It is a truth well documented that community gardens foster unity among neighbors, but Germany’s Stiftung Interkultur has taken this logic a step further in the creation of its Intercultural Gardens. Communities in Berlin, Gottingen, Hamburg, and Munich (among others) are home to large and diverse immigrant populations, often living in close proximity. To encourage interaction and community spirit between German residents of all extractions, the Stiftung Interkultur has built a series of community gardens in which residents can share their gardening skills and horticultural knowledge with one another. The idea was born out of recognition that social exclusion plagued many new immigrants to Germany. Further, members of the discussions at Stiftung Interkultur felt that environmental and sustainable eating considerations were directed at the middle class, causing a secondary level of isolation that affected the health and eating practices of urban immigrants.

Gardening is an ideal tool to combat these institutionalized conditions because it provides a level playing field, with immigrants from places as disparate as Vietnam, Tajikistan and Bosnia finding value in the unique skills they can contribute and common ground surrounding agricultural practices that transcend nationality and culture. Many of the participants come from agricultural communities and can use the garden to keep old traditions alive. Even those who do not participate in the gardening itself are invited to enjoy the space as a public arena in which to socialize with neighbors.

Gardening participants believe that the approach of the Intercultural Gardens works because the procedures at the gardens are elastic: new participants are not ‘taught’ how to garden, rather their input is required to help the garden flourish. While they spend most of their time adapting to a new culture, immigrants can apply long-held skills to this important, neighborly endeavor.

For more information, see the Stiftung Interkultur website.

(Photo courtesy of Stiftung Interkultur)

Walking through the landscape of downtown San Francisco a visitor might notice an abundance of empty lots, but it would be a mistake to assume that these are pieces of public property. Instead, much of this property belongs to developers who are waiting out the long and complicated process of obtaining builiding permits. The San Francisco Permaculture Guild wants to benefit from this potentially fortuitous inaction by creating temporary, shifting tenant gardens.

A tenant garden is traditionally a rented growing space, but the guild’s plan diverges on the issue of payment. Instead of charging urban gardeners, landlords will donate the use of their space to the guild on a temporary basis until development begins. At that time, the guild will have ten days to disassemble the garden and turn it over to the developers. The organic crops grown on the land in the meantime would be donated to food banks, soup kitchens and area residents. Some plans would see these crops sold at farmer’s market, with proceeds returning to operation costs.

The guild’s leader, Kevin Bayuk has written to the owners of several desirable lots, but it is unknown how many of them will go for it. From the developer’s perspective, there are liability issues to having strangers using their land. Why would a landowner make themselves vulnerable to lawsuits? But Bayuk and his group believe they can work out a no-liability contract, just as many community gardens have. The community garden model is a useful one in this instance, as the guild’s proposed land use is very similar in structure. Bayuk further envisions donated soil-testing and garden-planning services from local universities and donated water services from the municipality. Aside from legal concerns, there are advantages for the landowners: beautifying the area raises real estate value, potentially increasing the landowner’s own property value. Developers also often have to pay for weeding and landscaping prior to beginning construction. The guild’s gardeners would of course offer this service for free.

While there will likely be hidden costs and bureaucratic roadblocks to the project, the overall idea is an exciting and logical one. So much so, that the San Francisco Chronicle recently profiled Bayuk. Let’s hope this dialogue continues and the project gets underway.

(Photo by Matt Jalbert)

Behold Gallus Domesticus, the backyard chicken and latest slow food phenomenon. Traumatized by images of chicken warehouses, disgusted by food recalls and perhaps even longing for animal companionship, urban dwellers are becoming enthusiastic chicken owners. Urban Chickens is their gathering place, Backyard Poultry their manifesto and Mad City Chicken their rallying cry. But just where does one procure a baby chicken? How many eggs can a person expect? And what level of companionship are we talking here? All this and more after the jump.

Chickens make good pets for a number of reasons, according to their enthusiasts. These reasons divide neatly into three categories: usefulness, companionship and environmental friendliness. Chickens are obviously useful in their production of eggs, which are collected daily. Each hen lays up to four eggs a week and so only three birds are needed for a weekly dozen. Chickens also like to forage for seeds and bugs, making them ideal lawn caretakers - they keep grass short and gobble up weeds and pests before they can reek havoc. Their excrement is particularly nitrogen-rich and makes nutritious, valuable compost.

In terms of companionship, chickens are low-maintenance - needing minimal grooming and attention. They are generally mellow and friendly to human contact. According to those who own them, they have distinct personalities and show affection. Contrary to public perception, chickens are quiet animals - provided you don’t have a rooster.

The environmental benefits are obvious: no trucks necessary to get eggs to your house. The lawncare services they provide replace toxic weed killers, pesticides and plant growers. Additionally, chickens can digest most human food, so they make excellent “garborators” - eating scraps and turning them into nitrogen-rich manure.

My Pet Chicken - a home chicken retailer and resource site also mentions the ethical benefits of saving a chicken from a factory farm, where they might otherwise end up.

