Farm City Forum 09.25.10 Looks at Future of Urban Ag

Posted: September 23rd, 2010 | Author: Derek Denckla

Saturday, September 25
Discussions at 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm, and 5:00 pm
FIAF, Le Skyroom
22 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10065

Buy tickets now!

Farm City, a three-week series of events launching FarmCity.US, concludes with an “unconference” of participant-driven discussions exploring how to shape the future of urban agriculture produced in collaboration with Eyebeam Art and Technology Center. Sessions will bring together artists, farmers, urban planners, architects, food activists, and authors. Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: An Education of An Urban Farmer, will be a featured speaker.

Farm City Talk provides an online discussion area for you to contribute your ideas, comments or questions to the Forum — whether or not you can be there in person!

FARM CITY FORUM

The Future of Urban Agriculture

Summary: Farm City Forum takes the format of an “unconference,” a lively participant-driven series of discussions exploring how to shape the future of urban agriculture. Sessions will bring together artists, farmers, urban planners, architects, food activists, and authors. Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: An Education of An Urban Farmer, will be a featured speaker.

Theme: The Future of Urban Agriculture

Primary Goal: To engage participants in a visioning process about transformative possibilities of urban agriculture as a means to generate new thinking and experimental action positively impacting a more sustainable future.

Secondary Goal: To explore how artistic interventions transform and illuminate urban agricultural endeavors and vice versa.

A non-traditional “unconference” format is aimed at engaging the knowledgeable attendees in order to better achieve more meaningful outcomes and real results.

FULL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Framing: Welcoming: 1:00-1:05 p.m.

Plenary Address: Edie Stone, Director, Greenthumb, NYC Parks 1:10-1:20 p.m.

Opening Presentation: Novella Carpenter 1:20-2:00 p.m.

A narrated slide show entitled “One Woman’s Descent into Urban Farming Madness,”

Talk Back Panel: Where you growing? 2:00-2:30 p.m.

Megan Paska, Brooklyn Homesteaders and Karen Washington, NY Community Gardening Coalition react to Carpenter’s presentation. Questions from audience and from web considered for discussion. Dialogue encourages sharing of experiences growing food in unusual urban places.

BREAK 2:30-3:00 p.m.

PechaKucha*: 20 x 20: 11 Visionary Urban Agriculture Projects 3:00-4:10 p.m.

10 presentations: 20 slides show for 20 seconds each. 6 minutes & 40 seconds total.

Dan Wood, Artist/Architect, Work.AC – P.F. 1 and Brooklyn Edible Schoolyard
Francesca Miazzo, Planner/Professor, CITIES the Magazine – Farming the City
Mary Mattingly, Artist – The Waterpod and A.S.A.C
Meredith TenHoor, Writer – Farm Cities: History of Urban Utopianism
Jennifer Nelkin, Farmer, GothamGreens.com
Gita Nandan, Architect/Planner, ThreadCollective.com – FiveBoro Farm
Daniel Bowman Simon – Advocate – WHO Garden and People’s Garden NYC
Mara Gittelman, Cartograper/Project Director – Farming Concrete
Stacey Murphy, Farmer/Architect, Bk Farmyards
Adam Prince & Christina Wiles, Artists/Writers – Artistic & Social Practices in Urban Farming
Saranga Nakhooda & Devin Lafo, Architects, Growing Cities

* devised and shared by Klein Dytham architecture.

Lightning Skill Share: How does your garden grow? 4:10-4:30 p.m.

Moderator takes one question for each of the ten presenters from the audience.

BREAK 4:30-5:00 p.m.

Crowd Source Panel: Envision Urban Agriculture in 5 Years 5:00-6:30 p.m.

Moderator: Majora Carter, President of the Majora Carter Group, LLC, MacArthur Fellow & Founder of Sustainable South Bronx

Christina Grace, Urban Food Systems, NYS Dep’t of Agriculture & Markets
Maria Aiolova, Architect, Terraform ONE
Rev. Robert Ennis Jackson, Farmer/Community Organizer – Bed Stuy Farm – Brooklyn Rescue Mission
Tattfoo Tan, Artist, Sustainable Organic Stewardship (S.O.S.)
Annie Novak, Farmer/Founder, Eagle Street Rooftop Farm
Ian Marvy, Farmer/Co-Founder and Executive Director, Added Value, Red Hook Community Farm
Jacquie Berger, Executive Director, Just Food

Breakout Discussions 5:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Panelists each create a small discussion group in the audience to feed knowledge back to the general group.

Wrap Up & Review: Amanda McDonald Crowley 6:30 -7:00 p.m.

Farm City TALK!

FarmCity.US created a web-based knowledge-sharing so that interested parties can discuss proposed topics prior to the Forum.

Questions to be posed at each of three sessions.
1. Where are you growing? Experiences growing food in unusual urban places.
2. How does your garden grow? Real or imagined strategies farming the City.
3. c. What is your vision for urban agriculture in 5 years?