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

Under the guidance of eighth grade history teacher Cate Arnold, students in the BLS Youth Climate Action Network (or Youth C.A.N.)are spearheading an initiative to build a 70,000 square foot green facility on the school’s roof.  The design is a collaboration between the students and pro-bono professional Gail Sullivan at Studio G Architects. It includes a weather station, a greenhouse, outdoor classrooms, solar panels, and wind turbines. Not deterred by the hefty multi-million dollar price tag, students have already received substantial awards, pledges and challenge grants to turn the design into reality.  Twenty-eight solar panels and 350 trays of sedum have already been installed, and the outdoor classrooms and elevator to the roof are scheduled to be completed by fall 2011.

While the project began with the question of how BLS could reduce its carbon footprint, the vision that has grown out of it has become much bigger.  The Youth C.A.N. students aim to use their green roof as a teaching facility, not just for students at BLS, but for students at schools across the region. In addition, they have already convinced five local colleges to join in their own green roof teaching pursuits and have participated in numerous high profile national conferences and events to highlight the importance of addressing climate change.

Founded in 2007, BLS Youth C.A.N. has been profiled by many national news outlets, including the Boston Globe and the Today Show. All the attention is well deserved, considering the scope of the project and the successes they have achieved so far. However, what stands out to me is not just the state of the art facility, or the massive grants, or the comprehensive sustainability curriculum, it is the connection that underlies all of these things: these students get it. They get climate change and its impact on society, but they also understand how to translate that knowledge into action. Not just their own action, but the actions of others as well, whether they are dedicating their time, pulling out their checkbooks, or anything else that engages with the issues of sustainability.

Ultimately, the nation’s sustainability challenges can’t all be solved by putting high-tech green roofs and solar panels on top of all of our buildings. Much of it will need to be done in less glamorous ways- by replacing inefficient boilers, caulking holes that allow heat to escape from buildings, turning lights off when there is no one in a room, or simply driving less. However, it is the conversation that these students are inspiring with their grand vision that will likely have a much larger impact than the physical structure alone ever could.

Boston Latin student and Youth C.A.N. member Rebecca Park summed up the spirit of the project in her interview with the Today Show when she said: “environmental activism in general is not just about stopping climate change, it is about building stronger, better societies.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. It is a reminder that every day people- even those that aren’t even old enough to vote yet- can make as significant impact in what can sometimes feel like an enormous global challenge.

Earlier today, I had the pleasure of sitting down with my friend and fellow urban planning student Heidi Exline one last time before she heads off to India for nine months. In less than two weeks, she will be leaving for Ludhiana (a city of around a million people several hours north of Delhi) to study community food security on a Fulbright Fellowship. This spring, Heidi finished her Master of Urban Planning (MUP) at Hunter College with a concentration in sustainable community food systems. She is just one of the many CUNY students and alums doing noteworthy work, both in New York City and beyond.

Heidi’s interest in food didn’t begin in India. It didn’t even begin in New York City for that matter. Heidi’s love of food began as a child, growing up on a farm in Iowa. While she wasn’t at all interested in the corn and soybeans her father grew, she did love cooking with him. She took that love of food with her when she moved to New York City.

During her first four years here, Heidi was employed as a social worker, indulging her interest in food by cooking and eating out at New York City’s many restaurants.  However, after four years in social work, Heidi still hadn’t found her niche. She turned to food full time and accepted a job working at Murray’s Cheese.  It was then that she decided to pursue food as a career, and spent a summer in Vermont learning to make goat cheese.

Upon returning to New York City, Heidi found it hard to find a job in the cheese world that fit her interests. At the same time, her interests in community education and the non-profit sector began to grow and she eventually landed a job at City Harvest. For the next four years, Heidi enjoyed immersing herself in food. Through City Harvest, she worked with regional farmers and food rescue programs, while reading books about food and taking food-related classes at Hunter College. Two years ago, Heidi returned to school full time to pursue a graduate degree in planning, constructing a self-designed concentration in community food security.  While in school, she also worked on food issues and policy for Speaker Christine Quinn’s office.

As Heidi headed towards graduation, she began looking for opportunities to work in her field abroad. With the sponsorship of a professor from the Punjab Agricultural University, Heidi eventually applied to and won a Fulbright Fellowship in Ludhiana. While there, her goal is to piece together the stories of the many residents of the region into a community food assessment that will empower the community to improve food security and access.

For herself, Heidi is also hoping to learn about the connections between food and agriculture in India and the U.S. In her words: “our food system doesn’t happen in a silo – no pun intended.” Learning about these connections will inform and strengthen the work she does in India, as well as the work she will do here in the States upon her return. In the end, she wants to better understand urban-rural linkages and how cities can support sustainable regional food systems.  Understanding these sorts of linkages and how they can contribute to sustainability is something that we are all about here at the Institute. We wish Heidi the best of luck in her pursuit.

Brooklyn Window Farm

Today I had one of those days where the stars aligned. It just so happened that those stars were food and technology.

