Rent a farmer? Growers visit city backyards

[Robbien]

Anders Gurda hops off his bike at various backyards in Minneapolis, grabs his garden tools and starts weeding.

When he's done checking for garden pests, adjusting the irrigation system and harvesting the vegetables (which he puts in the home's refrigerator or cooler), he cycles to his next plot and starts over.

He's an urban backyard farmer, one of a growing breed throughout the country thanks to programs like Minnesota's Backyard Harvest.

<snip>

In Portland, Ore., a group called Your Backyard Farmer began in 2006 when Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter were growing weary of driving through the city's outskirts looking for affordable land to farm. The thought struck them: "Why aren't we bringing food to the people?"

They drove back to the city and printed out flyers advertising their farming services in urban neighborhoods. By the time they got home, they had 11 messages inquiring about Your Backyard Farmer. That's the most advertis

ing they've ever had to do.

Fast-forward four years: Your Backyard Farmer is thriving with 58 backyard farms — and a waiting list for 2011. At least 27 other programs around the country and 15 abroad have consulted with Smith and Streeter.

People love the program for its convenience, the food's freshness and the ability to customize, Smith said.

"People could choose what they wanted — every single farm is different," Smith said. "Typical yards include tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and people thought it was pretty cool to have those in your own yard. Then everybody started going, I'll try arugula or radicchio. We have 42 vegetables, and they can choose them all or just a few. If you don't like it we'll pull it out of the ground."

In many backyard-farming programs, homeowners can choose from a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, and can choose full service (a farmer plants, maintains and harvests the garden) or a consulting service (the farmer teaches the homeowner how to maintain the garden so the homeowner can take over the next year). Farmers may also give advice on how to use, cook and store the produce.

Prices depend on the growing season and the square footage. In Minneapolis, prices average around $1,250 for the season, or about $11-$13 per square foot, and in Portland, prices start at $1,675 per season. Services are often available only in certain neighborhoods to reduce the farmers' commutes.

more . . .

http://www.thereporteronline.com/articles/2010/07/17/life/srv0000008853499.txt


Much better than paying someone to come and mow the lawn.

[aquart]

1. Now that's the entrepreneur spirit!

I would have to have the arugula.

[shraby]

2. Sheesh! We have plots for 4 families not counting our own and

it's free for them...and we provide the water, they take care of their plots. The plots are about 17x80 each. Ours is larger. We don't have to mow all that area and have a place to put leaves in the fall.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. These people have the land

What they pay for is the labor and instruction.

[kestrel91316]

3. I am totally in love with this concept!!!

Once people see how easy it is to grow their own 'maters and spuds, they will be willing to do it on their own. We need to revive our long tradition of providing for a lot of our own food needs in this country.

[citizen477]

5. Amen!

Amen (eom)

[izquierdista]

6. That's forward looking

I wonder how long it will take to catch on in my backwards area.

[nourishingtheplanet]

7. Vertical Farms: Finding Creative Ways to Grow Food in Kibera

This is an awesome concept!! While urban agriculture is just coming on in popularity in the United States, it has been used for centuries around the world. Read about this example in Kibera, Kenya when women are using rice bags to grow their crops in the city.

Cross posted from http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/vertical-farms-finding-creative-ways-to-grow-food-in-kibera/">Nourishing the Planet.



Driving through the crowded streets of Kibera, it’s nearly impossible to describe how many people live in this area of about 225 hectares, the equivalent of just over half the size of Central Park in Manhattan. Everywhere you look there are people. People walking, people working, people selling food or tennis shoes, people sorting trash, people herding goats—people everywhere. Anywhere from 700,000 to a million people live in what is likely the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa—it’s hard to count the exact number here because people don’t own the land where they live and work, making their existence a very tenuous one. Often people are evicted from their homes (most of them wooden shacks with tin roves) because the city government doesn’t want to recognize that Kibera exists. But it does. And despite the challenges people here face—lack of water and sanitation services and lack of land ownership are the big ones—they are also thriving.

Our hosts for this visit were Mary Njenga and Nancy Karanja, researchers with the group Urban Harvest, an organization with offices in Kenya, Uganda, and Peru.

We met a “self help” group of women farmers in Kibera, who are growing food for their families and selling the surplus. These groups are present all over Kenya—giving youth, women, and other groups the opportunity to organize, share information and skills, and ultimately improve their well-being.

The women we met are raising vegetables on what they call “vertical farms.” But instead of skyscrapers, these farms are in tall sacks, filled with dirt, and the women grow crops in them on different levels by poking holes in the bags and planting seeds. They received training, seeds, and sacks from the French NGO Soladarites to start their sack gardens.

The women told us that more than 1,000 of their neighbors are growing food in a similar way—something that Red Cross International recognized during 2007 and 2008 when there was conflict in the slums of Nairobi. No food could come into these areas, but most residents didn’t go without food because so many of them were growing crops—in sacks, vacant land, or elsewhere.

Dr. Karanja asked the women if they were using waste water—the water used to bathe and wash dishes—to water their crops. They explained that they were concerned about the soap hurting the crops, but Dr. Karanja explained that there are ways to filter the water that make it safe to use for crops—something the women were very interested in because they now have to buy water for them.

These small gardens can yield big benefits in terms of nutrition, food security, and income. All the women told us that they saved money because they no longer had to buy vegetables at the store and they claimed they taste better because they were organically grown—but it also might come from the pride that comes from growing something themselves.