Posts Tagged ‘urban agriculture’
Carrot City: Urban Agriculture Exhibition
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on February 23rd, 2010
Image: Inuvik Community Greenhouse
What is the place of food in the city?
How are “waste” spaces being transformed by food projects?
What are the implications on materials, technologies and structures?
Carrot City is a traveling exhibit that shows how the design of buildings and cities can enable the production of food in the city. It shows how the design of buildings and towns is enabling the production of food in the city. It explores the relationship of design and urban food systems as well as the impact that agricultural issues have on the design of urban spaces and buildings as society addresses the issues of a more sustainable pattern of living.
The focus is on how the increasing interest in growing food within the city, supplying food locally, and food security in general, is changing urban design and built form. Carrot City showcases projects in Toronto and other Canadian cities, illustrating how such concerns are changing both the urban landscape and architecture. It also includes relevant international examples to show how ideas from other countries can be integrated into the Canadian experience. The exhibition contains a mix of realised projects and speculative design proposals that illustrate the potential for design that responds to food issues.
These projects are presented through three main sections, representing three scales of analysis: City; Community; and Home & Work. In addition to the projects, a fourth section, Products, illustrates technologies and systems that are innovating food production approaches in urban contexts.
Tags: exhibition, urban agriculture, Urban Design and Built Form
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City Farms in Cuba: Periurban agriculture
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on February 19th, 2010
Source: guardian.co.uk
Image: tardigrade via flickr CC
From “Cuba plans city farms to ease economy woes“, by Marc Frank
Project launched to ring urban areas with thousands of small farms in bid to reverse agricultural decline
Cuba has launched an ambitious project to ring urban areas with thousands of small farms in a bid to reverse the country’s agricultural decline and ease its chronic economic woes. The five-year plan calls for growing fruits and vegetables and raising livestock in four mile-wide rings around 150 of Cuba’s cities and towns, with the exception of the capital Havana. The island’s authorities hope suburban farming will make food cheaper and more abundant, cut transportation costs and encourage urban dwellers to leave bureaucratic jobs for more productive labour. But the government will continue to hold a monopoly on most aspects of food production and distribution, including its control of most of the land in the communist-run nation.
The pilot programme for the project is being conducted in the central city of Camaguey, which the Cuban agriculture ministry has said eventually will have 1,400 small farms covering 52,000 hectares (128,490 acres), just minutes outside the town. The farms, mostly in private hands but also including some cooperatives and state-owned enterprises, must grow everything organically, and the ministry expects they will produce 75% of the food for the city of 320,000 people, with big state-owned farms providing the rest.
On a recent day, dozens of people were hard at work plowing fields, hoeing earth, posting protective covering for crops and putting up fencing as the sun came up. “This land they gave to us, the private farmers. I have four hectares (10 acres) and now they have leased me eight (20 acres) more,” one of the farmers, Camilo Mendoza, told Reuters. “Look, on this side and the other side are other plots, and over there another. Here they have given quite a bit of land and support to private farmers,” he said.
Tags: Cuba, governance, urban agriculture
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From Freeway to Food Forest
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on February 16th, 2010
From “Building a Farm Where a Freeway Used to Be“, by Matthew Roth
A few weeks ago in San Francisco, a number of urban farmers opened a gate in a chain-link fence at Laguna Street, between Oak and Fell Streets, and entered an overgrown lot that has been unused for nearly two decades. The farmers brought with them steaming piles of mulch, which they cast over the edge of the ramps formerly used by cars to enter and exit the elevated Central Freeway spur above Octavia Street, arranging the soil in rows for planting vegetables and filler crops. Since the Loma Prieta earthquake made the Central Freeway unsafe for travel, leading to its eventual removal and the re-design of Octavia Boulevard, those ramps have been one of the more poignant reminders of a distant vision of San Francisco, with freeways crisscrossing the urban environment, whisking motorists above the unfortunate city dwellers below.
The new Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) inverts the paradigm and reclaims the space for city dwellers, if only temporarily. “We call it ‘freeway to food forest,’” explained Chris Burley, Project Director for HVF and former organizer of My Farm. Burley was joined by nearly fifty volunteers at a HVF work party Sunday. “We’re trying to create a successful, sustainable urban farm in the heart of San Francisco.”
Burley and several other organizers were approached by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD) last year with the idea to transform the unused lot into a farm. The HVF received a $50,000 grant from MOEWD for the first year of the project, money that comes from the operation of parking facilities along Octavia Boulevard. Burley expected to work the farm for between two and five years, depending on when the economy turns around and the land is developed.