I buy my eggs from an organic chicken farmer at my local farmer’s market - what I had previously considered the best possible egg-buying scenario. But this still requires a weekly 106-mile round trip drive for the farmer. That’s 5,512 miles per year - and that’s a good scenario. Imagine the carbon impact of grocery eggs. I shudder to think of the carbon expenditure of merely refrigerating and lighting them in a superstore glass case.

And for those of you concerned about the potential health risks, bird flu expert Dr. Michael Greger spoke to the filmmakers of Mad City Chicken where he assured them that small-scale bird tending would not increase the risk of transferring avian flu to human populations. On the contrary, outdoor free-range chickens enjoy lower stress levels and better health. It is the cramped factory chickens that are a worry: their immune systems are lowered by stress and the high density of the population in a factory chicken coop means the disease can spread quickly.

While certainly not for everyone, backyard chickens are a well-rounded option for many households. Luckily, a growing number of cities are modifying bans on livestock ownership to exclude chickens. Madison, Wisconsin, New York City and the Bay Area are just a few of the newly avo-hospitable cities. Make sure your city is chicken-friendly by writing to municipal officials in your area. With so many cities jumping on board, the legislation is sure to have a domino effect.

(Photo courtesy of My Pet Chicken, an extraordinary resource for potential and current chicken owners and the chicken-curious).

Urban Agriculturalist is a series on the ways city and suburb dwellers use their land as a food resource.

What would you say if a farmer knocked on your door and asked to rent your backyard to grow raddichio or sweet peas? My guess is, you might inquire about his medication. But renting backyards is exactly what Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan started doing when they realized that their small-scale urban crops fetched a far higher profit than the large-scale vegetable growing that they did on a 20-acre farm north of the city.

People can’t believe their success with urban plots, says Vandersteen, “They think it’s too much work, but the truth is, this is much less work than mechanized, large-scale farming. We used to have a tractor to hill potatoes and cultivate, but we find it’s more efficient to do things by hand.” With fewer pests and gentler winds, empty urban lots sound downright ideal. But how could it be more profitable?

The operation costs are really low. City water management provides irrigation, there is plenty of compost around, the urban setting repels pests, and the market is not far away. With only 1/2 an acre, meted out in small plots, all the harvesting can be done by hand. And because the plots are usually unused anyway, rental costs are minimal. Many people volunteer their backyards in exchange for fresh produce and those who charge do so minimally.

So, less work and more profit sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Especially when you consider the environmental benefits, including minimal transportation to market, reuse of developed land instead of cutting new forest, and less machinery used to cultivate. So far, there are two prototype half-acre farms, Philadelphia’s Somerton Tanks Farm and Wally’s Urban Market Garden in Saskatoon. But Satzewich and Vandersteen are trying to change that with their company, SPIN.

SPIN stands for Small Plot Intensive - a farming system that maximizes profits by focusing on one crop, one small piece of land. The company offers guidance to first time growers - referred to here as “first-generation farmers” - on how to maximize profits and land use. You can download farming guides based on your plans: there is one for hobby farming, which is based on a model of $10-20,000 gross annual sales for each 1/8 acre; or you can get a guide for the Deluxe Farm Model, a $65,000 operation on 1 acre of land. There are specialty guides for different crops - leafy greens, salad mix, garlic, flowers or carrots and potatoes. Along with technical advice, SPIN offers guidance in marketing, work schedules or investments for the would-be urban farmer.

Hopefully this idea will catch on. With a smart, franchise-inspired business plan and a significant amount of money to be made, we could all see a spike in local, homegrown produce in the near future.

(Photo Courtesy of SPIN)

The Urban Agriculturalist is a series on the ways city and suburb dwellers use their land as a food resource.

Toronto-based Food Share is an organization that I really admire. They take a wholistic approach to improving inner-city nutrition, employing principles of locavorism, co-op structure, and progressive, action-based learning.

I was browsing their site the other day and happened upon an initiative of theirs, which focuses on incorporating food studies into the required curriculum in Toronto’s public schools. Food studies and school gardens are nothing new for private, well-funded schools and highly-publicized individual programs, but an integrated curriculum in mainstream schools is a new phenomenon and a hopeful one that is inclusive of everyone.

Food Share’s Farm to Table program offers short term lesson plans, teacher training, and consulting services to start school gardens and permanent food studies curriculum. The short term lesson plans include a full farm to table experience - working the vegetable garden, harvesting ingredients, cooking and consuming. Food Share’s lesson plans include a food source curriculum in which students take a supermarket tour, map food miles, and visit local farms. Another lesson plan focuses on indoor and outdoor composting principles. But Food Share also offers teacher support to assist with designing school gardens and creating lesson plans from them. So far,

Though it is a one-off, we should have a look at the more established, comprehensive farm to table program enacted by Alice Waters, famed chef of Chez Panisse and patron saint of the NoCal food revolution. The Edible Schoolyard belongs to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, a public elementary school in Berkeley, CA. The comprehensive vegetable garden is an integrated part of each grade’s curriculum - from life sciences to nutrition to ecology to cooking to agricultural policy - and provides the school with fresh lunches everyday.

