Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture is the practice of growing and distributing crops inside the boundaries of cities and towns.

See also Main Food page and Sustainability, Food Scarcity, as well as Genetically Modified Organisms and Chemicals. For labor issues, see The Grapes of Wrath page.

Articles/Reports

Academic Search Complete search gives for example: Growing Urban Agriculture in North American Cities: The Example of Milwaukee. Broadway, Michael American Geographical Society's Focus on Geography; Winter2009, Vol. 52 Issue 3/4, p23-30, 8pp.

UCB's Gillman Tract was used to study biological pest control and has been occupied. see Take Back the Track.

Seed library.

Chicago’s urban farm district could be the biggest in the nation 11/12.

When trees die, so do we includes crime rate, report 1/13 How do gardens improve quality of life? air quality?

AmpleHarvest connects home gardeners to hungry people.

Detroiters Question “World’s Largest Urban Farm” from Yes Magazine.

Brooklyn community gardens are clearinghouse for Caribbean plants. 10/12.

A new report says half the food in US is wasted. But Bootstrap Compost is an entrepreneur who picks it up. Starbucks and others are looking to recycle it into plastic. 8/12

New San Francisco legislation will jump-start urban farming 7.12 Other cities not so much.

The Urban Kiwi" Gregory Dicum, origially published in the fine Orion Magazine.

Chickens How to raise them at UCSC's The Farm. The Story of an Egg video. Urban turkeys, Michael Pollan on Slow Food including, heritage turkeys.

How to Start an Urban Farm in a Post-Industrial City 6.12.

Seed Library, including East Palo Alto, supports urban agriculture. 4/12

Food Stamp Challenge. useful blog, including background. Record numbers of Americans are getting food aid from Federal government. In solidarity with the poor and for research, some people are voluntarily trying to live on this food. Example.

New study shows living near farmer's market affects health 8/11. New Stanford study of effect on food production. 5/11

"Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?" by Mark Bittman, NY Times food columnist 9.25.11 NYT op ed. Julie Guthman, a UCSC Community Studies prof., is quoted.

How to be a locavore (that is, eating food locally produced) link

Food deserts in CA Central Valley. 3/11.

Cuban organic (and urban) agriculture.

Websites

Local Food Systems, promoting strong local economies by building business ecosystems rooted in agriculture.

Roots of Change works for sustainable food systems.

Community Food Security represents a comprehensive strategy to address many of the ills affecting our society and environment due to an unsustainable and unjust food system.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) did a report asking "How can we reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development through the generation, access to, and use of agricultural knowledge, science and technology?"

Aquaponics combines fish with organic gardening. TEDtalk video.

vertical gardens and green roof gardens, which cut the urban Heat Island Effect. videos of NYC.

Books

Will Allen, is the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable urban farmer and entrepreneur, founder of Growing Power. Allen's new autobiography, The Good Food Revolution video(, chronicles his unexpected journey from ABA basketball player to Procter & Gamble marketing executive to urban farm activist. extended video interview another extensive talk.

Agro-ecology overview by UCSC's Steve Gliessman explains problems of conventional factory farms and the potential of organic.

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love Kimball chucked life as a Manhattan journalist to start a cooperative farm in upstate New York with a self-taught New Paltz farmer she had interviewed for a story and later married. The Harvard-educated author, in her 30s, and Mark, also college educated and resolved to "live outside of the river of consumption," eventually found an arable 500-acre farm on Lake Champlain, first to lease then to buy. In this poignant, candid chronicle by season, Kimball writes how she and Mark infused new life into Essex Farm, and lost their hearts to it.

Breaking Through Concrete: Building an Urban Farm Revival, includes a visit to Santa Cruz Homeless Garden project.

Farm Together Now portraits of the new food movement.

Farm City is about urban gardening in Oakland Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer By Novella Carpenter (includes excerpt and audio interview).

Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities by Carlo Petrini, with a foreword by Alice Waters Chelsea Green, 155 pp., $20.00 (paper)

The Greening of Cuba: A National Experiment in Organic Farming by Peter Rosset, Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange (Go Slugs!)

Videos

See Food section on Environmental Films page.

Food Forward is a new PBS series on the food revolution. The first episode is on urban agriculture. Highly recommended.

TEDtalks

Beauty matters: Edi Rama was the mayor of Tirana Albania, where he implemented a series of reforms to take back the city for the people, including paint.

