Mass Urban

“In Organic-Hungry Hong Kong, Corn as High as an Elevator’s Climb

Mary Hui. October 3, 2012.

HONG KONG — Kimbo Chan knows all about the food scandals in China: the formaldehyde that is sometimes sprayed on Chinese cabbages, the melamine in the milk and the imitation soy sauce made from hair clippings. That is why he is growing vegetables on a rooftop high above the crowded streets of Hong Kong.

“Some mainland Chinese farms even buy industrial chemicals to use on their crops,” Mr. Chan said. “Chemicals not meant for agricultural uses at all.”

As millions of Hong Kong consumers grow increasingly worried about the purity and safety of the fruits, vegetables, meats and processed foods coming in from mainland China, more of them are striking out on their own by tending tiny plots on rooftops, on balconies and in far-flung, untouched corners of highly urbanized Hong Kong.

“Consumers are asking, will the food poison them?” said Jonathan Wong, a professor of biology and the director of the Hong Kong Organic Resource Center. “They worry about the quality of the food. There is a lack of confidence in the food supply in China.”

Organic food stores are opening across the city, and there is growing demand in the markets for organic produce despite its higher prices. There are about 100 certified organic farms in Hong Kong. Seven years ago, there were none.

There is no official count of rooftop farms in Hong Kong, but they are clearly part of an international trend. New York has many commercialized rooftop farms established by companies like Gotham Greens, Bright Farms and Brooklyn Grange. In Berlin, an industrial-size rooftop vegetable and fish farm is in the pipeline. In Tokyo, a farm called Pasona O2 takes urban farming a step further: Vegetables are grown not only on roofs, but also in what was an underground bank vault.

With 7.1 million people in one of the most densely populated cities on earth, Hong Kong has little farmland and almost no agricultural sector. The territory imports more than 90 percent of its food. Hong Kong is hooked on vegetables, and 92 percent of its supply comes from mainland China.

On a recent morning at one of Hong Kong’s bustling and chaotic fresh produce markets, known here as “wet markets,” a woman bought three Chinese squashes for a good price. “Vegetables are expensive nowadays,” she said wearily. “Even if I cared enough about organic food and worried about chemicals, there’s nothing I can really do about it.”

Via: The New York Times

Photo: Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse

10/9/12

“Cities Cultivate New Approaches to Urban Agriculture”

“By Kate Wolf on 17 August 2012

When the upscale cafeteria-style restaurant Forage opened in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood in early 2010, it did so with a new take on the “farm to table’” movement that’s slowly been gaining ground in California, as well as the rest of the country in recent years.

Forage features produce grown not only by local famers, but, most unprecedentedly, by urban farmers, inviting the latter to bring their backyard harvest to the restaurant for use in its kitchen (in exchange, growers receive market price or store credit). With a stack of positive reviews and a feature article in the Atlantic Monthly, Forage’s chef Jason Kim has gained national recognition for this concept. Despite its popularity, Forage’s “foraging program” was shut down by the Los Angeles County Health Department soon after its inception but has now been reinstated, as long as all participants get grower certified by the county at a fee of $63 dollars annually. And the restaurant is thriving.

That Kim’s fairly simple idea should have drawn so much attention and in many ways come off as radical, hints at an assumed division between the food found in cities and where that food comes from. California has been the most productive agricultural state in the country for over 50 years, but most of the production takes place in decidedly agricultural areas—in the Central Valley or Imperial County—not within a city’s limits.

Even with a grow-local movement that ultimately dates back to the environmentalism of the 1960s, big-city zoning codes have reinforced this rift.

According to Daniela Aceves of the food sustainability advocacy group Roots of Change, in San Francisco: “Zoning policies exist in the first place because of the belief in incompatible land uses.” Activists like Aceves contend that, in cities throughout California, these codes are now proving outdated, keeping out desirable uses, as more and more people turn to agriculture in urban areas for both personal and financial sustenance, to reduce carbon footprint or simply for lack of better options for access to fresh produce and animal products. Many proponents also contend that city-grown foods can help cut down on traffic and greenhouse gas emissions, because of reduced distances from field to table.

A spate of legislation throughout the state in the last two years reflects this trend.

In June of 2010, the Los Angeles city council passed an amendment to its 1946 general plan, which indirectly outlawed the cultivation of anything other than vegetables for sale off-site. Written at the behest of an embattled flower farmer in Silver Lake and informally dubbed the “Fruit and Flowers Freedom Act,” the bill, introduced by Council President Eric Garcetti in 2009, sought to define truck gardening to include berries, flowers, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, ornamental plants, nuts and seedlings, essentially ensuring the legality of small-scale agriculture throughout the city by clearly addressing the previously murky term.

“In Los Angeles, there’s definitely been a growth of interest in locally-grown food, and I was proud to author an ordinance that clarified city policy on urban farming. L.A. has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to sustainable living,” said Garcetti, himself an avowed gardener.

Other recent changes throughout California, include a 2011 ordinance passed by the City of Santa Monica that allows backyard beekeeping on single-family residential properties, allotting a maximum of two hives per residence to be registered with Santa Monica’s Animal Control Office.”

Via: California Redevelopment and Planning Report

08/31/12

“Farmscape Brings Urban Agriculture to Los Angeles

Zak Stone. June 25, 2012

In a dry and sunny city like Los Angeles, planting grass is one of the more useless ways to use your property. It takes a lot of water to grow and it’s expensive—but beyond that, what’s the point when the climate supports much more interesting flora, like succulents, and delicious ones, like fruits and vegetables? A company called Farmscape is proving that there’s enough of an appetite for farming on residential land to turn the proposition into a high-growth business. The less-than-four-year-old company has 12 full-time employees—including seven farmers who receive a living wage plus healthcare—and is looking to keep growing.

“One of the things that people don’t talk about when they talk about the food system is who is working,” says Rachel Bailin, Farmscape’s marketing manager. It’s often poorly paid and vulnerable migrant workers. But the company is changing that by bringing farm labor out into the open, into the yards of city-dwellers and businesses. So far they’ve installed more than 300 urban farms throughout the L.A. area and maintain 150 of them weekly.

Projects range from a rooftop garden on a downtown Los Angeles highrise to small plots for families. An exciting project in the works is a three-quarter acre-sized farm for a restaurant in the West San Fernando Valley. And the diversity of the projects is echoed by the diversity of their clients. “When we first started, we expected that our clients would be of a higher income level and would be two-parent working families,” says Bailin. Instead, Farmscape has been delighted to build gardens for preschool teachers, single mothers, and institutions and businesses that want employee gardens as perks.”

Via: GOOD Magazine

06/27/12

Mass Urban

“Cities Cultivate New Approaches to Urban Agriculture”

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