[Community_garden] Fwd: [food_justice] London Report on Visit to U.S. Urban Agriculture Projects

[eski333 at aol.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: James Godsil <godsil.james at gmail.com>
To: GFJI <growing_foodandjustice at lists.riseup.net>
Sent: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:29 am
Subject: [food_justice] London Report on Visit to U.S. Urban 
Agriculture Projects

Dear All,

Please let me know if you wish to read the entire report.
Growing food
in cities:
A report
of a visit to urban agriculture projects in the U.S.A.
by
Colin Buttery,
Royal Parks
Tony Leach,
London Parks and Green Spaces Forum
Catherine Miller,
Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens
Ben Reynolds,
London Food Link (Sustain)
Supported by
The U.S. Embassy
(a summary of previous reports:  the multiple benefits of urban 
agriculture including: 




the educational
  value of growing food, for adults as well as children;
appreciation of
  how food is produced as part of encouraging a healthy diet;
improvements in
  physical and mental health, as a result of regular outdoor activity,
  contact with nature, and the sense of achievement;
the empowerment
  of disadvantaged communities with useful skills,
and the importance
   of preserving green space in urban areas both for its social and 
environmental
  benefit




Contents 



Acknowledgements 



Summary
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….5

            Why grow food in cities?

            Background to the visit to the US cities 



2. City visits…………………………………………………………………………………7

      Milwaukee

      Growing
Power Community Food Center

            Maple Tree Community Garden

            Walnut Way

            Riverwest food co-op

      Chicago

            Growing Power

            Grant Park – Urban Agriculture Potager

            Chicago Avenue Community Garden Partnership

            Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance

            Chicago's Green City Market

            Homegrown Chicago

            Jackson Park

            Kendall College

            Chicago's Youth Program
            Growing Home
            Angelic Organics
      Chicago
Food Policy Advisory Council

      New
York
            Added Value – Red Hook Farm

            East New York Farms – United Community
Gardens

            NY Sunworks: The Science Barge 



3. What we learned ………………………………………………………………………….18

      Public
and private funding and access

      Laws
– animals and composting

      Fencing

      Growing
on concrete

      Aquaculture 



4. Opportunities for growing
more food in more cities………………………………………21

      Tree
planting

      Royal
Parks

      Allotments

      Under-utilised
spaces

            Parks

            Derelict council facilities

            Private gardens

            Social housing

      Alternative
growing spaces – roof gardens, beehives and

      mushrooms

      Commercial
growing

      Existing
expertise 


Appendix 1 The UK Delegation……………………………………………………………..25 



Appendix 2 Links…………………………………………………………………………....27 


Acknowledgements
This report, and the activities
it recounts, would not have been possible without a grant from the US
Embassy in London.  We thank them not only for their financial
support but also their vision in seeing the value of this work. 
London Food Link, which organised the trip, would also like to thank
the participants (and their organisations) for generously offering 
their
time, not only to visit the projects but also to write reports on their
return.  All the participants are also immensely grateful to all
the people and organisations in the USA, who not only provided 
invaluable
insight into how their urban agriculture projects work, but also warm
humour and generous hospitality to the travellers.  However, the
recommendations contained in this report reflect the views of the 
individuals
travelling from London, and not the organisations they represent, or
the people they met.

Summary 


This is a report of a visit
to urban food growing projects in the United States by a group of four
people from different organisations based in London.  It was organised
by Sustain's London Food Link officer, Ben Reynolds, and funded by
the US Embassy, who had previously brought Will Allen to London to talk
about his project, Growing Power, in the USA.   



The group visited an inspiring
range of projects in Milwaukee, Chicago and New York and noted a number
of similarities to and differences from urban agriculture initiatives
in London, including:
A commercial element
  to many of the US projects, which is much less common in the UK;
A more liberal situation
   in the US than in the UK to encourage composting, but less 
willingness
  than in the UK to include animals in some urban agriculture projects;
Different approaches
  to fencing and public access to projects, which varied within the US,
  depending on context;
Imaginative and
   productive ways of growing without access to subsoil, either in 
raised
  beds on hard surfaces or, in one case, in hydroponics on a barge;
Inspiring use of
  an holistic and sustainable approach to fish farming in an urban area
  which produces marketable quantities of tilapia.

