People packed into this room at NYU because they were eager to hear the opinions of a select panel of urban agriculture professionals this past Tuesday evening. You can read more about who they were and what they said in the following Red Rooster Group report. The session was moderated by Daniel Bowman Simon, People's Garden NYC, produced by the Sustainability Practice Network (SPN) and co-hosted by the NYU Stern - Social Enterprise Association (SEA).
In the Q&A session, there was an opportunity to poll the audience by show of hands. I asked who of them were familiar with sub-irrigated planter systems (SIPs), micro gardens and simplified hydroponics. The response was less than 10% of the audience to all three questions.
It was most revealing to once again experience how little the subject of modern methods of personal food production are known in our society. The USDA fog machine (and others) have done a most effective job of keeping the focus on traditional dirt farming methods that are clearly less appropriate for personal use in city neighborhoods.
Simple-to-use personal food growing systems are safe, highly productive, produce no run-off and conserve water.
These systems avoid growing in often-contaminated city soil and produce in the range of 50% more produce per square foot while saving 80-90% of the water used in overhead irrigation.
People can grow on concrete, on balconies and rooftops. Space in the sun for a micro garden system is all they need. Unlike dirt gardens, micro gardens or micro farms can be certified organic from day one.
There is no need for time-strapped people to have to travel to a dirt garden to grow some fresh food. These gardens are fine for people who have the time and motivation to garden in a group but they should not be the sole option.
There is no reason for people holding two jobs to water plants two times a day during the heat of the summer. Dirt gardening as the norm makes little sense in the city. If we really want to reduce obesity and hunger, we need to live in the modern world and use some very simple but highly productive technology. The only thing holding us back is lack of education.
via redroostergroup.com
Will urban gardens save America? This lofty topic was taken on tonight by a panel of experts representing different aspects of the urban agriculture movement that provided an interesting overview of the issue.
Teaching kids to eat dandelion leaves, ensuring capital for commercially-scalable urban agricultural projects, and the impracticality of rooftop gardens were theme that punctuated the diverse conversation in an exploration of how we grow our food