It seems that Farm to Table programs achieve a difficult balance between the hard and social sciences. While the curriculum incorporates environmental studies, agricultural ecology, and nutrition, the goal of such studies is to instill an understanding of food issues and to encourage thoughtful eating. Technical skills of planting, harvesting and cooking are exercises towards the larger goal of becoming a group of thoughtful eaters. This seems to work. With an understanding of where food comes from, what constitutes good food and how lifecycles work, graduates of programs like the Edible Schoolyard or Food Share inevitably enter the world as more informed, aware eaters. One 6th grader named Christopher is quoted on the Edible Schoolyard website, saying: “Yesterday we went to the garden and harvested chard, amaranth, and joi choy. Then we went into the kitchen and cooked noodles with them. It was delicious!” I’m impressed, though not really sure what joi choy is.

(Photo courtesy of Food Share)

Urban Agriculturalist is a series on the ways city and suburb dwellers use their land as a food resource.

Struck by the high carbon cost of sending food to dense urban areas and communities in extreme climates, Andrew Bodlovich and Hogan Gleeson devised a highly efficient, waste-free aquaponic growing system in which vegetable crops and freshwater fish benefit from a symbiotic relationship. Each ecoCity Farm the size of one city block can sustainably feed up to 300 people with no waste, little water and minimal effort.

Barramundi, perch or other freshwater fish and crustaceans are raised in large tanks to harvest size. The wastewater generated from the population is filtered through a patented “bio-converter” which mineralizes any compound that could be dangerous to plant or fish health (e.g. bacterias, feces). The bio-converter works with vermiculture – colonies of waste-eating worms that turn undesirable compounds into plant-ready nutrients. After getting the worm treatment, the used water nourishes the vegetables. The veggies use up the minerals and nutrients from the fish water, effectively filtering it to its original, clean state. This newly plant-filtered water is sent back to the fish tanks.

This system of recycling allows for a zero-waste production plan. The system also conserves water at unprecedented levels – it uses only 5% of the amount of water used on a traditional farm of the same output. The co-founders attest that the only water lost is that which is drunk up by the plants themselves. This makes the system “drought proof.” And not a minute too soon for Australia, it seems.

The ecoCity Farm is also a highly scalable project because it is so easily and cheaply replicated anywhere in the world. The unique technology requires an IT team, but this seems to be the only major non-local operation cost. Anyone can purchase a modular ecoCity Farm kit to fit the available space. Because the crops are built in a shelf structure, even the smallest farms can produce a high yield. The farm can be assembled from the shipment and readily available local components.

The system works anywhere in the world because it uses no chemical or synthetic compounds and produces no waste. An eco-lodge on the edge of a protected forest or a scuba resort on a small island could both use this system to lessen their impact, for example.

So far, the only downside seems to be the use of energy, which is the same as a conventional aquaculture system. However, the prototype ecoCity Farm in Nimbin, Australia uses a solar panel to heat the fish tanks and gets its energy for automatic pumps and rotation devices from the alternative energy grid.

Another possible objection could be the ethical implications of raising fish in tanks. My feeling is that a fish in non-toxic tank water is fairing better than a fish in toxic river water, but food ethics is a personal line that every eater must draw for him/herself.

(Photo courtesy of Rivendell Organics)

Los Angeles has a dearth of publicly owned fruit trees, but who owns the fruit they produce? The three activists behind Fallen Fruit dare to ask, “Is this my banana?” By their estimate, 22 different crops can be harvested from public land trees in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles alone. Among these are citrus fruits, quava, walnuts and even prickly pear cactus pads, which can be turned into the Mexican delicacy, nopalitos. Their mission is to encourage city planners and officials to plant only fruit trees as part of municipal landscaping. Public funds and worker hours go into maintaining municipal land, so why not have these plants also produce edible harvest? Fallen Fruit also organizes fruit harvesting events, usually at night and usually in plastic lab coats for effect.

A less political example is the Fruit Tree Project of Vancouver - a community initiative that connects residents who have fruit trees on their property with soup kitchens and other community organizations that help eradicate hunger. The group also hosts canning workshops in an effort to encourage local eating during the winter months. The movement has an additional benefit: it is sponsored by Nelson Bear Aware, an organization that tries to eliminate human-bear conflict. It turns out, the spoiled fruit from urban fruit trees has been attracting bears for decades, exposing them to the possibility of being shot or run over.

The benefits of urban fruit gleaning are catching on in other places, too. Major cities like Portland and Seattle are home to new harvesting collectives and major suburbs like Hamilton, Ontario are also getting in on the action. Unfortunately, there is not yet a database of urban fruit harvesting collectives, but it would be easy to google. Of course, better yet, start a harvesting effort of your own. Lure promises of access from neighborly fruit tree owners by offering to pay them back in homemade preserves. Collect neighbors and friends once a month to pick trees that grow on public property. Or why not take a page from the, begoggled Fallen Fruit fellows? Lobby local politicians to include fruit tree planters in their zone plans. Here is an opportunity to foster community spirit, minimize hunger and encourage local eating all at the same time.

(Photo from Fallen Fruit)