"Agriburbia" sprouts on Colorado's Front Range

[Ichingcarpenter]

Six years ago, Matthew "Quint" Redmond suggested to Milliken planners that a corn farm north of Denver could increase its agricultural value and still anchor nearly a thousand homes.

"I got laughed out of the room," Redmond said.

Today, Milliken's 618-acre Platte River Village is ready for construction, with 944 planned homes surrounded by 108 acres of backyard farms and 152 acres of drip- irrigated community farms. The plan is for the farms to feed local residents and supply restaurants while paying for community upkeep. And Redmond, a 47-year-old planner-farmer, has 13 other Front Range projects mulling his "agriburbia" concept.

"This is where we are all going to go. We need this," said Redmond. "Everyone thinks they are so smart by crafting a 2030 plan for the future. I say we need a $180-a-barrel plan, on how our communities can be self-sufficient when oil becomes too expensive to ship food across the country."

Self-sufficient. Sustainable. Locally produced. Agriburbia incorporates all three concepts.

"Is there a better use of the land than growing your own food right where you are going to be eating it?" said Janie Lichtfuss, mayor of Milliken, which is positioned to become the first agriburbia community.

"This seems to me to be the best of both worlds, with good use of the land for development and agricultural production too."

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13631048?source=emailskipframe-digg.com

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. cool. I'd love to live near a farm and near the city

[ClayZ]

2. This is GREAT!

K and R

[HillbillyBob]

3. This is what we should have been doing all along

We had a small garden plot in the back yard of our rental when we lived in the city of Greensboro,NC. The yards in SoFla were too small or too accessible for others to come steal or just maliciously trample a garden. We live on several acres now..this summers garden was pretty much a bust with too much rain around planting time and drought through out the mid summer. We plan to catch rain and run a drip system. Using the well is just too hard on the well and our power bill.

This sounds like a plan for the future though, instead of 1/4 or 1/2 acre lawns plant food and an organic garden is cheaper to do since you don't use fertilizers and pesticides make with fossil fuels. That also means less gunk in the ground water and run off.

Yes we use a tiller that uses gasoline, we want to try Lasagna or some other no till technique in the future. We build up the soil (was tobacco field for about 250-270 years) with shredded junk mail(takes more gas to go to the recycle center) haw/straw, kitchen compost, and grass clippings. Besides what you have planted for food you only till 2 or 3 times..that's a lot less gasoline than mowing that same ground every week all summer. We also planted companion plants that help stave off or draw bugs toward them, like 4 O'clock flowers are deadly to Japanese Beetles , but are also irresistible to them, they eat and die.
The bushes are very attractive, the blooms are too and smell really nice in the evening. They saved our 1/2 acre blackberry crop last year they are supposed to be perennial in warmer climates, but we had some really harsh freezes last winter and the new seed we planted this year downed in the springs unusually heavy rains, then drought.

[Terry in Austin]

4. This so totally rocks!

Now, this is a model that fits beautifully. Why wasn't it obvious!? (slaps forehead).

Check out the Farmstead project in North Carolina.

[glitch]

5. Excellent to see these ideas getting mainstream press. K & R nt

[OffWithTheirHeads]

6. ADM is gonna be pissed!

I on the otherhand Would love to live like that. I wonder what kind of pricerange something like this commands?