A Plan to Turn Brooklyn’s Unused Acres Green. NY Times Advertisement. Green bullet innovations aim to feed world of 9 billion. LONDON, May 2 (AlertNet) - In flood-hit fields in the Philippines, farmers are testing a hardy new variety of rice that can survive completely submerged for more than two weeks. In Kenya's Kibera slum, poor urban families are turning around their diets and incomes just by learning to grow vegetables in sack gardens outside their doors.
And in India, a push to help marginalised rural communities gain title to their land is leading to a significant drop in hunger. These are just a few of the kinds of innovations and initiatives that experts say will be critical if the world is to feed itself over coming decades as the population soars, cities sprawl and climate change takes its toll. By 2050, the planet will need at least 70 percent more food than it does today to meet both an expected rise in population to 9 billion from 7 billion and changing appetites as many poor people grow richer, experts say. "Can we feed a world of 9 billion?
"Now there is no normal to go back to. " Urban gardens boost quality of life, expert says. Communities such as Toledo can build value through urban agriculture, believes Ken Dunn, who runs a recycling and urban gardening group in Chicago. Mr. Dunn spoke at "Conversations to End Hunger," an event Wednesday at the Main Library downtown. It was sponsored by ProMedica, YMCA and JCC of Great Toledo, United Way of Greater Toledo, the Urban Affairs Center at the University of Toledo, and Toledo GROWS. The event sought to spark discussions about poverty, hunger, obesity, local economies, and local food systems. Poor nutrition and obesity have a tremendous impact in Ohio and locally, said Randy Oostra, president and chief executive officer of ProMedica.
"From a health-care perspective, it's a huge issue, and it's a health-care issue," he said. According to the most recent statistics, Lucas County has 99,746 food-stamp recipients -- nearly a quarter of the county's residents, according to the county's Department of Job and Family Services. Mr. However, Mr. Urban Farming. Detroit turns to food to spur rebirth, growth | Entrepreneur. By Lisa Baertlein DETROIT – When Slows Bar-B-Q opened in Detroit’s Corktown district seven years ago, the neighbourhood was so neglected that the street lamps no longer worked. The restaurant sits in the shadow of Detroit’s abandoned central train station, a few blocks from the vacant lot where Tiger Stadium once stood.
“People said we were nuts,” recalled co-owner Phillip Cooley. Today, Slows has two Detroit locations that pull in a healthy US$6-million in sales annually. An artisan coffee shop and a swanky cocktail bar have opened near Slows in Corktown, making the neighborhood one of a handful of vibrant residential pockets in Motor City. The success of Slows and other local food businesses is a rallying point for a cadre of entrepreneurs fighting to shake off Detroit’s reputation as a culinary wasteland and give people a reason to return. Progress on the food front is more than an interesting sidebar to Detroit’s high-profile attempt to reverse decades of decline. . © Thomson Reuters 2012. Public Fruit in the City When we moved into our. Public Fruit in the City When we moved into our circa 1919 farmhouse 20 years ago, our neighbor had an ancient looking apple tree in the backyard where pheasants would roost at night. That apple tree it turned out, had been planted by the farmer who owned the land prior to it being developed into our neighborhood.
It was a living link to what had been a thriving apple orchard in the early 1900’s. We were fortunate to have sampled its fruit before it died of old age. There is a group called Fallen Fruit who have, among other efforts, undertaken the task of mapping fruit trees that grow on or over public land. By definition, this fruit is free to the public. Find the city map nearest to you and go for a walk in season to pick your own low hanging fruit with a story to tell. (via Fallen Fruit)Thanks to Anna Evely for the link to this New Yorker article. Turning Vacant Lots into Profitable Urban Farms in Minnesota. “I think we’ll manage.” — Joke I’m waiting to use at this managers meeting.
Seattle's First Urban Food Forest Will Be Open To Foragers : The Salt. Hide captionDesigners of a food forest in Seattle want to make blueberry picking a neighborly activity. iStockphoto.com Designers of a food forest in Seattle want to make blueberry picking a neighborly activity. If you're a regular reader of The Salt, you've probably noticed our interest in foraging. From San Francisco to Maryland, we've met wild food experts, nature guides and chefs passionate about picking foods growing in their backyards. Now, Washington state has jumped on the foraging bandwagon with plans to develop a 7-acre public plot into a food forest.
The kicker? The idea is to give members of the working-class neighborhood of Beacon Hill the chance to pick plants scattered throughout the park – dubbed the Beacon Food Forest. Herlihy and a team first assembled their vision of a food forest in 2009 as a final project for a permaculture design class. hide captionIf all goes well in the food forest's 2-acre trial plot, the whole 7-acre park will look something like this.
