Philadelphia’s urban-farming roots go deep—and are spreading wide

[depakid]

Philadelphia has long been a gardeners' paradise, by East Coast standards anyway. The City of Brotherly Love enjoys relatively short winters and extended fall and spring seasons that aren't so wet and warm that they invite plagues of the pests that rule farther south.

It's not surprising then that urban agriculture has deep roots here -- ones planted long before the recent national renaissance. But Philly's homegrown ag movement isn't just about getting more local produce into farmers markets. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) It's focused on farming as a source of jobs and skills for city residents as well as a means to provide them affordable, healthy food.

The city is known among food advocates as providing the model for President Obama's Healthy Food Financing Initiative to eliminate so-called "food deserts," or areas without access to affordable, fresh food. Like its inspiration, Pennsylvania's Fresh Food Financing Initiative -- which has helped establish more than 80 grocery stores throughout the state -- the administration's plan would provide low-cost loans to finance grocery stores and supermarkets across the country.

From brownfield to green rows

Philly's municipal support for farming dates back to the Vacant Lot Cultivation Commission established in the late 19th century. Jump forward to 1943, by which time the city of Philadelphia had opened what is now called the W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences. At 150 acres, it's the nation's largest agricultural high school, complete with herds of Holstein and Jersey dairy cattle, Belted Galloway beef cattle, eight quarter horses, a flock of sheep, and a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program -- and a 95 percent graduation rate. Indeed, you can draw a line from these efforts through the city's wartime Victory Gardens, to the anti-blight attempts of the "modern" community garden movement of the 1970s and 1980s, right through to today's reawakened interest in growing food in the city.

Granted, it's by no means a straight line. The anti-blight community garden efforts faltered in the '90s as the city government withdrew its support, for example.

But these days, school gardens proliferate, and the city is home to efforts like Greensgrow (see Grist's recent profile), a city-block sized farm on a former brownfield in the middle of a densely developed working class neighborhood.

More (with many cool links): ttp://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-09-21-philadelphias-urban-farming-roots-go-deep-and-are-spreading/

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[AlecBGreen]

2. urban gardening is a win-win-win-win situation

beautifies neighborhoods
provides high quality food
provides low cost food
provides opprtunities for work

[Terry in Austin]

3. Something happening here

The meme is gathering steam.

We've got Urban Patchwork here in Austin using bits and pieces of yards and residential land in the neighborhoods. It's run mostly like a CSA, but they also have weekly farm-stands.

The next step is to cultivate this large vacant lot down the street from me -- the land owner is already on board, and the neighborhood association is getting involved in a big way.

Next summer, zero food-miles veggies!