Cohousing-L Mailing List: Co-farming in the Cities

[Thomas Lofft (tlofft]

Here's an inspriring article about households working together to create urban 
farms.  With a little stretch of the imagination, people could work together to 
develop clustered residential communities together :-) (NaturalNews) 
You won't see cornrows stretching into the horizon or amber waves of grain as 
far as the eye can see, but there's a growing phenomenon in urban America - 
agriculture is "growing" in our big cities, and as a result, lawmakers and 
policy chiefs are taking notice.

And perhaps nowhere is the trend more 
evident than in Buffalo, N.Y., where, in 2003, a group called the 
Massachusetts Avenue Project turned a vacant lot on the city's West Side 
into a sizeable vegetable garden.

Some 10 growing seasons later, the 
neighbors there no longer think of it as "weird," says Diane Picard, executive 
director of the organization. And neither do scores of other Buffalo residents, 
because urban agriculture is, in a word, flourishing in the 
city.

A growing number of residents who, as the Buffalo News 
reports, "a taste for local food, a passion for living sustainably and a 
devotion to ensuring everyone has access to healthy, affordable food," have 
started urban farms in several once-empty lots on both 
the city's East and West Sides. And this growing season, the level of 
city farming is reaching new levels.

A group of young folk thereabouts in 
Buffalo took to buying vacant lots on Michigan Avenue and Peckham Streets. 
They've teamed up with others from yonder across town to form a farming 
cooperative, in fact. They aim to poll enough resources and skills to grow 
enough food to feed them and sell the excess at market stands they will 
establish.

Nobel, ingenious and entrepreneurial. All from the fruits 
(vegetables?) of a little labor of love.

Government catching on - and 
catching up

Normally, having government get involved in much of 
anything spells doom for the project, but in this case it might actually be a 
good thing. And, as it turns out, a necessary one at that.

In response to 
the growing numbers of urban farms, city officials have developed a "Green 
Code," which is a total revamp of Buffalo zoning regulations that deal with 
everything from beekeeping in one's backyard to selling produce grown by 
locals.

"It's amazing actually," Picard told the paper. "It's so exciting 
now to see it start to be paid attention to. Policy makers and the movers and 
shakers are getting a handle on how this can be an economic development driver, 
a way to solve food security issues, a way to employ young people, and how it 
brings people together."

And like taters on Wilson Street, Picard's 
project has grown exponentially from its humble, ahem, roots, nearly a 
decade ago. Lot after vacant lot is being transformed into, well, 
productive land. Moreover, the concept is expanding into education as 
well.

One group, PUSH Buffalo, through its Growing Green 
youth initiative, young people are taught agriculture as well as business and 
job skills. In fact, the initiative has employed more than 400 young folks 
since 
it began.

"It also runs a farm stand and a mobile market in the summer 
and has ventured into tilapia farming," said the paper.

A real 
growth industry

Like weeds in the onions, the effort is 
spreading.

In fact, more and more city residents are applying to 
Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo, a group that helps facilitate community 
gardens on city-owned vacant lots, so they can grow veggies like zucchini, 
tomatoes and peppers instead of just flowers and shrubs.

Indeed, those 
who are transforming the city into a huge farming community - if that's even 
possible - often see themselves as rebels with a cause. They call 
themselves Farmer Pirates (as in, Arrrrrr!) because they see themselves 
as fighting against the corporate food system.

They even have a song. 
Sung to the tune of "Home on the Range," the first stanza goes like 
this:

Home, home in the 'hood. There are things that I'd change if I 
could. Like taking the waste in this limited space and growing a product that's 
good.

Nothing like vacant-lot corn on the cob to spruce up a 
mid-summer barbeque.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/buffalo/article812819.ece

http://www.urbanfarm.org/

http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/ 

Learn more: 
http://www.naturalnews.com/035738_urban_agriculture_New_York_cities.html?goback=%2Egde_1758727_member_112246621#ixzz1uTTVCrxq
 Thanks for reading,

TOM LofftLiberty Village, MDwhere local community agriculture is thriving.