Urban Farmer Backlash? Clash of Public Perception and Current Reality

There comes a time when all great ideas bandied about in the public forum get lampooned. Urban agriculture seems to have reached that point last week (if not sooner).

Recently, NonaBrooklyn mentioned an article appearing in Daily Candy, “DIY Halloween Costumes” in which suggestion No. 4 was “Urban Farmer.” The article provided a set of dress-up strategies veering to cheeky: “Extra Credit: Talk about the time you ate with Michael Pollan.” Now, Daily Candy is hardly Fox News, having supported urban agrarian events in its pages, such as Farm City (curated by yours truly).

The mocking mention of “Urban Farmer” led me to pause to parse the social significance of this moment for the urban farming movement. I don’t wish to get all heavy and offended, missing the obvious humor here. After all, I am a New Yorker and I like a good yuck.  (And, I must admit that the accompanying video eked out a chuckle from me).  However, I am left wondering about the possible meaning of this satire for those of us that care deeply about the future of urban agriculture.

Daily Candy identified “Urban Farmer” as a three ingredient recipe:  ”1. Same [outfit] as Paul Bunyan but replace the ax with a shovel; 2. Carry a tote bag filled with fresh veggies. and 3. Talk about the importance of eating local.” The treatment given by Daily Candy is hardly a damning indictment of the foibles of urban farming (of which there are many). Yet, this depiction might suggest that “Urban Farmer” is perceived to be a type of person whose style and discourse are clichés that can be mimicked with pithy ease.

Still from the video "DIY Halloween Costume" on Daily Candy.

Overexposure or Underappreciated?

My first reaction was that urban agriculture may be deemed overexposed in the media with recent beauty shots of farms and farmers (NY Magazine, etc.), homages to hyperlocal food (NY Times, etc.) and bromides about ecological damage created by traditional agriculture (Everywhere except Tea Party rallies). I am concerned that the public might begin to associate urban farming more with fashion than function — doomed to be an ephemeral eco-trend rather than the promising future of food.

My fears are not without precedent. We need only peer backwards to the 1970s when the legitimate social and political struggles became co-opted by corporations and mass-consumed as “radical chic” and “hippie couture,” trimmed down to mere fringe on a million leather vests — empty of deeper content and passionate protest.

In my opinion, copious media attention should be continually lavished on farmers. To me, the recent surge in public interest in urban farming is long overdue. After all, these folks are growing the food we all eat.  To be honest, it strikes me as much more odd that — until recently — farm work has been virtually hidden from public view.  Farming has been systematically evicted from cities as smelly, dirty and dangerous to public health. The disconnection between eater and grower factors large in the recent food crisis, causing children to be confused about the origin of their sustenance.

Re-connection of producer and consumer is one of the chief benefits provided by resurgence of urban agriculture.  Urban farmers may not be able to grow all the food that urbanites need to survive.  Yet, urban farms give city dwellers an opportunity to see the process of growing food at close range while also getting to know the farmer as a neighbor — not someone from a distant county rarely — if ever — visited.

Portraying urban farming as a “hip” profession may not be such a bad thing (so long as its not just a “fad” thing). The average age of an American farmer is 57 and New York State along losing 50,000 acres of farmland each year to development. By portraying farmers as cool media darlings — no matter how stereotypical or ideologically misguided that image may be — the press may help capture the attention of young, college-educated folks (not just the flannel-loving ones) who would not normally consider farming as a viable vocation. Repeated media attention on farmers may have yielded some modest change: Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture reports growing numbers of attendees at its annual Young Farmers Conference.

Rev. Robert Ennis Jackson of Bed Stuy Farm. Photo by Kate Glicksberg

Archetype or Stereotype?

Perhaps, I got it wrong with my first reaction?  Maybe the “Urban Farmer” costume announces that urban agriculture has finally succeeded in embedding itself in mainstream consciousness as a profound archetype juxtaposed to others — such as mythical workaholic, Paul Bunyan, and commercial stooge, Brawny paper towel man (variants proposed by Daily Candy using the same get-up of false moustache and flannel shirt). In the 1990s, that same flannel shirt might have been part of a “grunge” rocker costume.

Today, “Urban Farmer” is the cultural reference that immediately comes to mind.  While “Urban Farmer” could just be the most recent wearer of the flannel mantle, it could also mean something deeper.  The costume came accessorized with (slightly) deeper content — healthy comestibles and comments about a central politico-social aspiration in the food movement: eat local. I am hopeful that the message that comes through the “costume” is a loving send-up rather than a something more subconsciously sinister. But then, my mind wanders to ponder more troubling interpretations. . . .

I think the Urban Farmer “costume” raises a potential risk that recent media attention makes urban farmers seem more ubiquitous, more resilient and more uniform than they really are in reality.

Ubiquity? Lately, we hear so much about urban farmers that we might be given to assume that they are everywhere — part of the city fabric.  Alas, that is not really true (yet!). Urban farmers are growing in numbers but they are still few and far between.  In reality, there are only a handful of working farms in a city of 8+ million.  There is a lot of food being grown on windowsills, in backyards, and within community gardens.  An important on-going study, entitled Farming Concrete, is trying to quantify just how much food is grown in NYC. However, there exist only a handful of farms that employ people who could legitimately write “Farmer” as their job title on a tax return.

To be fair, it is not merely the reportage on urban agriculture that could be accused of overstating the scope of urban agriculture.  The term “farm” has come to be used artfully to redefine any place where food is growing in the city –no matter how small — from “window farms” to “micro” farms.  Adding to this terminological confusion, there are several restaurants in Brooklyn that use the word “farm” in their names yet till only an admirable strain of the cultural zeitgeist.

I am sympathetic to the appropriation of terminology of “farm” and “farmer” to transform social consciousness around the possibilities for modest but meaningful contributions to changing the food system.  And, interestingly, even the USDA uses a pretty small threshold when defining farmer as someone who “sells at least one thousand dollars of agricultural commodities.” However, the stretching of common-sense definitions of “farm” and “farmer” may invite a bit of justifiable satirical send-up.

Resilience? Traditionally, a person, profession or idea becomes an object of ridicule when it is perceived as powerful enough to take a licking and keep on ticking. Maybe the “Urban Farmer” is now seen as a substantial social figure — strong enough to withstand mockery and flattery alike — like a politician, celebrity or sports star? The problem with this analogy is that the urban farmer is actually at the bottom of the socio-economic totem pole.  So, taking urban farmers “down a notch” would leave them lower than the bottom — basically nowhere.

By focusing on the flannel-clad surfaces and simplest soundbite of their workplace motives, I fear that this caricature may gloss over significant personal risks taken by urban farmers: extremely hard physical labor, uncertain income and seasonal unemployment.  Given the harsh realities of farming anywhere, especially within the city, I have been heartened by the recent trend to depict their efforts as heroic and worthy of note.

Did anyone notice that freak hailstorm on October 11, 2010? Well, the storm was bizarre and scary. For several urban farms, such as Red Hook Community Farm, the dime-sized ice balls destroyed their crops and decimated their anticipated annual revenues. The impact was so severe on the farm that local restaurant (and customer), Good Fork, was moved to hold an emergency fundraiser (tonight). Farming is, by its very nature, a fragile enterprise subject to weather, temperature, insects, fungi, and other environmental factors. And then, there’s economics. If it costs $10 to raise a tomato from seed to fruit in Crown Heights, the farmer can still only charge $5 at the market.

Uniformity? Other than Will Allen of Growing Power, few faces of color appear in press coverage on urban farmers. And, it’s no secret that flannel is the personal covering of choice for mostly-white post-collegiate hipsters.  Not surprisingly, Brawny and Bunyon are white too.

