Lately I've been talking a lot with people about local food and why people should care about urban agriculture and gardening. Overall, most people like fresh food and they would like to eat it so long as it was as easy to get as not fresh food, which it currently isn't. I'm working at new local design firm (Community Food Lab) that is trying to figure out with design and systems thinking what changes need to occur to make that happen. So I'm posting this becuase I'm curious what tww thinks about local food and local food issues.

And because one of Community Food Lab's current projects is to promote local food through a booklet series. We're launching the series through Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2021830921/open-food-making-local-food-open-accessible) and I figured y'all should known about it.

Overall, what say you? should the structure of how we buy and eat food change?

11/27/2013 3:34:44 PM

Urban soil and air is filthy, hopelessly polluted by hundreds of years of industrial waste. I don't want to eat anything grown in urban areas. It's also very inefficient in terms of yield. Large farms are inherently better.

11/27/2013 3:37:25 PM

Well, smc most urban farmers are heavy composters, they aren't using urban soil directly and are often either creating raised bed systems or totally bringing health back to vacant land. As far as air pollution, you might have a fair point, though I'm not sure what direct affect that has on most plants considering most of us are content to eat fruits and veggies that have been sprayed down with chemicals.

I'm very curious about a discussion of efficiency between small and large farms. I mean, the prevailing opinion of the last 50 years has been the bigger farms are more efficient yields (depending on the crop) but this alos leads to massive inefficiencies in terms of transportation and cost and other values. I mean, isn't it more efficient to get a tomato from a plant in your front yard then driving to the grocery store to get one that has been shelved and branded by a company and transported from where it was warehoused after being transported after harvest from where it was grown (potenitally hundreds of miles away)?

11/27/2013 3:50:06 PM

Keeping the population separated from their food sources is necessary in maintaining social order in a totalitarian regime. This is how it should be, and will be crucial in crushing enemies of America during the coming unrest. Nothing shuts down protests like a little strategically-placed starvation.

Also, tomato plants are ugly and I don't really want any in my front yard. Cabbage, maybe.

11/27/2013 4:01:08 PM

oh, please don't crush my optimism!

11/27/2013 4:11:09 PM

Look, I've already said that I'd let you plant cabbage in my front yard. What more do you want? Brussels sprouts? No way. They creep me out. Like cabbages for elves. No sir.

11/27/2013 4:18:40 PM

Does your design firm take into account tradeoffs or do any type of economic research into the costs of growing your own food in an urban setting vs.

Quote :

"driving to the grocery store to get one that has been shelved and branded by a company and transported from where it was warehoused after being transported after harvest from where it was grown (potenitally hundreds of miles away)?"

i.e., how much in time and money does it cost for a non-farmer in an urban setting to grow 10 tomatoes versus the time and money it costs for the same person to buy 10 tomatoes from their local grocery store (assuming they have a local grocery store without getting into food desert issues...)?

[Edited on November 27, 2013 at 4:40 PM. Reason : ....]

11/27/2013 4:38:25 PM

I'd be more interested in replacing ornamental plants around urban buildings and parking lots with edible ones, rather than devoting entire lots of prime real estate to community gardens.

I know there are good reasons that plants like boxwood shrubs are used in these situations(ease of maintenance being high on the list I'm sure). However, aesthetically speaking, I'm open to experimentation. Perhaps area businesses are as well. A sidewalk lined with cabbages is actually quite lovely.

11/27/2013 7:30:45 PM

Is there a law against planting fruits and veggies in your front yard? I always admired the American front lawn since childhood, but then one day I watched a documentary one day on how stupid the system is. It wastes a zillion gallons every day, and is only for aesthetic purposes. Damn right. And then I also made a few trips to the UK in the past few years, and it is lovely to see how basically all houses have a back garden with various veggies and fruits. It is a veritable English tradition, and they take great pride in their little allotments. Why is it not like that in the US? If you are going to use water, why not grow something you can eat? Some of the most delicious plums and tomatoes I have ever had came from my in-laws' allotment in England.

I will see later if I can find that documentary.

11/28/2013 5:47:47 AM

If you want to garden in an urban environment, check out Detroit. They need to bulldoze the whole city and just start over with agriculture.

As far as locally sourced food, I would love to be able to get my food from locally grown sources. Unfortunately, most of it is a little too expensive.

11/28/2013 8:45:47 AM

^^ In some places, even outside of HOAs (which are notorious for rules against these sorts of things), there are indeed laws that prevent or vaguely gloss over having a garden in your front lawn:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/garden/gardeners-fight-with-neighbors-and-city-hall-over-their-lawns.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

11/28/2013 9:36:12 AM