Urban Agriculture Q&A

For the Greener Good

How can Urban Agriculture change the urban landscape?

On April 29, the National Building Museum hosted a discussion titled "Vertical Farming" as part of the For the Greener Good lecture series. Panelists Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA; Liz Falk, director and co-Founder, Washington D.C. based Common Good City Farm; Steve Cohen, food policy and programs, Portland Oregon’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability; discussed the ecological impact of how we grow our food and how urban agriculture has the potential to reclaim unused land in cities.   Allison Arieff, Food and Shelter Ambassador, GOOD and “By Design” columnist, The New York Times, moderated.

After the program, the panelists answered selected questions from audience members and online visitors submitted through an online survey and via Twitter and Facebook. Here are the answers:

Q. Where is the money for urban agriculture going to come from and how should success be measured?

Josh Viertel: Good questions, Britta. Grassroots urban agriculture is growing through passion and ingenious green ideas more than greenbacks. Individuals are turning their lawns into lunches, edible landscapes and neighborhood orchards with personal dollars. Innovative businesses and non-profits are nurturing our capacity for healthful, safe, and delicious localized food. Government can remove barriers and create policy that encourages urban food production; assist those without access to land through community gardens and public housing initiatives; and provide incentives and educational opportunities. In times of lean budgets, public/private partnerships will be the key to success.

Measuring the success of this burgeoning movement is a much-debated topic. There are linkages to health and economic indicators, but equally important are community building, resilience and self-sufficiency which are harder to define and quantify. I’m interested in hearing what you and others think is a true measurement of success for urban agriculture.

Q. Often community gardens are small and there may not be the room needed for on-site composting the end of season plant remains. How can cities handle the potential magnitude of compostable waste?

Allison Arieff: See if you can't get your city to follow San Francisco's example. The City by the Bay has created the first large scale urban collection of food scraps (and plant remains) for composting in the country. Hundreds of thousands of residents and over 3,000 restaurants and businesses send over 400 tons of compostable material each day to a composting facility where they are turned into nutrient-rich soil amendment or compost used to produce organic food and wine. To help get you started in your city or town, see http://www.cool2012.com/ And for stats on the benefits of (and need for) composting, check out http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org/.

Watch the video of the "Urban Agriculture" program

For the Greener Good lecture series is presented by The Home Depot Foundation. The Museum's online Q&A Forums are made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.