Hence, Daily Candy’s casual clothing reference continues a racial profile that is commonplace yet inaccurate. Despite journalism’s credo of fairness in reporting, I predict that the upcoming Black Farmers & Urban Gardeners Conference will probably get less press coverage than the combined output devoted to the farm at Roberta’s Restaurant, a predominantly-white hipster hangout.

Now, I am not playing the race card here: I think that there is room for all colors of urban farmers, producing food for all types of reasons in every neighborhood. Roberta’s farm isn’t less important because serves locally-grown produce to mostly-white artsy types (myself among them). It’s just that Roberta’s farm is not MORE important than Bed Stuy Farm, serving urban farm fare to 1000 people each month as part of Brooklyn Rescue Mission’s food pantry.  Both farms are worthy of our interest and support.

Yet, the “flannel” goggles worn by the press seem to focus repeated reporting on one type of farmer while ignoring another. When media ignorance breaks down along skin color and class of clientele, then it recapitulates a hegemony and power structure that is not so hip.

Quantity over Quality? Form over Substance?

And then, my worry radar turns to my own bad self. In my defense, I was not attracted to investigate urban agriculture by its fetching costume, although I have been known to wear checked flannel on occasion. I saw urban agriculture as a way to express my desire to build a better city by expanding opportunities to grow the sustainable food economy here. Despite my purported bona fides, I too grow a bit wary of the rapid growth of the topic that has so intrigued me.

The sheer volume of cultural output on urban farming is daunting and hard to follow, ironically, dwarfing the produce from the actual urban farms. The diversity of discourse is a sign of strong sincere interest– artists, thinkers and writers can help create a new cultural context for urban farming that fosters product demand, healthy respect, mutual understanding and new directions.  On the flip side, it seems a tad perverse that some interpreters of urban farming may derive more income from telling and selling “the story of urban farming” than most farmers will ever make from urban farms.

I can well understand some public confusion about how to interpret urban agriculture.  Currently, you are faced with trying to discern a coherent melody amidst the din.  To import an agricultural metaphor: How to separate the wheat from the chaff?  It’s not always obvious. There are contributions to the field of urban agriculture that seem so similar that it may be hard to distinguish a difference.

Whose personal account of urban homesteading should you trust? Should you read the gonzo journalism of My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard Into a Farm by Manny Howard or peruse the personal memoir Farm City: The Education of An Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter?

Who is the legitimate thought-leader of the urban farming movement? Should you follow the simple homey steps of UrbanFarming.org sponsored explicitly by Trisket or the empowering earth savvy of GrowingPower.org supported in part by GE Foundation?

Whose vision should define the future of urban agriculture? Should you yearn for the dazzling towers of technopolis described in Vertical Farming by Dickson Despommier, plot green plans for Continuous Productive Urban Landscape by Andre Viljoen or organize the grassroots land reclamation outlined in Public Produce by Darrin Nordahl?

What approach to growing food is most sustainable? Should you explore complex systems, such as indoor, year-round inorganic growing invented by Edward Harwood, founder of Aerofarms, or simple approaches, like seasonal soil-bound organic planting schemes advocated by Bill Mollison, founder of The Permaculture Way?

Whose gathering should you attend to learn more?  Should you expensively explore the green of investments at Agriculture 2.0, pursue global policy initiatives at MetroAg Innoversity or affordably invest in community advocacy and urban jobs at Growing Power’s Urban & Small Farm Conference?

This explosive growth and wide span of opinion indicate the excitement and growing importance of urban agriculture right now.  However, it also makes it increasingly difficult to understand who is doing really good work and who is merely working it.  While I am excited by this increasing abundance, I am getting more and more hungry for substance.

Passing Fancy or Lasting Movement?

Bk Farmyards @ H.S. for Public Service. Photo by Kate Glicksberg

Could the torrent of contemporary attention indicate that urban agriculture is a fad hitting its peak moment? Or, is this dialogue the opening volley of food revolution that will be heard round the world?

Urban agriculture is not new  – it is as old as the hanging gardens of Babylon described in the Bible or the floating gardens of Tenochtitlan. And, urban farming is not new to NYC — Victory Gardens sprouted here during World War II and Community Farm Gardens have grown food since at least 1973.

Despite the firm history of urban agriculture in NYC, recently, there has been renewed momentum to expand its scope and influence.  What is new now about urban agriculture is increasing numbers of farmers and widening diversity of experiments motivated by intersecting crises in climate change and in public health.

A majority of urban agriculture projects gaining public attention are less than a few years old.  There are many bold experiments that are untested with farmers who are new to their profession.  So the urban farmer story will begin to evolve from “newness” to a theme of “sustainability.” With so many commentators and communicators recognizing the newfound importance of urban agriculture, I wonder what will happen in this next phase of its development which will be less glamorous, harder to track and thus commanding of less immediately gratifying attention.

There are some strong signs that urban agriculture is not disappearing with the next news cycle. Myriad meetup groups have sprouted up, supporting each others’ mutual learning and doing — from Permaculture practitioners to Beekeepers.  The New School has created a field of Food Studies and spearheaded a whole series of public conversations through December 2010, entitled Living Concrete. My own project, FarmCity.US, continues to evolve, grappling with fresh ways to support the growth of urban agriculture.  There are hundreds of urban agriculture blogs and even an Urban Farm Magazine.  And this Fall, Just Food announced the opening of its Farm School NYC to train a new generation of urban farmers who will learn more than a few superficial attributes of an “Urban Farmer” Halloween costume.  (FYI: Applications due November 15!)

So, I am greatly encouraged that urban agriculture may be growing forceful advocates and knowledgeable farmers who may help shape the evolution of the movement in a sustainable and thoughtful way, resisting identification as mere costumed clichés.

DIY Utopias: Growing Against All Odds 11.01.10

If you missed (or loved) the opening weekend events, “Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City”, the exhibit is still on view through December 12 and the curators (Katherine Gressel and yours truly) are presenting another special public program for your further greenification:

“DIY Utopias: Growing Against All Odds.”
Monday, November 1, 2010, 7-9pm

Old Stone House, 2nd Floor Gallery
336 3rd Street (between 4th and 5th Avenue)
JJ Byrne (Washington) Park
Park Slope, Brooklyn 11215

Suggested donation: $10
Beer, Soda and Light Snacks Available

The evening will feature hands-on skillshare with activist-artists in an intimate gallery setting. Moderated by experienced DIY-artist Mary Mattingly (of the Waterpod (2009)), four artists/environmental leaders will demonstrate that anyone can contribute to the urban farming movement, turning “Utopian” vision into concrete action.

You will learn some techniques that the busiest of urban dwellers can practice in their own homes. Brooklyn Brewery and Bruce Cost ginger sodas will provide libations to accompany light snacks designed to enhance the learning process.

WORKSHOPS : :

(1) Rooftop Micro-Farming : : Frieda Lim, Slippery Slope Farms

Frieda is an artist, activist and agrarian.  She will demonstrate how to build and install simple windowsill or rooftop planters capable of yielding food with simple materials, little effort and low maintenance, using Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPs).  Slippery Slope Farm is a modern urban sub-irrigated rooftop micro-farm located in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Lim designed the project to be simple to install, easy to maintain and capable of replication by anyone with a little space and a desire to grow their own food.

(2) Rainwater Harvesting : : Andrew Casner, GrowNYC

Andrew will demonstrate how to install a rainwater harvest system at your home or apartment, saving potable tap water for people.  Andrew, also known for his Compost Painting contribution to the “Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City” exhibit, works on a crew that installs rainwater catchment for community gardens.

(3) Permaculture & Compost : : Claudia Joseph

CORRECTION! Claudia holds a diploma of permaculture from Permaculture Institute, U.S.A. and has taught and practiced permaculture for 15 years, on both coasts. She manages the farm that surrounds Old Stone House Historic Center.  She practices food foresting and small scale intensive gardening.

