The New Face of Farming

Urban agriculture has been gaining more and more attention in the past few years. And it's not surprising to me since I have believed for several years now that an urge has been welling in the hearts of urban and suburban people the world over, an overwhelming desire to reconnect with the earth and with the legacies of their ancestors. I, too, have felt this need and recently began investigating the various ways in which "average" people—those who are not celebrities nor excessively wealthy—could produce their own food while rediscovering the true meaning of community.

I have found that not only are many people exploring their agricultural roots and putting their hands in the soil, but they are doing it within city limits—and not just those out in the sticks. Folks are organizing community gardens in large cities like San Jose and Detroit.

The more research I do, the more I believe in the feasibility of my ideas. I live in Willow Glen, a well-to-do suburb of San Jose that, like many other areas of the city, has a rich agricultural history. Only recently (during the last four decades) did this area metamorphose into a yuppie nesting ground, teeming with affluent, self-centered urbanites. Many large residential properties were sold during the last ten years, and many of them are over 10,000 square feet. Some were subdivided and subsequently developed with townhouse groups or crowded detached homes. Other large properties in Willow Glen remained intact, and several—some recently sold, others in the hands of longtime owners—have large expanses of land. These enormous lots often have only small to medium-sized houses on them; the remaining space of these lots is usually just filled with unmanaged weed forests. Some people have tilled their soil and planted productive gardens, but this does not seem to represent the majority. Many of the backyards I have observed on my afternoon strolls are underutilized.

My proposal is simple. I believe these yards could be intensively farmed under the leadership of one organization. CityFarm would operate as a non-profit organization and would be run by community members from all walks of life. Landowners could choose to "donate" their land by leasing it to CityFarm, in which case they could deduct from their income taxes the amount they would have collected in rent. Alternatively, landowners could opt for crop shares as payment for use of their land.

The idea is fairly straightforward, but several considerations must be made; the general interest level of the public regarding such arrangements, zoning laws, liability and safety issues, funding sources and philosophy are all important factors that must be given serious attention. I really do think the interest is out there, but securing funding and working through liability issues could take several years.

Original Publication Date: 3-27-2005 4:45 PM PST

Lack of Affordable Arable Land Is Often Largest Hurdle for New Farmers

In this article, Julia Scott looks at how the lack of affordable land available to new farmers in California makes it extraordinarily difficult to start with little or no capital and make a living from farming in The Golden State, even for those with some farming experience.

Read the article at http://kalwnews.org/audio/2011/01/24/growing-pains-new-farmers-break-mold_807017.html.

Important Questions

What Do I Want to Learn About Farming?

First, soils. I want to learn how to build life-sustaining soils that nourish plants to the fullest extent possible because these healthy plants can directly feed us or feed the animals that we in turn consume. Second, I want to be able to understand the flows of energy from the sun (and the Earth) through the living systems on this planet, including soils, all the way to the dissipation of this energy as heat from all of the organisms (systems) that use the energy. It will be useful to understand the technical side of the mechanisms involved in mediating the controlled energy transfers (e.g., electron transport chains), but I do not want to get so mired in or hung up on the details that I fail to develop an overall picture of what is happening. I would like to be able to sit down someday and draw a flow diagram that shows in as much detail as is possible how energy flows through living systems on Earth, showing the relative amounts that are channeled through each component chain in the web of life. Attaining this level of understanding is probably not necessary to be a successful farmer or even a good steward of the land but would be more to satisfy my curiosity.

Why Do I Want To Learn These Things About Farming?

I began to answer this question in the paragraph above. First, it will satisfy my curiosity. I simply want to know. Connecting to something deeper and more personal, though, I find myself increasingly lacking in motivation to do all but a handful of activities. One of those activities is producing food. I simply cannot think of anything more basic or gut-level (pun intended). Food is our primary connection to the planet and the other life on it; food, with its aromas, textures, flavors, and colors, is capable of evoking a broad range of emotions. In the excited/aroused states brought on by our food experiences, we often have a heightened awareness and inquisitiveness. It has been my experience that exploring food further arouses our curiosity and gets us asking questions that can lead down many paths, encouraging us to explore unfamiliar cultures and places. For me, though, the experience begins long before the food is ready to be eaten. It all starts in the field, in the earth itself.

When I give myself over to the forces of the garden I feel at home, at ease with everything, even in the face of failure (which can be quite humbling and frustrating). I am on a mission, a constant search to find the heart or core of the process of living. As far as I can tell there are three main activities around which all of the rest of our life activities are built: food (energy) intake (water included), reproduction (sex), and satisfying our need for pleasure (this would include satisfying curiosity). The third function is very closely tied to the first two and is indeed how nature gets us to continually perform those first two functions. To put it rather bluntly, I just want to cut to the chase, get right down to it. I hate middlemen.

And, of course, as I alluded to above, there is a great deal of sensual pleasure involved in food production (or at least there should be). Producing your own food is also very empowering, even if you are not completely independent of other food producers. When you take control over your food, you take back choices that belong to you! Your health should be in your own hands, and there is no way it can be if someone else has complete control over your food choices (what is offered, how it is processed, what the ingredients are, how the ingredients are produced, etc.).

Black Soldier Flies and Compost

Large maggots in your compost may not necessarily be cause for alarm.

The larva of Hermetia illucens or black soldier fly is actually relatively harmless and may in fact even be a beneficial insect for the compost heap according to an article on soldier fly larvae by Carol Savonen posted on the Oregon State University Extension Service website.

Emergence of the Lentils

They're HEEEEEERE!


The lentil sprouts are poking up through the soil and standing proud. I am curious to see how they interact with the fava beans that were already germinating in the same strip of soil. I imagine they will create a two-tiered mass of foliage with the fava beans towering above the bushier lentils.

Using Lentils as Cover Crop and/or Green Manure

I've been looking for detailed information on using lentils (lens culinaris) as a warm season cover crop since I had some extra sprouted seed from an experiment I did with my biology classes last week. It is apparently tolerant of cool weather as well. This will be my first experience with growing the species. I'll try to post pictures if the plants take.

Using a Plant's Appearance as an Indicator of Soil Conditions

A plant's appearance can indicate the general health of the soil and can hint at a particular deficiency or toxic level of some substance, but how do we interpret the various different signs in a holistic way so as to take an approach that corrects the problem without creating additional issues?

I'm hoping to find some good answers in Ask the Plant by Charles Walters and Esper K Chandler.

Updates to follow.