 


The trip stimulated a number
of ideas for how to promote more food growing in more cities. 
These include:
Using the many possibilities
  of urban tree planting to promote traditional varieties of fruit and
  nuts;
Untapping the potential
  of both Royal Parks and other parks to accommodate some food growing
  in their grounds;
Exploring under-utilised
  spaces such as derelict council property, private gardens and social
  housing to grow food;
Making use of the
  abundant buildings in urban areas to grow food on rooftops, up walls
  and in window boxes;
Building on the
   food growing expertise that already exists in a multicultural 
community,
  as well as providing education and training for new growers.

 


It is hoped that this visit
and report will mark the next stage in the development of urban 
agriculture,
an issue we believe is set to rise up the policy agenda in an age of
climate change and increasing concern about the sustainability, 
healthiness
and security of our food supply. 


 


1.
Introduction
Why grow food in cities?
 For some people, the idea of
urban agriculture may be new, or even rather odd – agriculture, surely,
is a rural activity?  In fact urban agriculture has a long history,
a vibrant present and, many would argue, a vital future.  In 1996
Sustain produced Growing Food in Cities1, which
drew on some of the already considerable experience of urban 
agriculture
in the UK and recommended that more should be done to support and 
promote
it.  This message was re-emphasised in 1999 with the report,
City Harvest2,
which examined food growing in London in more depth. 



Both reports drew attention
to the multiple benefits of urban agriculture including: 
the educational
  value of growing food, for adults as well as children;
appreciation of
  how food is produced as part of encouraging a healthy diet;
improvements in
  physical and mental health, as a result of regular outdoor activity,
  contact with nature, and the sense of achievement;
the empowerment
  of disadvantaged communities with useful skills,
and the importance
   of preserving green space in urban areas both for its social and 
environmental
  benefits.

 


Since these reports were written,
the urgent problems of global warming have rapidly risen up the public
and political agenda.  It is now widely agreed that our current
food and farming system is unsustainable, based, - as it is - on finite
supplies of oil, the use of which contributes to climate change. This
crisis is compounded not only by many other environmental problems 
caused
by industrialised agriculture – loss of biodiversity, pollution, 
over-use
of water and land, to name but a few – but also by escalating health
problems caused by industrialised food production – including obesity,
cardiovascular diseases, some cancers, and diabetes – alongside 
continuing
problems of hunger and malnutrition, worldwide. 


Now, more than ever, we need
to grow more food, closer to where people live, that is tasty, 
wholesome
and nutritious, that enhances rather than destroys the environment we
depend on, and that satisfies people's need for a secure and trusted
food supply.
Background to the visit
to the US citiesIn this context, Sustain was
delighted to be approached by the US Embassy in London in the summer
of 2007 to meet Will Allen, charismatic founder of the Growing Power
initiative in the USA.  As well as being privileged to have a personal
presentation by Will of his work, (detailed in Chapter Two) Sustain's
London Food Link project3 also arranged for Will to visit
Culpeper community garden in Islington. 


The Embassy considered that
this visit had been such a success that it would be worthwhile 
supporting
a return visit to the USA of people involved in urban agriculture in
London.  Ben Reynolds, London Food Link project officer, was encouraged
by the US Embassy to seek funding to organise such a visit, and this
was duly approved in September 2007.   Ben then put together
the delegation to accompany him, as follows (detailed in Appendix 1):
Colin Buttery, from
  the Royal Parks;
Tony Leach, from
  the London Parks and Green Spaces Forum; and
Catherine Miller,
  from Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens.

 


With advice from Will Allen's
colleagues and others, Ben arranged an itinerary to take the group of
four to a range of food growing projects in the cities of Milwaukee,
Chicago and New York, from 12th - 20th  October
2007.   


The next section of this report
provides an account of the projects visited, city by city, and in the
order in which they were seen.  Chapter three draws together some
of the major themes that emerged and observations that were made, 
comparing
experiences in the US city projects with those of growing food in 
London. 
Finally, inspired by the trip, some thoughts are presented on a range
of opportunities for increasing the amount of food grown in London,
and other towns and cities.  


Comments on these suggestions
are warmly welcomed, and the participants hope that, during 2008 and
beyond, much more will be done to ensure that urban agriculture takes
its place in the range of policies needed to create sustainable food
and farming systems. 
 


 


2. City
Visits 

Milwaukee