If you have ever wondered what “permaculture” is about and how you can get involved, Claudia is the right person to see.  She also specializes in soil building and bio-remediation techniques, explaining some simple steps that you can take at home to turn food waste into “black gold.”  She has taught at Merritt College (CA), the Berkeley Ecology Center, Oakland Botanical Demonstration Gardens, BBG and NYBG among other places.

(4) School Farm Planning & Planters : : Aki and Ron Baker : Adopt-A-Farmbox

Adopt-A-Farmbox will lay out their civic engagement strategies for organizing support for school farms by using the process of building simple planter boxes to catalyze community and to connect around growing food.  Adopt-A-Farmbox builds and donates “farmboxes” to schools in New York City, including several schools throughout Brooklyn. Adopt-A-Farmbox is a volunteer-based, grass-roots campaign started in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and has become an exemplar project integrating community development with education, food, creativity and agriculture.

During this evening, the curators will be on hand to introduce key themes and artworks in the exhibit, reflecting on the specific role of artists in envisioning a greener Brooklyn and contributing to its growing DIY culture. Ultimately, the event will aim to reflect on how some these “DIY” methods together can foster a more integrated, combined effort toward more sustainable living

The evening will also feature an unveiling of Brooklyn Farms: Past, Present, Future, an outdoor digitally-printed banner mural by Katherine Gressel, to eventually be hung on a construction fence in the park.

Visit http://farmcity.us/brooklyn-utopias/ for complete information on “Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City” including a recently uploaded “living catalog” that will be continuously revised to include more images and information throughout the remaining run of the show.

Exploring Amsterdam’s Unique Urban Agriculture

Hollyhocks grow from the sidewalk cracks on Hogeweg

Amsterdam is a very green city.  750,000 inhabitants and 600,000 bikes. Almost no cars.  Huge, beautiful parks.  Every swale is covered in an emerald blanket. Potted plants spill out from townhouse entryways.  Everywhere, lush butterfly bushes crowd into street corners and towering hollyhocks with immense pink blossoms grow from tiny cracks between building and sidewalk.

Multi-level Bike Parking Lot at Centraal Station, Amsterdam

I found myself wondering at some innovations that have brought green to the city throughout the 20^th Century.

Tuin Parks

Typical tuin house with cold frame and hoops

Tuin Parks are a special area within public parks that are divided into small plots, maybe 20 feet by 20 feet, adorned with a little house.  Like Holland in miniature, Tuin Parks often have their own mini-canals.  Tuin parks are enchanting public-private spaces in which public visitors can enjoy the horticultural talents of private gardeners.

The houses are only a little larger than a shed and have no sleeping accommodations – some have kitchens and desks.  The plot surrounding each house is the imaginative creation of each owner.  Plantings are exquisitely maintained, somehow blending well with neighbors despite growing distinctive varietals.  All manner of vegetables are sprouting alongside herbaceous and ornamental borders. Many gardens are marked by fences or hedges — low enough to permit each garden to be viewed as part of a whole, grander park landscape.

Tuin parks are a peculiarly Dutch urban invention.  “Tuin” means “garden” in Netherlands, but has a deeper cultural resonance.  According to Simon Schama (historian), “The tuin . . . signifie[s] the divinely blessed prosperity of the Netherlands.”  The “tuin” appears repeatedly as an image associated with the Dutch nation, starting with engravings on coins minted in 1573, showing a lion (the king and military might) contained by the domestic image of a “tuin’s” fence.

Tuinpark Klein Dantzig is like Holland in miniature with micro-canal

City Farms & Children’s Farms

Amsterdam’s many parks also contain city farms and children’s farms (kinderboerderijen).  Children’s farms are often petting zoos with domesticated animals in a rustic setting where there milk or eggs are used only for educational purposes.  City farms are usually several acres within a park managed by institutions or carved up as “allotment gardens” where small plots are maintained by individuals or students from nearby schools.

Large greenhouse and allotments associated with a local school

According to researchers Marjolein Elings and Jan Hassink, there about 350 city farms in The Netherlands, “ranging from small fields to large complexes, which have up to 15 million visitors a year.” The farms provide an opportunity for urbanites  to interact with animals, plants, their environment and each other, experiencing first-hand lessons about sustainable agriculture, the food system and their own health.  “In The Netherlands, 25% of the city farms belong to a health institute. Most city farms are paid by the local government. Many farms struggle with a lack of money and bureaucracy due to agricultural legislation.”

City farms are particularly popular and numerous in the Netherlands even though such agriculture can be found throughout Europe as evidenced by the European Federation of City Farms (EFCF).

In Amsterdam, a consortium of government and businesses have launched a project called Proeftuin (“Taste Garden”) promoting individual healthy eating as a means to understand the well-being of nearby farms and the welfare of domestic animals. Proeftuin creates opportunities to buy and sell local foods by helping farmers near the town market their products and services to city dwellers. A similar impulse motivates Boerderijeducatie-Amsterdam — literally “farm education”, a project that coordinates 17 farm businesses in and around the City as sites for students to visit and work in agriculture.  Boerderijeducatie seeks to guide children to better understand the link between farm work and food on their plates.  Boerenstadswens (Farm City Wish) provides fun and rewarding ways for city consumers and farmers to meet each other face-to-face through farm visits, summits and organizing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) associations.

Green Care Farms

Zorgboerderij Erve Knippert providing farm work for elders with dementia

The term ‘Farming for Health’ describes a variety of different kinds of “social agriculture,” such as “Care Farms” or “Green Care Farms” that integrate differently-abled people or former drug addicts as well as farms dedicated to serving children or elders.

According to the International Community of Practice — Farming For Health, Green Care Farms are popular throughout Europe providing beneficial farm work experiences for many people as a better form of social or educational service. For instance, Wageningen University elders who worked on Care Farms were healthier, eating and drinking more normally than similar counterparts in adult daycare centers.  The National Care Farm Institute has documents that the Netherlands had 591 care farms in 2005 compared to just 75 in 1998.  For an excellent introduction to the opportunities and challenges presented by the fastest-growing area of “multifunctional” agriculture, one should refer to the online Proceedings of Frontis Workshop on Farming for Health (2005).

Peri-Urban Polders

In the Netherlands space is at a premium.  A majority of the land area of the country has been reclaimed from the sea over the last 500 years creating fertile fields.  (Not so green).  Hence, every available speck of land seems to be richly planted for agriculture, closely abutting other land uses in surprising ways.  Planted fields appear next to airport runways, adjacent to industrial shipyards, and right at the outskirts of the lanes of urban hardscape.

Fietspad (Bike path) 1 km outside Amsterdam with dairy farms on the polder on left

Farms form a ring at the edge of Dutch cities.  Cities abruptly end and agricultural land starts right away.  The quick transition in land use is jarring to my American sensibilities. I am so used to urban density followed by seemingly endless concentric circles of gradually decreasing-density sprawl, creeping along until rural lands appear at the very far end of the known world.

Amsterdam, for instance, reminds me of historical accounts that I have heard about Brooklyn and Queens — fertile farmland adjacent to Manhattan well into the 1920s.

When the wind shifts over the polders (the term for land beneath the dykes), you can smell livestock manure wafting through the sophisticated Centrum of Amsterdam.  A short bike ride from Centraal Station brings you uninterrupted vistas of grassy fields full of grazing cows, sheep, goats, and horses.  The maintenance of the polders as a peri-urban agricultural space is another way that the heavily urbanized Dutch keep close connections to their food supply.

Squatters and Green Guerillas

Amsterdam is home to Action Group S.W.O.M.P, akin to Green Guerillas in 1970s NYC.  S.W.O.M.P. = Slimme Woonwagenbewoners Op Mooie Plekjes (translation: Smart Caravan People Living in Beautiful Places). The action group formed in the mid 90′s — occupying empty lots and growing their own food there.