Gardening, Done Vertically - EcoBrooklyn Green Show Home. Gardenup: The folks from GardenUp just stopped by the EcoBrooklyn Green Show House to tell us more about their great new products for gardening. They’ve created a simple vertical system based on hydroponic technology that is great for small spaces, easy-to-use and highly efficient – perfect for city living. An example of one of GardenUp’s towers in PhiladelphiaBasically, the vertical garden towers GardenUp has created can grow herbs, vegetables, flowers, whatever you like, in a small self-contained space. The towers can be used indoors or out and could be a wonderful addition to a green roof or backyard.
Gennaro Brooks-Church, founder of EcoBrooklyn meeting with Scott Seger, CEO and Boris Alergant, VP of Strategic Business Development and Planning for GardenUpAs a New York green contractor they contacted us to see if we could incorporate their product into the eco gardens we build and design. Urban Guerrilla Gardening Booming in Hyde Park. Sweden Building Major Urban Greenhouse for. Chicago restaurants move toward hyper-local food production. Urban Farming Takes Hold in NYC.
New York City may not have a lot of extra space for farms, but it's got plenty of rooftops that fit the bill just fine. Urban farming is a really important trend - it not only provides fresh food locally, it eliminates greenhouse gases associated with transporting food over long distances, provides economic development opportunities, and reduces disparities in access to healthy food that's contributed to epidemic rates of obesity and diabetes especially among low-income populations.
On top of a 6-story warehouse in the borough of Queens sits the world's largest rooftop farm - at almost an acre in size, the Brooklyn Grange has been growing 40 kinds of vegetables since it opened in spring 2010. Now, it's gettting ready to double in size as it expands to a second roof, this one in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Ben Flanner co-founded Brooklyn Grange after opening Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in 2009, the first rooftop soil farm in NYC.
And that's not the only farm in NYC. Ragicabbot - PodPonics: Growing Food in Used Shipping. How to Save America: Build Better Cities Felix. Another Studio. The Future of Food: 11 Unique Urban Farming Projects. Vertical Farm at Chicago Airport: Simple and Cool! Agritecture: I just stumbled upon this great post about a new Vertical Farm project at Chicago airport. Check out the images and notice the varieties of foods that can be grown on these small food production towers. Set in a seemingly unused nook of the G Terminal, a mezzanine space has been transformed into a high-tech urban garden. I see a lot of projects like this one – usually they have a DIY vibe that is quite inspiring (hey, even I could do that!) SO COOL! What looks like the most comfortable chairs in the airport are set up around the installation with tables to create a park-like setting. DIY experimental Vertical Farming projects in airports…a creative way of increasing awareness of BIA and providing food to airport food distributors.
(Source: agritecture) Lansing Urban Farm Project | Building community while producing fresh, affordable produce within Lansing, Michigan. MSU professors help create Lansings first urban farm. 20 reasons to feel hopeful about Michigan and our food system in 2012. Winter carrots from Seeley Farm Photo | Kim Bayer Maybe it was the news about Michigan snagging a spot on the Top 10 list of states with the most winter farmers' markets that pushed it over the edge, but I'm noticing an energy around food issues that I haven't seen before.
There are so many things happening in this part of SE Michigan that didn't exist even three or four years ago when I decided to break up with my regular grocery store and shop for food from people I know. It's sort of de rigeur to end the year with a catalog of the best foodie experiences you had, but this is a guide to hopeful signs for the new year - some trends to watch, support and engage with. And I'd argue that these are signposts pointing out the possibility of a food system that is as "healthy, green, fair, and affordable" as the Michigan Good Food Charter (!!!) Outlines. Yep, now more than ever I love that I live here because 1) I can learn where my food comes from Just a few examples of new CSA farms in our area: Here’s a parking garage that doubles as an urban farm.
Girl Power Reclaims Vacant Lot in. Urban Permaculture Garden in San Francisco Grows Thousands of Pounds of Food. City Farmers: Protect Your Garden From Critters. Urban Farms, Supersized. Largest Ever Rooftop Garden To Be Big As Football Field. BERLIN - If all goes as planned, a sprawling organic farm will soon be up and running a stone’s throw away from a six-lane autobahn in Berlin’s Südkreuz industrial zone. By spring 2013, tons of lettuce, kohlrabi (a variety of cabbage), tomatoes and herbs are expected to be growing under protective glass roofing – on a city rooftop, some 7,000 square meters of it, an area as big as a soccer field. And in the building underneath, say the three 30-something Berliners behind the ambitious project, there will also be an aquaponic fish farm. "The beauty of our plan is it’s self-sufficient. Only fish food has to be brought in from the outside,” says Nicolas Leschke, one of the three entrepreneurs.
Water containing excretions from fish bred in large tubs will fertilize the produce, leaving clean water to flow through the closed water circuit back to the fish. "Our intention is for this to be the biggest roof farm in the world,” Leschke adds. *Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations. 'Flint Food Fighters' debuts at Michigan State University. Be Part of History: World’s First 5-Story Vertical. Community Gardens Blooming in Auckland With. Sharing Knowlege... Feeding Nations. Farmin’ in the HOOD Follow the impressive story. Popular Permaculture.