Tags: behaviour change, community, Food, urban agriculture
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Fighting Food Deserts: Integrated Farms and Housing, South Bronx NY
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 15th, 2010
Source: SustainWeb
The Blue Sea Development Corporation has a reputation for integrating emerging environmental technologies into high quality, affordable housing developments across New York City. Their new state of the art affordable housing complex planned for the South Bronx, NY, will feature a 10,000 square feet (930 sq meters) fully integrated rooftop farm, designed by BrightFarm Systems.
The greenhouse will use left-over heat from the residential portion of the building and water harvested from the greenhouse roof. The farm will be used to provide fresh, perishable vegetables to a local non-profit food cooperative. The rooftop farm will be able to supply enough produce to meet the annual fresh vegetable needs of up to 450 people. Like many inner city, low income communities, the South Bronx suffers from food deserts, where residents lack access to fresh vegetables at affordable prices.
The rooftop farm will make a significant contribution to food access and public health in the neighborhood.
Source: SustainWeb
Tags: food security, South Bronx, urban agriculture, Urban Design and Built Form
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Local Food Systems: Not Only Farmers
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on January 13th, 2010
Source: Grist
Image: metro centric via flickr CC
From “It takes a community to sustain a small farm” by Steph Larsen
These days it seems the most popular person to be in the food system is the “local farmer.” Farmers markets are popping up everywhere, and their size and popularity grow all the time. Local food is trendy—even the First Family is in on it. But as anyone who has ever raised grain or livestock can tell you, the farmer is not the only person in the chain of players from her farm to your fork. In addition to producers, your food chain includes processors, distributors or transporters, and retailers. In other words, to have a truly local food system, we also need local butchers, bakers and millers, local truck drivers, local grocers, and a community that supports them in all their efforts.
In the world of farm and food policy, we’ve paid a lot of attention to production end of the food system… …But most products aren’t made to eat directly out of the field. Even salad greens or apples, things we typically eat raw and straight from the field, must be washed and sorted before your local farmer will sell them.
As Tom Philpott pointed out in early November, the infrastructure for small-scale processing is woefully inadequate, having suffered decades of atrophy and consolidation—to the point where an otherwise profitable farmer can be driven out of business because she has no where to take her pigs for slaughter, her grain to be milled, or her tomatoes to be “sauced.”
Tags: behaviour change, community, networks, urban agriculture
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Residential Design & the Benefits of Plants: Online Resource
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on January 6th, 2010
Source: Sustainable Cities Collective, from “Sustainable Residential Design: Maximizing the Benefits of Plants”
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has created an online resource guide on maximising the benefits of plants through sustainable residential landscape architecture. The guide contains lists of organisations, research, concepts and projects related to plants and sustainable landscape architecture, and includes sections on: native [U.S.] plants, residential agriculture, residential wildlife habitat, indoor plants and residential composting. Developed for students and professionals, the resource guide contains recent reports and projects from leading U.S. and international organisations, academics, and design firms.
This sustainable residential design resource guide is the third in a new four-part series. See earlier guides in the sustainable residential design series: increasing energy efficiency and improving water efficiency. One last future guide in this series will focus on how sustainable residential landscape architecture can incorporate innovative, recycled (and recyclable) materials.
The guide is separated into five sections:
* Native Plants
* Residential Agriculture
* Residential Wildlife Habitat
* Indoor Plants
* Residential Composting
As an example, the section on “native plants” includes models for reintroducing native plants into residential landscapes, as well as plant databases and government and non-profit organization native plant conservation efforts. There are also links to projects that have successfully incorporated these concepts in a residential context.
Go to the Resource Guide to see the full range available.
Tags: landscape architecture, Resource, urban agriculture
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Incremental Change: the Ginza Bee Project
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on November 20th, 2009
Source: Japan for Sustainability
Image via tokyo green space
From “The Ginza Honeybee Project — Urban Development Inspired by Beekeeping” by Yuriko Yoneda
Ginza is one of the world’s leading downtown districts, complete with high-class department stores and designer shops. Ginza honeybees are nicknamed “Ginpachi” (short for “Ginza bees” in Japanese), and recently they have become somewhat of a new mascot for the district. In March 2006, the Ginza Bee Project placed three hives on a rooftop 45 meters above the intersection at Ginza 4-chome, and bees began flying into the sky above Ginza. Parks such as the Imperial Palace, Hibiya Park, and Hama-rikyu Gardens are located within two kilometers, and many roadside trees are also good sources of nectar. The amount of honey collected has been increasing steadily, growing from 160 kilograms (kg) in 2006, to 290 kg in 2007, 440 kg in 2008, and over 700 kg in 2009. The beekeepers are using the honey to make Ginza-based products using local skills.