SWOMP 4 Permaculture Design with raised beds on sand.

SWOMP 4 is an experimental garden that hopes to experiment and demonstrate diverse approaches sustainable and climate neutral life in vacant spaces. SWOMP doesn’t believe in waiting for “governments and capitalists to give us permission to live our lives in a sustainable way, but we want to start now and learn what we need to learn to live without oil and big industry before it is too late.”

SWOMP 4 uses “permaculture design” growing food year round in the City to show (a) “that people don’t need to import food from all over the the world” and (b) “that industrial farming is both impractical and unnecessary.”  SWOMP 4 uses non-potable ground water for irrigation, composts waste and tests new approaches to growing, like vertical “mass of earth.”

Pilots and Planners

Discussing Amsterdam Pilot in "Farming the City" on September 14, 2010.

While I was visiting Amsterdam, I met with Francesca Miazzo, one of the editors of CITIESthemagazine.com, focusing a year of inquiry upon “Farming the City.” She invited me to present, Naturally Occuring Retirement Community (NORC) Farm, created jointly with threadcollective.com, during a “Week of Sustainability” 09.11-19.10. The CITIES exhibition was divided in three parts: Community activism, Material Design and Public Policy.

On September 14, 2010, CITIES organized workshops in which local farmers, local communities, policy makers, artists, architects and engineers were invited to share their knowledge, skills and intentions — imagining various ways of “Farming the City”. Fourteen innovative ideas for urban agriculture from around the world were presented for consideration as platforms for developing an Amsterdam Pilot project, which will be presented for adoption by the city of Amsterdam.

Farm-to-Table Restaurants

Everyone tells travelers to Amsterdam that the food is terrible.  Well, if you spent your vacation in NYC eating at Gray’s Papaya in Times Square, then you might say the same thing about the City that Never Sleeps.

In contrast to Amsterdam’s poor culinary reputation, the city is in the midst of an amazing food revolution — emphasizing robust flavors, local sourcing and farm-to-table ethics.  Several of the most amazing places to eat in Amsterdam also connect their cuisine to urban farming or peri-urban farm partners.  Amsterdam is home to several conceptual restaurants whose chefs seek to spur re-thinking of how we eat as much as what we eat.

Restaurant De Kas

De Kas Restaurant has its own urban farm & greenhouse.

In 2001, Chef Gert Jan Hageman stumbled upon a 1926 greenhouse that belonged to Amsterdam’s Municipal Nursery — slated for demolition.  Hageman converted the 8-metre high glass building into a restaurant and urban farm.

Situated within Frankendael Park, meals are served inside the soaring greenhouse where the chef grows many of the vegetables and edible flowers that you are served.  De Kas was designed by Piet Boon, preserving the industrial character of the original building. The dining experience reminded me of Stone Barns in NY except that De Kas is located about 100 metres from a tram line well inside the city limits.

De Kas Restaurant local seafood salad with greens & flower from its farm.

Proef Restaurant

In 2004,  Studio Marie Vogelzang started “Proef” as a platform for diverse projects that investigate connections and relationships between food and design, cuisine and farming, consumer and producer.  ”Proef” means both “taste” and “eat” in Nederlands. I encountered Proef as the presenter of a conceptual art piece in Performa09 which I reviewed in TheGreenest.Net: Apples & Anti-Pasta (11.07.09).

A view through the tomato beds at Proef Restaurant's urban farm.

Proef Restaurant is one Vogelzang’s latest food design experiments, located in the Westergasfabriek arts complex.   The spatial layout of the restaurant blurs the lines between production and consumption.  Guests can dine inside the kitchen or in the urban farm in the adjacent yard. The experience brings you closer to the food that you eat and the people that prepare it for you.  The raised planters, the industrial setting, the informal vibe reminded me strongly of eating outside in Roberta’s garden in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Proef Restaurant caprese salad presents a re-examination of basic ingredients.

Similarly, the presentation of the dishes intends to alter diners’ assumptions and promote new understandings.  For instance, the ingredients of a caprese salad involves the pairing of fresh mozarella and fresh tomato dressed with basil leaves and a drizzle of good quality olive oil. Vogelzang serves the salad on a plate cleaved in two neat pieces with mozzarella placed on one side of the split and tomato on the other.  The round ball of mozzarella has a wedge cut out of its middle in the shape of a tomato slice.  The plating is playfully provoking a question about the relationship of the ingredients how they blend and separate.

Restaurant Merkelbach

Formal French gardens of Restaurant Merkelbach.

Restaurant Merkelbach is located in the former coach house and stunning formal gardens of the Frankendael estate that became the park of the same name.  The Restaurant takes its name from the last owner who generously open his home to curious visitors.  Chef Geert Burema applies a French-Mediterranean style to local ingredients, emphasizing freshness and seasonality, receiving mention in the pages of Food and Wine.

Burema developed a relationship Ben and Ria Voortwis of Lindenhoff Farm, just 12 kilometers away from the restaurant in Baambrugge. Voortwis raises free-range cows, pigs, lambs and chickens. His motto is “authentic taste” and his operation sells fresh meat as well as using all the parts of the animal to make sausages, pates, hams and other preserved meats.  Nose-to-tail Netherlands Style!

Voortwis is so concerned about freshness that he deliver eggs to customers within 10 hours of the hen’s laying. Burema and other chefs asked Voortwis about traditional Dutch butter and fresh raw milk cheeses, so the farmer started to produce them himself.  Now he produces over twenty types of dairy products.

Chefs asked him for lettuces and herbs, so Voortwis started to grow them.  And what vegetables he can’t grow himself, he sources from other, like-minded biologique (organic) farmers. The story of Chef Burema and Farmer Voortwis provides an important example about how a dynamic relationship between producer and consumer can create new markets for locally-produced, carefully sourced food.  The results of this flavor partnership are incredibly delicious.

Restaurant AS

Communal dining tables of rough hewn wood is part of the neo-primitive aesthetic of Restaurant As

This conceptual restaurant is close to impossible find, located inside Beatrixpark in the South Axis area (where tourists never tend to roam). As our bike ride got longer and longer, my wife begged me to admit that I was lost. Luckily, I wasn’t (although my iPhone was. . .).  Just as I was about to lose hope, I saw a sign for Prinses Irenestraat across the broad 4 lanes of Beethovenstraat.

I am glad we persevered: Restaurant AS is one of Amsterdam’s most creative restaurants full of food provocation and pleasure.  AS started as part of the now-defunct Platform 21, an experimental space for sustainable design and fashion, housed in a round brutalist concrete chapel (now “Kunst Kapel”) adjacent to a de-comissioned monastery. Everything from the kitchen and bar line is organic and local, like beer from Brouwerij ‘t IJ and fruit drinks Beemster polder.  However, AS is more than that. .

The motto of Restaurant AS is “cooking in its purest form.” According to Chef Sander Overeinder, the kitchen is outdoors and open “so that one may see, in a respectful manner, that one dies so the other may live.” Similarly, the dining process is dramatic, slow, casual and thoughtful (Our meal lasted three hours) — these traits are characteristic of New Netherlands cuisine.  And, in the spirit of open source software, Chef Overeinder provides all of his recipes online (follow tab labeled “steekgerecthen”).  By sharing his process as well as his recipes so overtly, Overeinder invites you to see cooking food as creative, spiritual, and social.

The chef selects the menu based on what is available according to seasonal and climatic changes. Overeinder looks for authentic, flavourful ingredients obtained from “suppliers that are small enough to make their own decisions,” such as De Wolf’s Dutch goat cheese from Terwolde, organic vegetables grown on Dutch soil, and a bit farther afield, like Panifico Deumila’s Pane di Altamura from Puglia.