I checked my Facebook page today and found that a friend had invited me to “like” the group Brooklyn Homesteader, an information sharing online resource about urban agriculture recently started by hobbyist farmer Megan Paska from Greenpoint. Usually I ignore these sorts of messages, but being an urban ag enthusiast, I had to accept.

Later, I received an email from the Comfood listserv (sponsored by the Community Food Security Coalition and administered through the Tufts School of Nutrition Science and Policy) that included a link to the blog food + tech connect, about food and technology. It includes an interesting post about the importance open data in agriculture.

This all got me thinking about the role of technology, specifically digital media, in food production. Over the past century, with urbanization and the mechanization of agriculture, the share of Americans making their living from farming has dwindled from 90% in the late 1800s to around 2% today. With it, has gone much of the cultural knowledge about how to grow food.

Agriculture in the U.S. faces many challenges, most of which can’t be solved by digital media (or at least digital media alone). Yet, one of the things that dawned on me as I mulled over these various online farming resources is just how much of a contribution digital media can make in preserving institutional agricultural memory. Sites such as Brooklyn Homesteader are popping up across the web to assist everyone from hardcore gardeners to urban residents curious about how to grow their first tomato. Others go further by offering bricks-and-mortar opportunities for people to get their hands into the dirt. For instance, type “farm internships” into your search bar and pages upon pages of options come up.

This online urban agriculture movement is distinct because of the power of information sharing over the web. Hobby farmers in New York can swap ideas with beekeepers in Vancouver or food security activists in Detroit. Meanwhile, anyone with access to an internet connection anywhere in the world can learn from their experiences, as well as tell their own stories. While urban farms and community gardens in New York will never look like those in California, the ability of farmers across the country and the globe to instantaneously share their experiences is truly revolutionary.

If you have never been to the Science Barge (I hadn’t before Saturday), it is definitely worth the trip. The Barge is a zero net carbon emissions floating urban farm, powered by solar, wind and biodiesel. Staff at the Barge grow a variety of produce, including leafy greens, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes and melons. Most of the produce grown there is done so through a closed hydroponic system, meaning that it uses a fraction of the water that conventional agriculture would use to grow the same amount of food.

However, the main goal of the Science Barge is not food production. Rather, it is education. Groundwork Hudson Valley is committed to community empowerment, and views ongoing community building efforts as the path to a sustainable future for individuals, communities and the planet.

As part of this mission, Director of Science Barge Education Gwen Hill runs a range of programs for youth both on and off the Barge, teaching them about urban agriculture, ecosystems, and sustainability. In addition to running educational programming at the Barge, Gwen is also finishing her Master of Geography at Hunter College. She is currently writing her thesis on distribution networks for local, sustainable meat in New York City.

Gwen is one of the many CUNY students pioneering new professional tracks in the sustainability field that would have been hard to imagine even a decade ago. Her work encourages youth in Yonkers and the surrounding area to rethink food and sustainability through the interactive educational experiences available on the Barge. However, as you’re never too young to keep learning the Barge is open to visitors of all ages on Saturdays and Sundays from 12-6pm during the growing season and is easily accessible from the Yonkers stop on the Metro North Hudson line. For detailed directions, check out the Groundwork Hudson Valley website.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a panel talk on urban agriculture and sustainable food entitled “Secret Gardens: Powerful Plots in Surprising Places” at the NYU Fales Library. The panel covered a wide range of professions, from journalist to professor and chef to farmer. Panelists tackled the big questions of where food comes from, what constitutes a farm and, in the words of moderator and food consultant Clark Wolf, “what is really going on” in our food system in the U.S.

While all of the panelists had very interesting things to say on the topics of agriculture and food, speaker George Reis’ comments came the closest to capturing the spirit of the talk’s title. As the Supervisor of Sustainable Landscaping at NYU, Reis is responsible for all the gardens at NYU. He joked that, at first, his job doesn’t sound that impressive. NYU is a dense urban campus with little green space compared to the rolling grassy quads of many other universities.  What could he possibly do with gardens at NYU?

Reis’ answer: a great deal.

He and his team of student gardeners have planted upwards of forty native plant species in tiny individual garden plots around the NYU campus. Yet again he asked, why bother? These hyper-contained garden spaces are seemingly dwarfed by their urban surroundings: huge buildings, concrete, and cars flying by. What chance does a garden stand?

Reis’ answer: a big one.

Reis uses these native plants to connect people to their environment, contending that these small spaces can have a big impact because they have a big audience, (referring directly to the 1980 classic by William H. Whyte, The Social Life of Urban Spaces).  Reis got involved in gardening for this very reason; he saw how powerfully and viscerally people respond to native blooms while walking down New York City streets.  This inspired him to keep planting.

Reis is not alone, with gardeners and urban farmers across the city tilling New York’s urban soils. They do so for beauty, for utility and for many reasons in between. However, wherever they do, the image of green growing juxtaposed against hard concrete edges and huge buildings is enough to raise a litany of questions about our urban environment and the place of this green growth within it.

