CNN - "Urban farming movement 'like a revolution'"

[TomCADem]

This is not really political, but the thought of growing food locally as a means of community empowerment seemed pretty cool, particularly since I am a fan of farmer's markets generally.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/29/bia.urban.farming/index.html

Urban farming movement 'like a revolution'

"Minority people are affected by poor food, more than any other groups," and many inner cities lack access to quality fruits and vegetables, Allen says. "Our food system is broken."

"When you're poor, when you don't have access to resources, you have to create your own," says Myers. "So this is a way for people of African descent to use their creativity to grow their own food."

Many poorer communities don't have full-scale grocery stores. Allen charges that companies have red-lined those areas and won't build stores there.

So community activists like Myers have taken up the fight.

" community gardens in local communities, specifically in urban areas, is important, so you create your own food security network," says Myers. "You're not relying on large grocery stores to provide food for everyone because if those grocery stores have problems, your access to food is done."

HABESHA Gardens makes the fresh food accessible to people in Mechanicsville by opening up the garden to people in the community every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

[Cha]

1. This is the way it should be..

back to nature.

[virgogal]

2. Boston has a Victory Garden in the Fenway area that has been

ongoing since WWII------and yes,it is still known affectionately as The Victory Garden,although another name has been given to it.

[TomCADem]

10. Michael Pollan Wrote An Article In October 2008 To The Future President - References Victory Gardens

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

* * *
Since enhancing the prestige of farming as an occupation is critical to developing the sun-based regional agriculture we need, the White House should appoint, in addition to a White House chef, a White House farmer. This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture. And that is this: tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population. Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.) Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system — something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.

I don’t need to tell you that ripping out even a section of the White House lawn will be controversial: Americans love their lawns, and the South Lawn is one of the most beautiful in the country. But imagine all the energy, water and petrochemicals it takes to make it that way. (Even for the purposes of this memo, the White House would not disclose its lawn-care regimen.) Yet as deeply as Americans feel about their lawns, the agrarian ideal runs deeper still, and making this particular plot of American land productive, especially if the First Family gets out there and pulls weeds now and again, will provide an image even more stirring than that of a pretty lawn: the image of stewardship of the land, of self-reliance and of making the most of local sunlight to feed one’s family and community. The fact that surplus produce from the South Lawn Victory Garden (and there will be literally tons of it) will be offered to regional food banks will make its own eloquent statement.

[virgogal]

12. Great article. Thanks.

[HughMoran]

13. I learned to LOVE beefsteak tomatos grown in the victory garden

It was so much fun as an inner-city kid to be able to go to the victory garden and tend to our plants. Every city should have these.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. This is such a great idea.

Neighborhood gardens do more than grow food, they build communities. I like the idea of decentralization. Corporations aren't looking out for us, and government seems to be owned by the corporations, so we'll just have to take care of ourselves. Smaller is better.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. My little effort

I live in a condo complex in downtown San Jose, Ca. About three years ago, I, through no fault of my own (someone else put my name on the ballott without consulting me) was elected president of the HOA. Lucky me. Little did I know that it could be one of the most thankless tasks you could possibly take on in a pro bono manner. At any rate, one of the first things I lobbied for was to put some bookshelves in some of the common areas and create a free book exchange. Read a book you liked? leave it on the shelves for others to enjoy. Need something to read? Browse the exchange and borrow what you like. This has been a great success and has developed from one four foot by seven foot bookshelve with a few books to four bookshelves with several hundred books and it's still growing. I have discovered many enjoyable authors from the gleenings of the community lending library/book exchange and it has gone a long way towards creating a sense of community.

The next thing I did was lobby for, and get, funding to tear out all the Ivy in one of the planters in our courtyard and put in an herb garden. You can't believe some of the resistance I got on this idea. I actually had one old lady trying to kick my front door in because she was so pissed. Well, as the I Ching states, "Perserverence furthers" and we now have Basil, Sage, Mint, Thyme, Cilantro, Parsley, Oregano, Rosemary, Lemons and Limes in the courtyard, in quantities sufficient for all of our 115 units to enjoy and this summer I planted some Pumpkin seeds and we now have about a dozen Pumpkins growing.

To my amusment, People are showing up at the board meetings asking me to put up signs, identifing the various herbs because many of them have never seen the herbs in their natural state and can only identify them when they are in the little bottles from the supermarket. Not only are our "Organic" herbs much better than anything you can get at Safeway, they are free! All you need to do is walk out to the courtyard and snip some, but the best part is the Pumpkins. The little kids in the complex are just blown away by the process of watching them grow! Most of the adults are too as the majority of us urban dwellers (including me)have never seen an actual pumpkin grow from a little tiny sprout to a 30 foot vine with actual Pumpkins. It's been great fun.

[Indenturedebtor]

7. Very cool thanks for sharing :D

I live in Tucson so you have to water things too much to grow them responsibly. We do have a little indoor tomato garden though :P

[JDPriestly]

5. I'm trying a little urban gardening in my back yard in L.A., but

growing food here in the desert, especially in this drought, is very, very difficult. Community gardens should be encouraged everywhere. Unfortunately, the City of L.A. does not encourage them.

[TomCADem]

6. I Have A Wee Container Garden

Of course, cutworms managed to invade one container, and they have proven tough little buggers to eradicate.

[conscious evolution]

8. Habesha is one of many in Atlanta

They are springing up everywhere.
guerilla gardeners are also planting everywhere here also.
The revolution is here,now.People are saying to hell with the corporate frankenfood system every where.

[Barack_America]

9. My husband's turning over our urban garden as I type this.

He's kindly letting me watch the House theatrics.

[TwilightGardener]

11. I'm bucking the trend, I'm back to buying my tomatoes. Three years

in a row having my tomatoes ruined by stinkbugs. My peppers didn't turn out well either--something ate those too. The zucchini worked out, but...bleh, we were so tired of them I just ripped out the vines. If I do produce-gardening again, I'm going to focus on expensive delicacies--raspberries, asparagus, sugar snap peas. I'm getting out of the lettuce-tomato-cuke-zuke habit--I can buy that stuff fairly cheap.