Diners sit at long, rough-hewn communal tables (inside or outside) while meals are cooked within view a Tuscan oven. The server offers a choice of meat or fish. I took the stewed goat, prepared with almonds and saffron, flavored with lemon pickled in salt. Salty, sweet, gamey.

We drank a delicious organic red wine from France (I wish I could remember the name!) and met some friends from Brooklyn whom we stumbled upon earlier in the day.  On one side, we viewed the glare of neon sign from the Kunst Kapel –culture and creativity of human systems — and on the other we faced the dark forms of closely-set tall trees in the huge Beatrixpark.  The setting for Restaurant AS provided a fitting way to re-imagine food — poised between nature and culture — so perfectly understood by our Dutch hosts.

Neon sign "Kunst Kapel" (Art Chapel) announces Restaurant AS in the dark.

Farm City Forum 09.25.10 Looks at Future of Urban Ag

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.

1. 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?

1. Ask the Author? Questions for Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City.

1. Open Studio – Submit a real or imagined idea for enhancing urban agriculture and building a sustainable food system.

FARM CITY TALK: http://farmcityinfo.tumblr.com/

Single Discussions: $10 FIAF Members, $15 Non-Members
All Discussions: $20 FIAF Members, $30 Non-Members

SPECIAL STUDENT DISCOUNT – ALL DISCUSSIONS $10.00!!!

Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City Opening 09.16.10 @ 6P

Photo by Dan Sagarin

Please join me at the OPENING RECEPTION for

BROOKLYN UTOPIAS: FARM CITY

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010 6-8PM

OLD STONE HOUSE
2nd FLOOR GALLERY AND WASHINGTON PARK
336 Third Street (Inside the Park!)
Fifth Avenue between 3rd & 4th Street, Park Slope
F/R to 4th Avenue/9th Street or R to Union Street

What would a Brooklyn Utopia look like?

Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City invites artists to respond to urban agriculture as a “utopian” solution for Brooklyn, considering the borough as a case study for future “farm cities”.

Brooklyn already is home to a fertile cross section of both traditional and experimental urban farming methods. Home-grown food and a DIY culture are on the rise. Brooklyn has a rich agricultural history settled by Dutch farmers who created the Nation’s most productive farms until 1920s. Now, its soil is presumed toxic waste.

How can the real or imagined Farm City catalyze new visions for social and environmental change that may bring about a “Brooklyn Utopia?”

ARTWORK

Artists are increasingly incorporating farming, landscaping, and ecology into their practice. The predominance of environmentally concerned exhibitions at contemporary art institutions is one mark of the shift of environmentalism from a marginalized grassroots and activist effort to a more institutionalized and popularized subject that infiltrates every sector of society.

The artworks range from symbolic and visionary to living and earthy. Christina Kelly’s process-work, Maize Field, re-fertilizes Brooklyn neighborhoods once tilled by Native Americans. Jess Levey and Katherine Gressel also ponder the connection to Brooklyn’s agrarian past juxtaposing colonial, present, and future imagery of the Old Stone House and creating a site-specific and localized entry point to contemplate “Utopia.”

A futuristic video by Work.AC and never-before shown plans and drawings by Mary Mattingly predict more sustainable futures for land, water, and air use in the context of Brooklyn’s fate as sea levels steadily rise around it. Eric Sanderson is also focused on the future — contrasting imaginary and actual digital maps of Brooklyn drawn from his 2009 bestseller Manahatta , combining the present with an idealized agrarian aerial view of the borough in 2409.

Mimi Oka and Doug Fitch’s satirical Land of Cockaigne depicts a sybaritic depiction of heaven of effortless consumption that eerily tracks our own current dystopian abundance of cheap, fattening and false foods.
Scott Nyerges, Kate Glicksberg, and Dan Sagarin use photopgrahy and blogging to capture existing newly-green farm oases hidden in unusual places throughout Brooklyn’s endless hardscape — from fire escapes to rooftops.

L-A-W-N by Tattfoo Tan

Kim Holleman and Tattfoo Tan explore the edible and educational potential of mobile farms, joined by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis presenting Truck Farm at our Opening Party on 09.16.10 — on display throughout the weekend.

In another amazing temporary installation on 09.18.10, The Greenhorns (a collective of Young Farmers and Artists) erect FARM FORT, an interactive multi-media camp that will show films and hold discussions in a 10 x 10 tent.

Eve Mosher’s mini plant “modules” demonstrate her use of social networking to link and multiply Brooklyn’s smallest farms while Hernani Dias employs technology to link Brooklyn to urban farms overseas, displaying the vital signs of new potatoes to a shared website interface — like a Facebook stauts update for plants.

Andrew Casner and Hugh Hayden demonstrate how art itself can be made from Brooklyn’s rejuvenated organic material, including compost and live insects. Outside, Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy’s human body sculptures of growing edible plants, Ça Pousse!, bring new meaning to the phrase “You are what you eat!”

SUMMARY

Not-to be missed temporary outdoor installations opening weekend, Sept 16, 18-19:
Ian Cheney & Curt Ellis (Truck Farm) (on view Sept. 16, 18-19)
The Greenhorns (FARM FORT, an outdoor farm information tent) (Sept 18-19 ONLY!)
Kim Holleman (Trailer Park) (Artist talks Sept. 16, 6-8pm; Sept. 18 & 19, 1-2pm and 5-6pm)
Tattfoo Tan (S.O.S. Mobile Classroom): (Artist presentation Thurs, Sept. 16 6-8pm; and SUNDAY ONLY, Sept. 19, 10-2pm)

SPECIAL! OPENING NIGHT ONLY:
Video projections by Jess Levey
Live musical performance by the People’s Champs

Featuring artwork by:
Andrew Casner, Hernani Dias, Kate Glicksberg, Katherine Gressel, Hugh Hayden, Kim Holleman, Christina Kelly, Jess Levey, Mary Mattingly, Eve Mosher, Scott Nyerges, ORPH, Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy , Dan Sagarin, Eric Sanderson, Tattfoo Tan, Work.AC

PARTNERSHIPS

Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City will correspond with Crossing the Line: Farm City, a comprehensive 3-week exploration of urban agriculture through markets, workshops, tours, films and discussions running from September 12-25, 2010 at the French Institute Alliance Francais, and Open House New York Weekend, a citywide architecture and design tour October 9-10, 2010 organized by Openhousenewyork, Inc.

ABOUT THE CURATORS

Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City is a mash up of two curators’ related projects devoted to exploring the relationship between art and place. Last year, Katherine Gressel launched Brooklyn Utopias as an annual exhibit in which artists consider differing visions of an ideal city through the “concrete” example of Brooklyn. This year, Derek Denckla initiated FarmCity.US, a broad-based, long-term action-research project that aims to engage public enthusiasm for environmental change through transformative collaborations between arts and urban agriculture.

GALLERY INFORMATION:

The Old Stone House is symbolic of Brooklyn’s gradual return to its agricultural “roots.” Originally a Dutch colonial farmhouse, OSH now boasts five community gardens and corresponding arts and environ mental education programming — providing food for artists’ boldest thoughts of an entire future city that can again help feed itself.

The Old Stone House of Brooklyn is a modern reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, a 1699 Dutch stone farmhouse that was the site of the largest battle of the Revolutionary War and the original home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Old Stone House is dedicated to creating a strong sense of community through history, environmental education and the arts.

Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City
EXHIBITION DATES: SEPTEMBER 16-DECEMBER 12, 2010
GALLERY HOURS: SATURDAY & SUNDAY, 11am-4pm OR BY APPOINTMENT

TheGreenest.Net and Thread Collective Win the One Prize!

