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Urban Farming, a Bit Closer to the Sun (green roofs)
Marian Burros, New York Times
… Aeries are cropping up on America’s skylines, filled with the promise of juicy tomatoes, tiny Alpine strawberries and the heady perfume of basil and lavender. High above the noise and grime of urban streets, gardeners are raising fruits and vegetables. Some are simply finding the joys of backyard gardens several stories up, others are doing it for the environment and some because they know local food sells well.
City dwellers have long cultivated pots of tomatoes on top of their buildings. But farming in the sky is a fairly recent development in the green roof movement, in which owners have been encouraged to replace blacktop with plants, often just carpets of succulents, to cut down on storm runoff, insulate buildings and moderate urban heat.
A survey by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, which represents companies that create green roofs, found the number of projects its members had worked on in the United States grew by more than 35 percent last year. In total, the green roofs installed last year cover 6 million to 10 million square feet, the group said.
Steven Peck, its president, said he had no figures for how many of the projects involved fruits and vegetables, but interest is growing. “When we had a session on urban agriculture,” he said of a meeting of the group in Atlanta last month, “it was standing room only.” Mr. Peck said the association is forming a committee on rooftop agriculture.
(16 June 2009)
A food system without fossil fuels (Michael Bomford Interview) – audio
Jason Bradford, Reality Report via Global Public Media
What does a modern, productive food system without fossil fuels look like and how might we get there? In this episode of The Reality Report, host Jason Bradford speaks with Michael Bomford of Kentucky State University. Mike discusses his research on the energy and labor inputs of different farming methods and covers much of the information contained in the booklet “The Food and Farming Transition” co-authored with Richard Heinberg. You can also follow Mike Bomford at his blog, where he updates his research results and comments on news and academic papers related to energy and the food system.
(16 June 2009)
Michael Bomford and Jason Bradford are Post Carbon fellows.
Philly’s fresh-food triumph: Nationally admired program opens supermarkets for underserved
Dave Davies, Philadelphia Daily News
WHO SAYS WE can’t get anything right in Philadelphia?
An innovative effort to bring supermarkets and fresh food to poor neighborhoods has been so successful, it has spawned imitators elsewhere and earned its creators a visit to the White House.
“We met for an hour-and-a-half with a bunch of [President] Obama’s domestic policy people,” said Philadelphia state Rep. Dwight Evans of his June 5 trip to Washington with other partners in the program. “They asked us to give them some ideas on whether this could become a federal program.”
Called the Fresh Food Financing Initiative, the program has combined state funding with private money and the expertise of two Philly-based nonprofit entities to develop more than 60 food markets in under-served communities across Pennsylvania.
In Philadelphia alone, it has brought eight supermarkets (six open, two coming soon), and has funded improvements at more than two dozen smaller stores so that they can sell fresh fruits and vegetables.
(18 June 2009)
