the previous month. The new rate remains 43.1 percent lower than the rate in June 2011 of $5.33 cents per mcf.

Gallery open house

sharon, pa.

29 Logan Ave. – A Little Gallery on the West Hill will have an open house for its renovation Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. in Sharon.

The gallery is a collaboration of more than 70 local artists who came together with a desire to share their artwork with one another and the community.

Workers’ comp plan

columbus

The Industrial Commission of Ohio has proposed lower workers’ compensation rates for three of four Ohio employer groups.

The fourth group will not have a rate increase.

Rates are being reduced for private employers, those that are self-insuring and public-state employers. Public taxing district rates will remain the same if approved.

RG addresses rumor

WILMINGTON, Del.

An attorney for RG Steel LLC says rumors that the struggling steelmaker is going out of business within days are not true.

At a bankruptcy hearing Friday, the attorney said rumors that the company will stop making steel next week are false and that it plans to continue operating “for some time” as it looks for a buyer.

RG Steel filed for Chapter 11 protection Thursday, a week after announcing it would idle factories in three states, including in Warren, and lay off thousands of employees.

At a first-day hearing, the judge authorized RG Steel to continue paying employees and seemed receptive to its plan to continue paying vendors whose goods and services are critical for RG Steel’s continued operations.

Vindicator staff/wire reports

Original Article Here

Agriculture Sector Promising for Investors-BMO

TORONTO, ONTARIO, May 25, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Strong emerging-market demand, supply constraints and scope for further product development all represent compelling reasons for continued investment in agriculture-related industries, according to a new report from BMO Economics.

"While farmland values and agriculture-related equities have substantially outperformed - warranting some caution - fundamentals suggest that promising investment opportunities still exist through the agricultural value chain," said Robert Kavcic, Economist, BMO Capital Markets. "Additionally, agriculture provides relatively defensive exposure within the broader commodity sector and is a lower beta alternative for investors emotionally drained by the impact of changing global growth prospects on the more volatile energy and base metal sectors."

"Although the Canadian equity markets have lagged others recently, there appears to be considerable up-side for Canadian investors in the agricultural sector," said Paul Taylor, CIO, BMO Harris Private Banking and BMO Global Asset Management. Mr. Taylor pointed out that global trends such as solid population growth, strong per capita GDP growth in developing economies, loss in arable land per capita, urbanization and the emergence of alternative fuels are expected to push food demand much higher in the next few decades.

The report states that demand for food and other agricultural products is expected to expand at a robust pace, particularly in emerging markets, where brisk population and income growth is boosting consumption. For example, in China:

       

        --  Per-capita food consumption in China has topped 2,900 calories/day,

            above the global average

        --  Higher incomes have led to a shift to protein-rich diets; China's

            protein consumption has surged above the global average

        --  More meat consumption has an impact along the supply chain, including

            higher demand for feed stock

       

       

"Growing demand for food is coming up against increasingly scarce resources, particularly land and water, supporting a secular uptrend in the prices of key farm commodities, related equities and farmland," noted Mr. Kavcic. "After being stagnant for about 20 years, agricultural commodity prices have surged, with the S&P/GSCI Agricultural and Livestock Index at levels more than twice as high as a decade ago."

According to the report, there is also scope for new product development in the agri-food sphere:

       

        --  Costly non-renewable energy is fuelling a search for other sources; U.S.

            ethanol production has nearly tripled since 2006.

        --  Health care is shifting to disease prevention and the use of natural

            products such as nutraceuticals, including eggs with OMEGA-3 from flax,

            calcium-enriched fruit juice, and tomatoes with higher levels of

            lycopene.

       

       

The full report can be found in the weekly Focus publication at www.bmocm.com/economics .

BMO's roots in the Canadian agricultural sector date back to 1817, when it first began working with farmers. The second-largest Ag-Lending bank in Canada, BMO Bank of Montreal provides customized loan and deposit solutions to Canada's agri-business owners, the single largest core commercial sector that the bank serves.

BMO Harris Bank is one of the 10 largest Ag-Lending banks in the United States, and the largest in Wisconsin. BMO Harris Bank brings a tremendous amount of expertise in serving Ag customers; it added new customers this year, increased its overall customer base and plans on continuing to grow its business and serve Ag customers.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, BMO Financial Group is a highly-diversified North American financial services organization. With total assets of $525 billion as at April 30, 2012, and more than 46,000 employees, BMO Financial Group provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions.

       

        Contacts:

        Media Contacts:

        Peter Scott, Toronto

        416-867-3996

        PeterE.Scott@bmo.com

       

        Nini Krishnappa, Toronto

        416-867-3996

        nini.krishnappa@bmo.com

       

        Ronald Monet, Montreal

        514-877-1873

        ronald.monet@bmo.com

        

        Laurie Grant, Vancouver

        604-665-7596

        laurie.grant@bmo.com

       

       

       

SOURCE: BMO Financial Group

        mailto:PeterE.Scott@bmo.com

        mailto:nini.krishnappa@bmo.com

        mailto:ronald.monet@bmo.com

        mailto:laurie.grant@bmo.com

       

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