Brooklyn-based architecture collective Terreform ONE announced that the design team — consisting of TheGreenest.Net and architecture firm, thread collective – have been selected as winner of the first annual ONE Prize of $5,000 sponsored by the American Society of Landscape Architects and NYC Department of Parks & Recreation!

On July 29, 2010 at 6:30 pm, One Prize will host an awards ceremony and cocktail reception that launches an on-going exhibition of the winning designs at Trespa/Arpa Design Centre,  62 Greene Street in SOHO. Please RSVP to info.ny@trespa.com or register here.

The winning team, consisting of Derek Denckla from TheGreenest.Net and Gita Nandan and Elliott Maltby from thread collective, came together to respond to the call for proposals on the theme “Mowing to Growing: A Design Competition for Creating Productive Green Spaces in Cities.”

The competition drew 202 teams and 850 team members from more than 20 countries and five continents.

“We were really excited when it was announced that we made the list of 30 semi-finalists earlier this year.” said Nandan, “Looking at the other semi-finalists –and the quality of their projects — I was really honored. Our proposal was in some seriously accomplished company. That’s why it’s all-the-more thrilling that we were selected as the model project.”

Our team hashed out a few prototype designs together until we settled on Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) Farms.  The concept of the NORC  is simple: to connect aging New Yorkers with inaccessible lawns that surround public housing complexes in order to create and cultivate farm plots and social spaces.  NORC FARMS would use urban agriculture to transform grass into a socially, ecologically, economically productive space; activate older New Yorkers, and transforming public housing into local agriculture; where the Corbusier “tower in the park” becomes the sustainable tower in the farm.

“We took a bit of a risk when we submitted the NORC Farms proposal.” said Elliott Maltby. “Let’s face it, aging is a critical social issue but not usually the subject of high-concept design. Furthermore, the traditional entry in a design competition emphasizes strong forms that depict a robust design sensibility. Instead, we decided to focus our proposal more on investigating the nature of spatial relationships and how slight but significant changes in use can radically transform community.”

“Originally, the prize was to be $10,000 for one winner,” said organizer Maria Aiolova of Terreform, “but we quickly began to see that there was two stand-out proposals: one that emphasized community planning and another that was more design-driven. So, in the end, we decided to split the $10,000 prize to honor both of these impulses that initially motivated the competition.”

“NORC Farms obviously was our choice for the community proposal.” Aiolova added. “We really feel that NORC Farms addresses a serious community need with an elegant and creative solution. It made us really pleased that a few days before we announced the winners, the NY Times ran a front page story about cities (including NYC) launching design accommodations for their aging populations.” (See “NY Aims to Improve the Lives of the Elderly,” Anemona Hartocollis, 7/18/10, NY Times).

The ONE Prize competition called for technical, urbanistic, and architectural strategies not simply for the food production required to feed the cities and suburbs, but the possibilities of diet, agriculture, and retrofitted facilities that could achieve that level within the constraints of the local climate and conditions.  The entries ranged from vertical farms, neighborhood farms, farming on vacant lots and buildings, abandoned infrastructure, front lawns, strip malls, roof tops, river barges and inside trailers.

As Terreform ONE cofounder Mitchell Joachim puts it: “We want to break the American love affair with the suburban lawn.” In a country that today squanders some seven billion gallons of water every day watering its 40,000 acres of suburban lawns—and in which only two percent of food is grown locally—Mowing to Growing challenged architects to devise workable means for growing more of America’s food closer to more of America’s communities, and to do so at less expense to our economy and our environment.

Terreform ONE [Open Network Ecology] is a non-profit design group that promotes green design in cities. Since 2006, the group has been a pioneer in ecological design and sustainable construction technology. With visionary proposals in the fields of public transit, waste reuse and community development, as well as lectures, workshops and exhibitions, the Terreform ONE team has pushed the conceptual envelope for ecological architecture and urban design.  The One Prize is the group’s latest initiative to advance the burgeoning environmental movement by encouraging designers to imagine new solutions for conservation and renewability, and then giving those designers a platform for their ideas.

The design team that shared the winning award of the One Prize was AGENCY architecture LLC, USA (Ersela Kripa, Stephen Mueller). This project proposes a global system of levees, serving also as a new  brand of urban farms at the city’s edge, preserving local ecologies while protecting cities from emerging dangers.  Each stage of the levee supports the next.  Clippings, compost, and surplus crops from farming levels are used as nutrients and food for a series of fish farms, marshes, and restorative dune ecologies.  Waste from marine life and nutrients from algal habitats are then used to fertilized farm levels, making the levee a complete ecology.

The Jury consisted of a distinguished panel of thinkers and designers, including:
• Cameron Sinclair, Founder, Architecture for Humanity
• Adrian Benepe, Commissioner, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation
• Ben  Schwegler, Jr., Ph.D., Chief Scientist of Walt Disney Imagineering
• DJ Spooky, AKA Paul D. Miller, electronic and experimental musician,  producer and author
• Dickson Despommier, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University and Director of the Vertical Farm Project
• Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, Host and Producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City
• William J. Mitchell, Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, Director, Media Lab’s Smart Cities research group at MIT

How to Reduce Your Pesticide Intake? Know The Dirty & Clean 15!

This article has been copied in its entirety from www.foodnews.org as it provides an excellent resource to explain why buying organic justifies the extra costs that may prevent future costs arising from poor health.

Why Should You Care About Pesticides?

The growing consensus among scientists is that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can cause lasting damage to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. Scientists now know enough about the long-term consequences of ingesting these powerful chemicals to advise that we minimize ourconsumption of pesticides.

What’s the Difference?

EWG research has found that people who eat five fruits and vegetables a day from the Dirty Dozen list consume an average of 10 pesticides a day. Those who eat from the 15 least contaminated conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables ingest fewer than 2 pesticides daily. The Guide helps consumers make informed choices to lower their dietary pesticide load.

Will Washing and Peeling Help?

The data used to create these lists is based on produce tested as it is typically eaten (meaning washed, rinsed or peeled, depending on the type of produce). Rinsing reduces but does not eliminate pesticides. Peeling helps, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the skin. The best approach: eat a varied diet, rinse all produce and buy organic when possible.

How Was This Guide Developed?

EWG analysts have developed the Guide based on data from nearly 96,000 tests for pesticide residues in produce conducted between 2000 and 2008 and collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. You can find a detailed description of the criteria EWG used to develop these rankings and the complete list of fruits and vegetables tested at our dedicated website, www.foodnews.org.

What’s Doing at DoTank: Brooklyn Urban Agriculture Skillshare

Crafting seedbombs for community beautification

On June 5th, I attended a workshop in Williamsburg at The Change You Want To See Gallery, hosted by a local organization called DoTank:Brooklyn. As part of their mission to promote “interdisciplinary exploration, engagement, and enhancement of the formal urban planning process”, the Urban Agriculture Skillshare presented three distinct ways that individuals can effect change in their own communities using minimal resources, a little creativity, and the help of Mother Nature.

The gallery was packed, standing-room only, but that was fine because this workshop was a series of hands-on, how-to demonstrations where, divided into three groups, the participants rotated to three different stations, spending thirty minutes at each, learning and creating a small project in urban agriculture that included Vermiculture: Indoor food waste composting, WindowFarms: To grow food indoors year-round, and Seedbombing: To beautify abandoned lots.

My first turn was at the seedbombing station where we literally got our hands dirty crafting seedbombs intended to green empty and abandoned lots in the neighborhood. Proponents of FoodNotBombs should rest assured that these bombs do no harm. In fact, they are a combination of a mix of wildflower and herb seeds, moistened in compost with a little water, and then rolled in clay to dry over night. Once hardened, these seedbombs can be tossed into abandoned lots in neighborhoods around the city where eventually, with the help of a little rain and sunshine, they will produce pretty wildflowers and fresh herbs, transforming what was once an eyesore into a more attractive space. What’s not to like about these bombs?

