permatech:

Data Farming: Demonstrating the Benefits of Urban Agriculture

Transforming underutilized land into productive urban farms was one of the many topics which were presented at the recent Kansas City Design Week.  Jerome Chou, past Director of Programs at the Design Trust for Public Space, presented his unique experience with the implementation of the Five Boroughs Farm in New York City and the impact that urban agriculture can have on low-income areas of a city.

Chou pointed out in his presentation that having the land available for an urban farm is only half of the battle. The other half involves changing local zoning laws, influencing political opinion, garnering economic support, and proving the project will have a net benefit to a community. These challenges where not unique to just New York City but also to Kansas City’s 18th and Broadway Urban Farm which was also presented at Kansas City Design Week.

The constraint of influencing the community and political leaders is what forced Chou and the multi-disciplined team lead by Design Trust for Public Space to rethink how urban farms were a beneficial investment for New York City. Chou knew from past experience that the repurposing of vacant lots provided both fresh produce and employment for local residents in the Red Hook Community Farm. Chou also pointed out that the city officials were very reluctant to provide their support for the project, particularly in a city where Mayor Bloomberg was famous for tweeting “In God We Trust. Everyone else, bring data.” The team’s first step was to find studies on how urban farms influenced local communities and present their collective data to gain political support. Design Trust had difficulty finding studies on urban farms, but did find miscellaneous pieces of data such as how having bees in a city increases biodiversity of plants and access to healthy food improves the health of local residents. The team realized they would have to retool their approach and the end results would be the first of its kind.

Design Trust put together a metrics framework that measured the associated activities of urban agriculture with the known benefits derived from various studies. This framework was an important step for Five Borough Farms as it became a marketing device to help convince city officials of the positive impacts that urban farming could have on the community. Chou knew that collecting the required data to reinforce the framework would not be an easy process since passionate urban farmers do not have time to conduct large studies. Design Trust is currently developing a tool that helps urban farmers measure these benefits. The sample tool on Five Borough Farms website measures the economic benefits that urban farmers can easily record like the amount of food produced in weight and the number of people trained in a specific job skill on the urban farm.

The larger tool – currently in a closed beta – measures the work done on a holistic level of the metric framework.  This tool will measure the broader social, ecological, economical, and health indicators such as the number of school students participating in food system ecology programs, the money generated from urban agriculture-based farmer’s markets sales, and the percentage of low income shares in CSAs linked to the farm as only a few examples. Combining this data will other sites like 596acres.org, a website that charts available vacant lots that can be used for farming in New York City, gives citizens the tools they need to start an urban farm and farmers the means to see the progress they have on a community over time.

Design Trust for Public Space has plans to release their Data Collection Tool out to the public in the near future with the metric framework and the new book about the group’s work is available online.  This program will dramatically help urban farmers from the around the world to collect important data with ease and have the right tools to persuade public officials on the benefits that urban agriculture can bring to the city.

By Kyle Rogler, Studio 630

Via ThisBigCity, studio630

plantedcity:

Connect the Dots: Lester Brown on ‘Why Food Is The New Oil And Land The New Gold’

From CNBC:

The United Nations food agency reports that food prices are rising again, reaching 6-month highs and nearing levels not since 2008. Higher prices then spurred food riots in the Middle East and North Africa, which fueled the Arab Spring.

There’s no sign of widespread food riots now but eventually there could be, says Lester Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the new book “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.”

“The term ‘food unrest’ will become part of our daily vocabulary,” Brown tells The Daily Ticker.

It reflects the imbalance between the supply of food and demand for food globally.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• New England Complex Systems Institute ‘Food Briefing’
• ‘Americans waste, throw away nearly half their food: study’ (Reuters)
• ‘How much in food do Canadians waste a year? Think billions’ (Globe & Mail)
• ‘7 ways to reduce household food waste’ (CBC)

(via thegreenurbanist)

plantedcity:

Grow your own: ‘How we can eat our landscapes’ (Video)

From TED Talks via YouTube:

What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.

Pam Warhurst cofounded Incredible Edible, an initiative in Todmorden, England dedicated to growing food locally by planting on unused land throughout the community.

(Photo source: Incredible Edible)

plantedcity:

Resilient Cities: ‘A group of visionary residents in the American city of Detroit are sowing the seeds of an urban farming revolution’ (Video)

From Al Jazeera English:

In the early 20th century the American city of Detroit was a booming industrial powerhouse and world leader in car manufacturing, with a population that reached nearly two million people.

But since the major car companies closed their factories, more than a million taxpayers have moved out of Detroit, leaving behind more than 100 square kilometres of vacant land, and nearly 40,000 abandoned houses.

Now after decades of urban decay, Detroit is undergoing something of a revival as a centre for a new trade - urban farming.

In this half-hour special Russell Beard meets a group of visionary residents who see the city’s vacant land as fertile ground for an urban agriculture revolution.

Check out the rest of the article here. 

