Fertile Ground USA...Celebrating the people behind the plow

US City Dwellers Flock to Raising Chickens
Worldwatch Institute - Washington,DC,USA
by Ben Block on October 6, 2008
In the backyard of a suburban home in Denver, Colorado, 22 chickens are hiding out from the law.

They arrived when a member of BackyardChickens, an online forum, ordered the birds in the mail this past May. "I actually get my chicks in today hopefully, and I am worried that animal control will be at the post office waiting for me with hand-cuffs," the new poultry farmer wrote.

Photo by Growing Gardens

Tony Leach (left, London Parks and Green Spaces Forum) chatting with American artist/writer Fritz Haeg, whose recent book, "Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn," describes turning barren lawns into food-bearing gardens.

(Embassy photo by S-J Mayhew)

The Growing Food for London conference, which recently took place on Monday, June 30th, had over 200 planners, growers, architects, and policy makers in attendance. The event was jointly organized with the London Parks and Green Spaces Forum, as part of the London Festival of Architecture. This event follows on the heels of a London delegation [supported by the US Embassy] that visited several US urban food growing projects in Milwaukee, Chicago and New York. The four members of the British team included Colin Buttery (Royal Parks, London); Tony Leach (London Parks and Green Spaces Forum); Catherine Miller (Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens) and Ben Reynolds (London Food Link Project/Sustain).

Ben Reynolds has noted a number of similarities to and differences from urban agriculture initiatives in London which he kindly shared with me in an email exchange:

"One major difference [between London and US urban ag projects] was that many [in the US] were much more geared towards commercial production, and often had strong links with other farms, and ran farmers markets or box schemes.  Although a couple of our city farms have farmers markets, you would rarely see much of the produce on sale there coming from the city farm - as these are more educational projects, and not set up with maximising quantity of production at the core...Beyond this I was very impressed with the forward thinking around food waste and aquaculture [for instance] at the Growing Power centre in Milwaukee.  I'm sure they're not alone in doing this - but there was a real appreciation for the symbiotic relationship between different parts of the food system, that when put into practice - made so much sense.  If this sounds a bit vague I'll give an example -- growing watercress in a simple man-made river ecosystem which purified the water going into the fish tank (tilapia - notably fed on the water-cress and other products grown on site).  The waste-water is then pumped back to the start of the river to go through the water-cress beds again, keeping the water (apparently) healthy.  Both fish and watercress were then sold through their outlets...I also hope that, partly through the conference we're organising - we'll see an increase in  urban agriculture projects which take on board the message of producing food for sale, setting up a social enterprise model, rather than just being educational establishtments (as important as it is - we are  now facing  new challenges)."

To read more about the delegation's visit to the US, please see Sustain's report, Edible Cities, which is available free for download.

Simsbury & West Granby, Connecticut -- It had rained hard most of the days before this one and thankfully the sky was blue and the sun was shining. A bus pulled into the Town Farm Dairy in Simsbury, Connecticut and then, like the calm before the storm, the air filled with the screeches of 4 dozen happy kids who clambered off the bus, ready to see something after the trip from Hartford. These kids were 3rd graders from the Michael D. Fox Elementary School in Hartford. And they wanted to see a cow.

Theresa, their tour guide, had her baby in tow and led them to the barn, a barn by the way, which had been built during the WPA era and was still intact. Theresa showed them the old fashioned stalls, then the tiny room that is their creamery. But no cows. The cows were out to pasture, as they should be. But they had left something behind.

“Poop! Is that poop? Eew, its poop! GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The kids exploded into exclamations of horror upon seeing this unholy mess right in their tracks. Each protested hard to be the most grossed out by the sight of cow excrement. They all jumped over the hardened mass as if they were dinosaurs jumping across the LaBrea tar pits, fearing the end of their lives.

That was the most exciting part of the tour for these kids, some whom were visiting a farm and seeing a cow for the first time. And with the cow, not only comes the poop but there’s the udder too, a mysterious organ no one could figure out. Upon finally petting a young calf, one girl exclaimed "is that a uterus?" Clearly, cow anatomy had not been impressed upon them. But perhaps when they returned to school they would get a better idea. This first farm field trip for the school was coordinated by Cathi Burgess, the literacy coordinator, who intends to thread their experiences today back into their reading and writing curriculum.

The next stop was the Garlic Farm in West Granby. Gary Cirullo, the owner, was ready and waiting. “Hey, what’s your name?? What’s yours?? Do you like garlic?” He kept the kids hopping, running them through the greenhouse as if they were at boot camp in the marines, asking them questions every step of the way while showing them the tomatoes, eggplant, basil and other plants in his greenhouse. Then he took them out to the garlic fields, where the beautiful green tentacles from the garlic bulbs had sprouted, waving in the wind. Soon these lovely green stems will be harvested to allow the garlic to grow big and spicy; these stems will be sold at farmers markets as garlic “scapes.” An unusual delicacy, but one to watch out for when shopping.