Today's seedbombs, tomorrow's upgrades

Aurash Khawarzad, a founder of DoTank:Brooklyn and our seedbomb instructor, calls it “upgrading community”. He spends his time teaching skillshares like these in the hopes that it will become normal for people to do these sorts of things in their own communities. Seedbombing as the norm, rather than the exception.

DoTank:Brooklyn is all about doing rather than waiting for the slow process of urban planning and implementation to kick into gear. Interested in transforming an empty and abandoned space in your neighborhood? Check out the Do:Tank website for detailed seedbomb instructions.

After washing our hands, we moved on to the white plastic bottles at skillshare number two, building an indoor hydroponic system for growing food. Britta Riley, artist and creator of WindowFarms, gave us a brief overview of her project before handing us the tools to get started. The project has two goals: to empower urbanites to grow their own food year-round indoors and to give ordinary people a way to contribute innovations toward more sustainable cities. WindowFarms are a unique design partially made from recyclable materials using a vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, system to produce high-yield, edible plants in limited space indoors.

Assembling a Window Farm

As an indoor gardener myself, I was intrigued by the prospect of growing my own fresh produce even in the midst of winter in the middle of the city, so I paid close attention. Using one-liter plastic water bottles connected through a series of cut-outs and modified bottle caps, a WindowFarms design allows for as many as five plants to grow without soil in a vertical assembly that hangs neatly in any sunny window.

The plants are fed water and nutrients through a plastic tube connected on the outside of the system and run by a small air pump, such as those used for fish tanks and aquariums. The water is recycled, conserving a precious resource, while the plants, rooted in specially-designed hydroponic clay, grow through cut-outs in the sides of the bottles. The theory is that because the roots do not spread out in soil and lose water to run-off, the plants are able to utilize the nutrients faster, promoting higher yields.

One could build their own WindowFarm with a little resourcefulness and some scrap materials. Or you can explore WindowFarms’ website for instructions and printable patterns for transforming plastic water bottles into your own window farm.

As part of attaining their second goal, WindowFarms maintains an online community of over 12,000 members worldwide. The Window Farms Network has been sharing ideas and input from their own experiences with Riley to help guide the design through twelve innovations, or subversions, making the WindowFarms system more nutritionally productive, easier to maintain, and better-looking, among other things.

A WindowFarm system......just add plants!

Currently, WindowFarms is in the process of creating WindowFarms kits for purchase through its website which will help fund their non-profit organization. As I look at the plants in pots on my window sill and think about the one I accidentally knocked off last night, snapping its stem and dumping dirt everywhere on the floor, I feel quite inclined to test out a tidy, efficient WindowFarm system myself this winter.

As a former volunteer on sustainable farms, I am familiar with a variety of composting systems, but I had never been introduced to the small-scale, in-home version of vermicomposting until this workshop. At our third skillshare for the day, we took on the task of how to reduce the two and a half pounds per day of waste that the average American produces. NYC processes 12,000 tons per day of trash at a whopping cost of two million dollars each day, sending trash to six different states as well as upstate.

Dumping our waste in landfills is not only dangerous to the land below these dumps, but the process of anaerobic decomposition creates methane which can stay in the atmosphere for nine to fifteen years. Methane traps twenty times more heat than carbon dioxide, contributing extensively to our issues of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. So what to do with all this waste?

The North Brooklyn Compost Project offers one solution to reducing waste in the home: vermicomposting or composting with worms. Considering that 40% of the waste we generate in our homes is organic compostable material, vermicomposting can be an easy way to keep that organic material from entering the waste stream by recycling our food scraps into rich, dark compost for use in our gardens and on our indoor plants. Scientifically proven, compost is powerful enough to remediate contaminated soil, transforming it once again into productive, healthy earth, and is therefore referred to as “black gold”. Anyone can make their own black gold with a few starter materials, some worms, and your food scraps.

Here’s how it works:  You need a compost bin to get started. At the skillshare, we modified a plastic tub with a tight-fitting lid by drilling some air holes in the sides. Proper ventilation will aid in the process of decomposition (and let the worms breathe!).

Modifying for a vermiculture compost bin

A successful compost ratio is 2:1 — two parts “browns” and one part “greens.” Browns contain carbon, such as leaves and yard waste, or, as we used, shredded newspaper.  Greens contain nitrogen — your food scraps. Coffee grounds, egg shells, and tea bags are all acceptable for composting, but citrus peels, which take much longer to break down and can turn your compost acidic, should be left out. Use vegetable not animal waste in your compost bin.  Meat scraps, animal bones, dairy, and fats should not be included in your compost bin as they will not degrade quickly and will add unpleasant odors. Woody seeds and pits should not be included as they may germinate.  If the newspaper or yard waste is dry, it’s important to mist a little water in there and turn it to moisten the mix. Then, add the worms and let them do the rest.

Red wrigglers, often used for fishing bait, make great compost worms. The Lower Eastside Ecology Center sells compost worms for about $22/lb. For a bin the size we used, a pound of worms is plenty. One pound of worms will process two to three pounds of food per week.  Worms multiply rapidly so you may be able to give a pound away to a friend in about six to twelve months, keeping the amount of worms to waste balanced in your bin and doing your part to help more people compost their food waste in the city.

It will take about six weeks to reach the first harvest of compost. Keep adding food scraps, stirring the contents once in awhile and monitoring the moisture and ratio of brown to green. When it’s ready, you will see dirt accumulating underneath — a rich compost layer at the bottom of the bin separate from the remaining food scraps above.

The worms will work their way upwards in the bin over time, leaving the compost below and feasting on newer scraps and papers above. You can transfer the food scraps and worms from the top to another bin, harvest the compost beneath and then start over with a new bin. Fresh, wet compost is very high in nitrogen and needs to be cured — aired out for two weeks before applying it to your plants.

Red wrigglers, newspaper, and food scraps

Carina Molnar, our vermicomposter extraordinaire (and blogger for CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, offered these tips for maintaining a healthy compost system — very important as this is an indoor system. She keeps her bin of worms and food scraps under the kitchen sink.

If the worms are escaping, it’s because the bin is too hot or cold. Adjust the location or situation to amend this. If it begins to smell like sulfur (like eggs), add more brown, such as shredded newspaper, to absorb the odor. And if it’s too dry, spritz it with water to help maintain the moisture.

As food scraps break down, they release liquid. Balancing the scraps and newspaper will help keep an inviting environment in which the worms will continue to do their work. And the results will be your very own pot of black gold.

A pile o' black gold!

For further reading, Carina recommends the book, “Worms Eat My Garbage” by Mary Appelhof. Or check out the Brooklyn Botanic Garden website for resources on composting. The North Brooklyn Compost Project accepts kitchen compostable scraps from the public as do many community gardens in neighborhoods around Brooklyn.

If you missed out on the DoTank:Brooklyn Urban Agriculture Skillshare, visit their website and tell them you are interested in more Skillshares. They are always working to create opportunities for locals to join in the efforts to enhance urban communities all over the city, so roll up your sleeves and get “doing”!

Slow Money National Gathering: Investing in the Soil

“Food is the field in which we daily explore our harming of the world.”  Gary Snyder, Poet (as quoted by Wood Tasch)

Woody Tasch, Author of "The Nature of Slow Money" at the podium.

I am attending the 2d Annual Slow Money National Gathering in Shelburne Farms, Vermont.  18 months after writing his book, The Nature of Slow Money: Investing as If Food, Farms and Fertility Matter (Chelsea Green), Woody Tasch has organized a growing movement of investors, businesses and farmers to bring his ideas about saving the planet by promoting “nurture capital” through the nascent Slow Money Alliance.