Related:

• ‘Detroit: rejuvenation through urban farms, sustainable living and innovation’ (The Guardian)
• ‘Detroit: The Center of Urban Farming’ (Care2)
• ‘City Farmer News’ (website)

The opening paragraph of The Guardian article, ‘US wind energy industry breezes past 50GW milestone’.

Related:

• ‘Setting the Record Straight on Oil and Clean Energy’ (Huffington Post)
• ‘Obama slams Romney’s opposition to wind energy tax credit’ (Los Angeles Times)
• ‘IEA Forecasts 40% Growth in Renewable Power Generation in Next 5 Years’ (Clean Technica)

(Photo source: Clean Technica)

(Source: plantedcity)

In March 10 of this year, I assisted to the MIT Latin America Forum 2012. I didn’t know what to expect about it, some of the most influential business men were coming. I was enthusiastic about hearing experts in their own fields. I knew that I would learn about how they manage challenges.

Awesome picture from Tatiana Peralta-Quiros at Boston Public Library

Perhaps one of the most surprising speakers was Andres Barreto, Founder & President, Onswipe / PulsoSocial. He stared Grooveshark when he was finishing his major in Social science. Innovation was a word he used a lot when he was in the panel speaking with Mario Schlosser, Martin Umarran and Fernando Farbe. After hearing him as such a young man and confident, explaining some of his ideas as an entrepreneur, I realize that in Costa Rica, they’re many people that in a youthful age stared to build their business.

This is the beginning of this Blog that brings the new and old entrepreneur from Costa Rica, create a community to share ideas and knowledge.

plantedcity:

Clean Energy Transition: ‘Switch’ (Documentary Trailer)

From Switch via Vimeo:

What will it really take, to go from the energy that built our world, to the energy that will shape our future?

SWITCH explores the world’s leading energy sites, from coal to solar, oil to biofuels, and gets straight answers from the international leaders driving energy today, to discover the path to our energy transition.

Embraced by fossil and renewable energy companies, environmental groups, academics and the general public alike, SWITCH is the first truly balanced energy film.

It’s part of the Switch Energy Project, a film, web and education effort designed to lead a balanced national energy conversation.

plantedcity:

From Triple Pundit:

Janine Benyus, noted biologist and author of the book Biomimicry, describes nine laws that nature seems to consistently follow in developing sustainable ecosystems. Modern designers, in their desire to create sustainable products are increasingly becoming aware of examples from nature, which has so often displayed the most elegant solutions to problems of design. These laws include:

• Nature runs on sunlight.
• Nature utilizes only the energy it needs.
• Energy fits form to function.
• Nature rewards cooperation.
• Nature banks on diversity.
• Nature demands local expertise.
• Nature curbs excess from within.
• Nature taps the power of limits.
• Energy recycles everything.

This last one can be rephrased to say that, in nature, all waste, either directly or indirectly, becomes food. For example, leaves falling from a tree, if they are not raked up and put in plastic bags, decompose and enrich the soil, with the help of earthworms and soil microbes, eventually feeding the tree from which it fell or perhaps a different one.

The folks in the Brazilian city of Jundiai, north of Sao Paulo, have found a unique way to apply this law. Their program, “Delicious Recycling,” provides food to residents when they bring in recycling. The food comes from a community garden which boasts more than 30,000 plants. Now, instead of streets and waterways strewn with trash, they have healthy, well-fed residents. The program, a brainchild of the city’s Municipal Utilities department, has been running successfully for ten years.

As long as we’re talking trash today, another Brazilian city, Curitiba, near the coast, has run a similar program for twice that long. This city, which won a UN Environmental Program Award in 1990, exchanges transportation passes for the recycled materials. The program, which employs shantytown people to collect the trash, uses proceeds from the sale of the recyclable material for social programs to further assist those in need.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo source: Cities Without Hunger)

plantedcity:

Urban Farming Goes Big in Brooklyn: ‘World’s Largest Rooftop Garden’ 

From Urban Farm Online:

A new hydroponic greenhouse set atop an old warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Sunset Park is set to begin construction this fall — and just might transform New York City into the new model for urban agriculture. Announced in April, the greenhouse will break ground in September and is scheduled for completion in early 2013. When it’s finished, it promises to be the world’s largest rooftop farm, spanning 100,000 square feet and producing up to 1 million pounds of produce per year, including several varieties of tomatoes, lettuces and herbs.

…

Created by BrightFarms Inc., an organization that designs, finances and manages hydroponic greenhouse farms across the United States, the farm will produce enough vegetables and herbs to meet the vegetable consumption needs of 5,000 New Yorkers. And with a newly announced partnership with A&P stores, it truly will. The partnership with the New Jersey-based chain to sell the farm’s produce locally will allow BrightFarms to fulfill its mission of “eliminating time, distance and cost from the food supply chain.”

Check out the rest of the article here. Above is one of a series of TEDxManhattan talks themed ‘Changing the Way We Eat’ featuring the CEO of Brightfoot Farms, Paul Lightfoot.

(Video source: TEDx via YouTube; photo via ArchDaily)