A ten by ten plot of tomatoes growing on a corner somewhere in the city may not be able to feed the neighborhood, but it can start a conversation. According to Reis, therein lies the power of these “powerful plots in surprising places.” This little bit of green is exactly the surprise that New Yorkers need to catch their attention and inspire them to think about their environment in new and different ways.

Hydroponics and the City: New Food for a New Age
1-3:30PM, Saturday June 26th, 2010

Creating sustainable local food systems might mean changing how we grow food. Learn how some New Yorkers are growing local food with local resources. See The Science Barge — the only fully-functioning demonstration of renewable energy supporting sustainable hydroponic agriculture in NY — and all its green glory. Hear about Gotham Greens, the first commercial hydroponic greenhouse in NYC. Make a Window Farm so you can Research and Do It Yourself.

Featuring:
Jenn Nelkin-Greenhouse Director, Gotham Greens
Ted Ullrich- Window Farmsand DoTank: Brooklyn

Location:
The Science Barge, 99 Dock Street, Yonkers,
located on the Hudson River, just north of the Yonkers Pier.
Take the MetroNorth Railroad to Yonkers station.
Limited metered parking is available as well.
1PM, Saturday June 26th, 2010
This event is free but you must RSVP
to cmolnar@hunter.cuny.edu Limited to 30 People!!!!!

But what about the small scale tiny cracks in the concrete jungle that serve as brief reminders of the benefits and beauty of these other elements that often seem to evade us? How can we all play a role in finding space for those cracks? Two words: seed bombs. Last year, the Bed Stuy Meadows project worked as an intervention in this vein. And this year, the good people at DoTank in Brooklyn, are running an urban agriculture Do It Yourself workshop to teach the art of the seed bomb (as well as home composting and window farming. Full disclosure, I am helping out with compost skill share component.)

But this intervention, the GreenAid Change for Change seed bomb dispenser is just fabulous. What if this were in every store where chicklets and runts and gum balls were sold? What if children nagged their parents for a quarter so they could throw this gum ball shaped object onto the ground outside their house and see what came up in the cracks of asphalt or in the street tree bed? It could inspire wonder in younger urban children who are not necessarily exposed to the rites of spring in the same way as those outside of a city are.  And going back to the idea of beauty as utility, would it benefit everyone in the space–not just youngens–by creating spaces that promote a higher quality of life? Again, more research is critical. But this intervention takes a product that we are already used to as a consumer and retrofits it for the public good. I like it. Now, just to make them.

Composting may be the right thing to do for the environment, but it can be hard to get around the smell and the mess—particularly for urbanites without expansive yards. Much like the Daily Dump in India—which, by the way, looks to be thriving since our 2007 coverage—Compost Cab is a new service about to launch in Washington, DC, that can be called upon to handle all the dirty details.

DC-area consumers begin by signing up online. Once it launches, Compost Cab will then provide them with a standardized bin equipped with a sturdy, compostable bag liner. Each day clients will fill the bin with their organic material, and once a week—on a reliable, fuel-efficient schedule—Compost Cab will pick up the bag, leaving behind only a clean bin with a new liner. The cost is simply USD 8 per week per bin; no long-term commitments are required. Compost Cab’s primary composting partner is Engaged Community Offshoots (ECO), a seed-stage urban farm in College Park, Md., that uses finished compost to grow natural, nutritious food for local kids.

At least as interesting is that clients who have been with Compost Cab for nine months or longer can claim some finished soil in return. Specifically, for every 50 pounds of organics the company collects from them, they can receive five pounds of fresh compost and one pound of worm castings in exchange. Those who choose not to claim their share, meanwhile, can ask Compost Cab to donate it on their behalf to ECO. Compost Cab is a production of Agricity LLC, a Washington, DC-based company focused on sustainability.

Water Supply in Banglore, photo credit J. Gronwall via Stockholm Center

From the Stockholm Resilience Centre:

Following an intense study of agricultural ecosystems near Montreal, a new tool that enables the simultaneous analysis and management of a wide range of ecological services has been developed by Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne of McGill University´s Department of Geography, Elena Bennett of the McGill School of Environment, and centre researcher Garry Peterson.Risk of missing hidden ecosystem services
Environmental management typically focuses on nature´s resources like food, wildlife and timber, but can miss hidden ecosystem services such as water purification, climate moderation and the regulation of nutrient cycling.

The researchers show that ecosystems that maximized agriculture offer fewer hidden ecosystems services than more diverse agricultural landscapes. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on March 1, 2010.

- Landscapes that provide a lot of one services, such as pig production, can be costly because they have fewer of the hidden services, such as the regulation of nutrient pollution, which are also important to people, Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne says.

They also show that in some areas high amounts of agricultural production can go hand in hand with the production of other ecosystem services. The researchers framework can be used to help identify “best-practice areas” and contribute to developing effective resource policies.

Full post here.