The honeybee is said to be an environmental indicator species because it is extremely susceptible to pesticides, which are used on vast areas of farmland in Japan, and are causing the survival rate of bees to drop. Meanwhile, in Ginza, which is in the central part of metropolitan Tokyo, the use of pesticides is avoided because of the growing number of people with allergies. So Ginza has ended up being a bee-friendly environment, and the high-quality honey-producing Ginza bees have made people aware that the district has a rich natural environment. Since the bees were brought to Ginza, cherry blossoms that had previously not been pollinated began to produce cherries. People began to see birds eating the cherries, and small insects began rejuvenating the environment around the area.
Tags: beehive, new systems/services, rooftop, urban agriculture
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Sustainability as a vehicle for education
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on November 4th, 2009
Source: guardian.co.uk
Photograph: Anita Maric/News Team International
From “The sausage squad” by Chris Arnot, 27 October 2009
Gloucester Old Spots are thin on the ground in Coventry, UK. But then so are alpacas, pygmy goats, Jacob’s sheep or, indeed, sheep of any kind. Yet Cardinal Wiseman school, in the north-east of the city, is home to them all. Ducks, chickens and bantams as well, plus a veritable menagerie of parrots, guinea pigs, rabbits and a rare tortoise or two. On the principle set by Noah’s Ark, there are at least two of most species here at the winner of the DCSF award for sustainable schools. Only the Gloucester Old Spot disports itself in splendid isolation, not far from the touchline of a football pitch. It has had even more room to roam since its compatriots were despatched to the slaughterhouse, en route to becoming links in the school’s award-winning brand of sausages.
“We thought we’d keep this one as she’s handsome enough to enter for shows,” says Sean O’Donovan, assistant head, leaning over to scratch the sow’s stomach as she luxuriates in a shaft of autumnal sunshine. Eventually, she’ll get around to chomping the windfall apples from the school’s abundant orchard that year 10 pupils Joseph Stevens and Craig Pears have been scattering about her paddock. O’Donovan looks on approvingly before glancing down at the pig again and confiding: “We’re going to artificially inseminate her soon. In fact, we’re just waiting for the sperm. For some reason it has to come from Ireland.”…
Tags: education, local action, schools, urban agriculture
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Blurring boundaries: farmland and vegie gardens
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on October 26th, 2009
Source: The Ecologist, from “Room to grow: turning farmland into allotments “ by Dorienne Robinson, Oct 6
Image: net_efekt via flickr CC
David and Kay Hicks run a small family farm, “Chyanhall”, in Cornwall (UK) with their daughter Carly. Just over two years ago they decided to look for an alternative income from the land and considered such things as moutain- and quad-biking tracks. Realising that there was a growing demand for allotments, they decided to research this area instead.
Eighteen months ago the first allotment was fenced for the first tenant, now there are 120 allotments on 8 acres, which cover three small fields, and a waiting list of another 40 interested people. A full size allotment costs just £1.92 per week. Prior to the allotment scheme David and Kay’s eight acres were generating around £700 per year, mostly as grass keep for livestock, or producing a cut of silage or hay. It does not take too much time with a calculator to discover that the income from this ground has risen from £700 per year to around £12,000.
There are no CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] subsidies operating here, no top down European directives, no skewing of world markets to generate activity, just pure common sense and responding to local demand.
Tags: farmers, local action, new systems/services, urban agriculture
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Italy Remote Farming
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on September 18th, 2009
Source: Springwise
“Have you forgotten where the vegetables on your table come from?”
It’s a question agricultural firm Azienda Agricola Giacomo Ferraris asks potential customers. Offering Italians the opportunity to reconnect with the origins of their food, the company’s innovative online offering—Le Verdure Del Mio Orto (‘The Vegetables from my Garden’)—lets anyone build an organic garden right from their web browser.
Users first select a garden size based on the number of people they’d like to feed; 30m2 is sufficient for 1–2 people and costs EUR 850 per year. The virtual gardener can then choose from 40 different types of vegetables, using a highly intuitive interface that includes information on expected yields and harvest times. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: farmers, new systems/services, urban agriculture
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