TEDtalks on food are great. a sample. For example:

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Link **** Segment on pink slime in meat.

Roger Doiron: My subversive (garden) plot looks at converging trends (TEDtalk).

Edible City (online)is a fun, fast-paced journey through the Local Good Food movement that's taking root in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the nation and around the world. Introducing a diverse cast of extraordinary and eccentric characters who are challenging the paradigm of our broken food system, Edible City digs into their unique perspectives and transformative work, finding hopeful solutions to monumental problems.

To Make a Farm explores the lives of five young people who have decided to become small-scale farmers. They face daily challenges and set-backs, but their work and optimism inspires hope for the future. An intimate and practical exploration of farming and local food. See also 'Greenhorns.

Open Source farm tools.

Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles -- researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. (TEDtalk video).

Fresh (The Movie) about food production trailer. Shown in College 8 green film course. An inspiring film about the sustainable agriculture movement featuring Michael Pollan, who wrote a couple articles used in the College Eight Core Course Reader. Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.(2009, 72 min.) McHenry Media Center DVD7665.

"The Garden" trailer (director Scott Hamilton Kennedy, the Academy Award winning documentary). The Garden is the unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer who wants to evict them and build warehouses interview/excerpts

Urban Roots is a new documentary on farming in Detroit. 3/12 trailer

TEDxZurich - Roman Gaus - Urban Farming.

Building Community with Greenspace. Yale students work together with many different urban New Haven neighborhoods to create green spaces, urban rehabilitation, safety and pride.

Urban Gardening. Jesse DuBois - The Urban Farming Revolution TEDx

Audio

How to Raise your own chickens audio and text

In Boston, Patti Moreno, the self-proclaimed Garden Girl, grows so much food in her backyard that she opens up a small farmer's market each summer. LOE.org 5/10.

DIY window farms.

Challenges of bringing fresh food to the inner city. loe.org npr 5/10.

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer By Novella Carpenter. includes excerpt and audio interview. More interviews.

UCSC People and Local Organizations

UCSC has been a pioneer in organic farming movement. See also here

Cultivating a Movement is oral history. A new book published by the UCSC Library’s Regional History Project offers a sparkling window into the 40-year history of how UC Santa Cruz--and California’s Central Coast—became leaders in the organic farming and sustainable agriculture movement. Archive. Audio of San Farr talk.A Timeline

Agroecology in Action: Agroecology is a scientific discipline that uses ecological theory to study, design, manage and evaluate agricultural systems that are productive but also resource conserving. UCSC is a pioneer. CASFS Food Links

Agroecology: Prof. Gliessman works with communities to increase yields in rainforests without harming it. Affiliated organizations: CAN offers internships. He co-edited Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Fair Trade, Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystems in Mexico and Central America. McH Stacks HD9199.M62 C66 2008

Sean Swezey's (Core course instructor) research interests emphasize the practical application of pest management theory and on-farm research to production of organic strawberries, apples, and other California organic crops.

Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (offers apprentice opportunities)

PICA (Live and work in The Village)

LifeLab teaches kids about sustainability nd food through school gardens.

Tim Galarneau was recently profiled in Mother Jones news on sustainable food.

Julie Guthman researches organic agriculture. audio interview on her new book Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism UC Press, 2011.

Melissa Caldwell, food policy expert, presented at the global food crisis at international conference sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Nancy Chen breaks down divisions between food and medicine, and she underscores that medicinal foods are the "front line of healing."

Melanie DuPuis is the author of the book Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink (McHenry GT2920.M55 D86 2002) and numerous scholarly articles on food and food-related topics. She is currently co-editor of an issue of the current special "politics of food" issue of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture

Steve Gliessman works to improve organic agriculture and Fair Trade. City on a Hill article on his work with coffee. Also excerpts from his book Agroecology : The Ecology Of Sustainable Food Systems / Steven R. Gliessman 2007 S&E Stacks S589.7 .G58 2007.

Lopez, Anna A , who obtained her PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, wrote The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. (also Google book).

Bay Area

UCB's Gillman Tract was used to study biological pest control and has been occupied. see Take Back the Track.

Oakland's Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First shapes how people think by analyzing the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and developing solutions in partnership with movements working for social change.

Urban Tilth does great work in SF East Bay.