The kids weren’t interested in eating the garlic, they were interested in running through the fields and pulling up weeds along the way, and throwing them at each other.

Boarding the bus, Gary gave them each a pot of dirt with a garlic bulb planted way deep down. He said they weren’t too hard to grow, just plant them in the backyard and throw some water on them. Maybe this has inspired a new crop of farmers?

by melissa waldron lehner

I walked into the Donald F. Harris Sr. Agriscience & Technology Center at Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, Connecticut to find a lady of senior stature dressed smartly in a powder blue outfit, marveling at a yellow corn snake which was sliding through her hands, its red tongue slithering about. She seemed very taken with it -- but I’m not so sure about the snake. Many glass cases full of snakes and other reptiles line the entry way at the Agri-Science Center, and if you walk back past the classrooms, you will find chickens, lopped-eared rabbits and even a tub full of prized koi, an ornamental fish which can fetch thousands of dollars. This lady and I were both here to attend the last lecture in a semester long series called the “Power of Agriculture” that focuses on sustainable issues. The speaker was a spunky young red head named Kat West who took her green activism energy from college to the corporate world and is now working at Sterling Planet, a renewable energy company. who spoke to an audience of somewhat interested teenagers about the possibilities of wind turbine and hydraulic energy in Connecticut.

After the lecture, I found her walking down the hallway with a cardboard sign under her arm that had a fairly unpleasant photo of Ted Kennedy in a bathing suit taped to it with the words “TED KENNEDY IS DISPLEASING,” referring to the Kennedy family’s fight over an “unsightly” wind turbine project to be built off the coast of Nantucket Sound. “Kennedy says he finds the wind turbines “displeasing,” Kat say. “I find teenagers holding asthma inhalers displeasing,” says Kat. “Have they thought about that?”

Joe Rodrigues, a senior staff member and biology teacher at the Agri-Science Center, is the one who put this all together. Lanky and energetic, replete with his signature bow tie, Joe has a take-no-prisoners attitude with his students, who come from as far as Hartford to attend this agriculture program [there are 19 agriculture education centers in Connecticut.] Part drill seargant, part zen master, Joe has the ability to get the kids to work – and like it. Joe teaches kids all about the wonder of plants by teaching them how to plant their own seedlings in the greenhouse behind the classrooms. The kids grow lots of things – herbs, tomatoes, and green lettuce – some in soil and others in water. “The plants grow really well in water,” says Joe. “Growing them in soil actually takes a lot more work.”

The water-grown method is normally called hydroponics, a way of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, but here it is called aquaponics, combining fish farming with plants. Youactually grow your plants in the same tank as your fish. Sound crazy? Well maybe, but a 250 gallon tub can hold a school of tilapia while 45-50 tiny basil plants float on top in Styrofoam beds, each tucked into a hole that allows the roots to feed on the fish waste. All the waste eventually gets filtered out, the water is cleaned and then it re-enters the system. The Director of the AgriScience Center, Jaunice Edwards, says that plants in water grow at twice the rate as plants in soil. So in no time you have enough basil, lettuce and tomatoes to feed a whole school full of children, which is exactly what they do with the food. All the produce grown in water and in soil are harvested by the students and turned into meals in the cafeteria. Including the fish. “We’re gonna have a big fish fry at the end of the year,” says Jaunice.

Each of these tubs, although growing quite a bit of food, seemed to be a big energy consumer. I wondered how they powered these aquaponic tanks. Do they use renewable energy provided by Sterling Planet perhaps?  Well no, not yet, says Joe. He explained that if enough Bloomfield town residents sign up for Sterling Planet energy, the town will receive credits which will build up to afford the town with their first solar panel – to be installed at the Town Hall. More sign ups after that, and the school might be the second candidate. So instead of green eggs and ham, it could be green fish and lettuce, a much more eco-friendly dish.

Ericka Wright has been confined to a wheelchair ever since she was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. But her spirit is on the march. Concerned about her own health as well as her family's, Ericka decided that the only way to really know what food she was eating was to grow it for herself. So she enlisted a dozen or so kids to get the work done and now the Troostwood Garden provides neighborhood youth with hands-on experience. The youth do it all, from composting, soil building, weeding, and planting, to building their own solar paneled greenhouse and adobe clay brick oven for baking bread. Ericka is very proud of the children who she has managed to help over the years. "I had 15 when I started. One died, a few went to jail, but I have saved the rest. It's worth it."