Urban Food for Thought
School is back in session, and as promised, we will be bringing you all sorts of sustainability questions and stories to sink your teeth into. Speaking of food-for-thought (or just food for that matter) Grist recently ran a series of articles entitled “Feeding the City” that examine the intricate web of food production for (and in) urban areas throughout the country. The series delves deep into the urban food system, examining everything from urban food expenditures to the conversion of vacant urban land to productive vegetable plots.
Special attention is given to urban agriculture in the series. It explores the capacity of urban agriculture, not only in terms of tons produced, but also in less tangible outcomes such as community empowerment and education.
Urban farmer Annie Novak of Eagle Street Farm in Brooklyn sums up some of the more subtle benefits of growing food in the city in her interview for the series. When speaking about urban farming, she says:
“You work hard, and that is the most difficult and the most rewarding thing about it. This year, we’ve had one of the hottest summers that I’ve ever experienced. It’s been devastating to watch what that does to the plants. At the same time, the beauty of agriculture is that it comes in cycles. It gives you a real patience. That consciousness hopefully makes you a better environmental steward, because you have that long-term sensibility. How different that is from the way technology asks us to think today, with such immediate demands.”
The opening piece of the series, entitled “The History of Urban Agriculture Should Inspire Its Future,” is written by Grist Food editor Tom Philpott. In it, Philpott also identifies urban agriculture as a means of building more sustainable cities, and not simply in terms of offset carbon emissions from food miles. He recognizes the reality that cities will need larger foodsheds beyond their geographic boarders to feed their populations. But he also contends that “cities need not, and indeed likely cannot, continue as pure consumers of food and producers of waste. Intensive production of perishable vegetables, fertilized by composted food waste, can bring fresh produce to food deserts, provide jobs as well as opportunities for community organizing, and also shrink a city’s ecological footprint.”
Image Via Grist
