Urban Agriculture: the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around (peri-urban), a village, town or city. (This definition was taken from Wikipedia, and the source for this definition is from the article “From Brownfields to Greenfields: Producing Food in North American Cities,” from Community Food Security News written by M. Bailkey and J. Nasr.) Since “farming” is the action of developing agriculture, for this post I will substitute the terms.

Urban farming – what are its forms? Is it a reasonable means of food production? How is the individual and society at large affected by this growing agricultural movement? These are some of the questions to consider when we examine this trend in the local food movement and its roots in urban communities.

When I think about this question I picture a scale that ranges from big to small. At the top you have large-scale means of food production, think industrial agriculture. Currently, industrial agriculture practices monoculture farming (growing a single crop over a large span of land), which destroys the land, animal species and the general flow of nature. With monoculture farming pesticides are used. When farming only one plant there is no “circle of life” to prevent bugs and improve soil conditions, etc. All the problems of modern industrial agriculture come from this idea of planting large harvests of single crops each season. Ultimately, this means of production has devastated our top soil, polluted our water supply, depleted water sources, decimated animal populations and killed family farming.

In cities we cannot mimic this means of production because there are not hundreds or thousands of empty acres to plant crops. To feed the masses in the cities there is an idea known as vertical farming. Instead of growing plants on a horizontal plane, why not grow crops on a vertical one? Cities are composed of buildings, and some cities have really high buildings. What if some of these structures were full-fledged farms?!

This picture is one of many designs in the realm of possibility. As far as I know, in the United States nothing of this magnitude has been built, and yet I can definitely see us moving in this direction. With the reluctance of current politicians to take any drastic measures against climate change, I think we may have to consider this means of farming in the near future. Vertical farming on this scale is of great interest to me. The pictures I have seen that reflect the various forms of vertical farming are mesmerizing and rather fantastic. At the same time, when food production is in a building, I wonder if organic means are feasible. Clearly the food could be local, but would the constraints of the structure prevent sustainable crop growth? In this picture you can imagine the use of solar energy and grey water systems, maybe some sort of modern permaculture will develop to meet these needs.

In simple terms, permaculture is “a set of techniques and principles for designing sustainable human settlements” (see Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway.) Another way to understand permaculture is as a landscape design that attempts to emulate the symbiotic relationships in nature between microbes in the soil, insects, birds and plants. If agriculture is modernity imposing his or her needs on nature – tilling the soil, planting non-native plants and disrupting the natural flow of the environment, then permaculture is the antithesis. People who practice permaculture understand the larger system that enables certain plants to thrive in a given environment. If this idea is harnessed properly, one can grow a multitude of foods in absolute organic method.

A smaller scale of urban farming that employs permaculture and feeds the masses is happening now. The man behind this remarkable venture is Will Allen and his farm is called Growing Power.  He also uses vertical farming techniques.

As long as vacant lots are expensive I think the potential to expand on Allen’s ideas are limited. Nonetheless, I am highly optimistic of his model. One of my dreams is to recreate his farming model in Portland. If he can do this in the midwest where the winters are literally frozen, than surely Portland can practice his methods.

Allen is committed to food justice and his work reflects this passion. In the context of urban farming I do not know if the focus is on low-income communities, as they are less likely to purchase and eat whole foods when the cost is high. That said, I think the focus should be on low-income communities since their health will impact everyone else and vice verse. Thinking of this picture to the left, Allen wants to teach people how to fish(in the sense of empowering people to grow their own food,) and I think that is the future of localized food systems.

On that note, consider smaller plots of land dispersed in neighborhoods throughout the city and not just community gardens. I have nothing against community gardens, but as their popularity grows there will be longer lines to join the club and then less access to local food. I am intrigued by the potential of CSAs because if you cannot grow your own food, the CSA model seems to provide the best access to affordable whole foods. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is when an individual or family purchases a share of a farm’s product. For example, if you buy a winter share on a farm, you will receive x amount of produce every week for a set period of time. Everything the farm grows, you get a piece of. If you want to eat seasonally, I think CSAs are the way to go.

For the most part, CSA shares are provided by farms outside the city. In urban farming, this is a smaller and sustainable means of providing local and affordable food. In the urban CSA model there is a ceiling on growth, and ideally these “farms” could provide for the immediate neighbors. In Portland there are two examples I know of working in this direction: Shortcut Farm and Fruits of Our Neighbors Market Garden. Even as these two farms are at different stages of development, both are working towards CSA models for the immediate neighboring population.

So we have gone from vertical farming in skyscrapers to vertical farming on 2 acre lots; here we have urban CSAs on single lots. Another form of urban agriculture, maybe the most prolific of them all is at home. Around the country people are returning to the act of gardening, no matter the size of their yard. Whether people garden on the land they have, build raised beds or attempt container gardening, these are all popular methods for growing your own food. And yet all of these methods require some amount of space outside the bedroom or kitchen.

For people in dense cities like New York City, even container gardening is an impossibility. But yesterday I came across a new direction to tackle this common obstacle. Consider the idea of a window farm!

Yesterday I read an article on window farming on Civil Eats, one of the best blogs for commentary on food politics. The details of the technique are rather complicated, but I gather that the plants grow in 2 liter bottles and a slow-drip system is used to water the plants. Basically, this is vertical farming in the home on an individualized scale. Very cool. I don’t even live in a dense city but trying out this method would be quite the experience. Growing food like this definitely requires a sense of mechanical knowledge, but there is a great site devoted to sharing this skill set. To learn more about this gardening system, check out Window Farms. The site offers tons of information on how to build this structure. Since this means of food production is in the early stages of development, I think the site also serves as a place to discuss problems and solutions for the building process. Maybe this is the new and improved urban means of container gardening!

The possibilities in urban farming mentioned here are likely the tip of the iceberg. As populations grow and resources grow scarce, inventiveness will prosper. If anything, the future of urban food production will probably be vertical and hopefully embrace elements of permaculture. Different cities will require different means of production, but the goal will always be to localize our foods and to ensure accessibility and affordability.

For next time, I hope to consider whether or not these forms of urban agriculture are reasonable – can they feed the masses?

Related posts:

1. Urban Farming in Portland (part 1)
2. The Urban Farming Revolution
3. Introducing Permaculture
4. Urban farming, Low-Income Communities and Burgeoning Dietary Epidemics
5. Size Doesn’t Matter (or) Progress in Urban Farming

Tags: CSA, Food Politics, Gardening, local food movement, Urban Ag, Will Allen