Slow Money Alliance has developed support for its idea to foster entrepreneurial finance supporting soil fertility, carrying capacity, sense of place, diversity and nonviolence.  It has issued six “Slow Money Principles” that set out a vision of the destructive world of Fast Money and how Slow Money responds and restores balance and peace.  First Principle: “We must bring money down to earth.”

At this gathering in Vermont, Tasch has set a course for action to enact the Slow Money Principles across the US.  His goal is to have 1 million people invest 1% of their income in soil fertility in the next ten years.  He announced the creation of the Soil Trust as a first step in this goal, aiming to collect $25 from 1 million people.  The money from the Soil Trust would fund local funds that would invest directly into land conservation and businesses that practice sustainable agriculture.

The conference began with remarks from Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, who framed the urgency of the need to invest in a restorative model for agriculture that would address disastrous climate impacts caused by industrial agriculture over the last 50 years.  Repeatedly, he and other speakers emphasized the ways in which industrialized farming harms the air, water and soil as well as our bodies.

Tasch introduced the next two speakers with a reference to the contrasting views on how to grow sustainable food businesses.  ”On the one hand, Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm, told me that ‘We are not part of an industry, we are a part of a movement.  On the other hand, Gary Hirschberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farms, told me ‘I hate using that word ‘Movement’ for our business.  We are trying to make sustainable businesses that make change on a massive scale which can only be achieved by industrial means.”

“As far as I see it,” Tasch continued, “I agree with them both and see them as the separate halves of the whole discussion here about how to grow sustainable food business.”

Throughout the amazing day, the speakers represented the luminaries from the sustainable food movement who emphasized the need for investment in differing strategies for changing business as usual.

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm

Joel Salatin, author, farmer central character in Michael Pollan’s book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, spoke about sticking to your principles as a way to deal with scaling your enterprise.  He said that scale was not a problem if you stay true to your beliefs and set goals with your soul not your sales target.  He emphasized that the quality of his product and relationships with customers made his success.

Gary Hirschberg described his beginings as director of New Alchemy, an experimental self-sustaining agricultural center in the 1970s.  ”It was a perfect agricultural system with solar heated greenhouses and aquaponics in a closed loop.  But it was not a good business and it failed.”

“I set out to start Stonyfield to correct what New Alchemy lacked: a business. However, it took nine years of struggle before Stoneyfield made a nickel.  297 courageous patient capitalists gave me the funds to start.  Many of them have done very well, as a result. Today, Stonyfield Farms is a $355 million company.”

Hirschberg went on to say that our economy is based on myths that sustainable business seeks to dispel by facing the real consequences and costs of ignoring the impact of traditional business practices.  Hirschberg described how Stonyfield has adopted changes in doing business step-by-step, incrementally becoming more environmentally sensitive.

“Industrial food businesses make their product as cheaply as possible to get the widest margin in order to outspend the competition on advertising.  We spend more on the product, spend close to nothing on ads, and make a better return than most traditional food businesses, like those in our corporate parent, Danone.”  (Stonyfield was bought in 2001 by the Danone Group, a $25 billion food company, although Hirschberg retains a controling interest.)  Hirschberg agreed with Salatin that quality and loyalty were his best assets.

Gary Hirshberg, CEO, Stonyfield Farms

“This is a critical moment for the food movement.  We are charged with nothing less than saving the world.”  Hirschberg said.  He closed with a Gandhi quote: “Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference has never been in bed with a mosquito.”

All of the speakers conveyed an abiding passion for their work.  Will Rapp from Gardener’s Supply pioneered composting techniques and greened the Intervale in Burlington, VT.  Rapp also described his pioneering subdivision design, South Village, which includes investing a 1/2% of proceeds from sales in the start-up costs for a physically linked farm enterprise.

Tom Stearns, founder of organic High Mowing Seeds (a business he started in college!), spoke about all the sustainable businesses in his town of Hardwick, VT who meet to discuss issues and how to support each others work. Over the last four years, this monthly informal gathering — with no rules and no name — has yielded loans back and forth to each other of $750,000 and given rise to the Center for an Agricultural Economy.

Eliot Coleman of Four Season Farm

Eliot Coleman, founder of Four Season Farm and author of The New Organic Grower, outlined his “Feast Philosophy” imbued with a common sense approach to growing good food that delights and nourishes the person and the soil.  He explained how he continually refined his methods to reduce cost and improve quality.

Each enterprise presented a different facet of how business might express environmental goals and personal ethics. The ideas were filled with joy of creativity and life yet the moral task we face was seen in sober terms of war.

It was no accident then, that one of the speakers quoted a war-time President, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, who warned:   “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.”

It was a day of innovation and exploration that was both sobering and inspiring in equal measure.  Today, I will endeavor to engage with more ideas and convey them here.

(Please note that this post is paralleled on the food revolution blog Groundswell.)

Urban Foraging: Stinging Nettles

Forage. It is a term most people are familiar with. It means to search for food. In today’s modern, fast-paced world this means going to the nearest grocery store and loading up a cart with whatever offerings are laid out in neat rows along the aisles. However, at one time in our human history, people actually partook in another form of foraging. We set out for the day in the fields and woods in search of wild, edible plants to supply our bodies with nutrients and we relied on the knowledge and experience handed down from one generation to the next in selecting our harvest.

Even in our urban environment, city parks, street trees and backyards can yield hidden abundance. Mushrooms, bush berries, flower buds, wild greens and fruits of trees all provide morsels for a meal. And then there is the stinging nettle.

The Stinging Nettle (urtica dioica) is usually regarded as a nuisance plant by gardeners, growing in abundance in moist, woody areas.  However, if handled with care, the Stinging Nettle can yield all sorts of culinary treats and health benefits.  And, in early Spring, when cultivated crops are not yet ready for harvest, the Stinging Nettle is mature and ready to eat (along with other better-known “early riser” wild greens, such as Ramps, Dandelion, Fiddleheads and Watercress).  I endeavored to explore how to tame the wildness of Stinging Nettle.

Approaching the nettle is a challenge in itself. In fact, its “nettlesome.”  The nettle’s leaves and stems are covered entirely with tiny, needle-like hairs that, if brushed up against with bare skin, leave behind a painful rash that lasts the better part of the day. The cause of this is a combination of four substances found in the hairs; formic acid, histamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin. Yet our ancestors weren’t thinking about chemical compounds when they somehow figured out that if they cooked the nettles in water, the sting becomes deactivated. The result is a hardy, tasty green chock full of nutrients.

Rich in minerals, the nettle provides calcium, magnesium, iron, and potassium, among others. It is also loaded with vitamin C, beta-carotene, and B complex vitamins. Consisting of ten percent protein — more than any other vegetable — and high levels of easily absorbable amino acids, the stinging nettle is one of nature’s perfect foods. Its medicinal properties are numerous as it is used as an expectorant to treat ailments such as asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia. As an infusion, nettle tea is a safe, gentle diuretic that restores the kidneys and bladder.  A nettle compress will heal cuts, wounds, stings, and burns. Scientists and doctors today proclaim its many benefits in treating modern chronic illnesses such as gout, intestinal and colon disorders, gall bladder infections, hepatitis, and prostate cancer to name a few.

It is hardly a revelation that today we have become disconnected from the food that sustains us. Rarely do we ever forage for our nutrition in the wild. Instead we have, perhaps unknowingly, allowed our food system to turn into an industrial institution that favors mass production and low costs over nutrition and flavor. Yet the hidden costs are staggering: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity are on the rise. And to make matters worse, we are eating our way toward climate change through a combination of negative effects of petro-intensive industrial agriculture that produces 17% of all greenhouse gases and uses 80% of all potable water.

In the midst of all this food that travels an average of 1500 miles to your plate stands the stinging nettle right under your nose — a plentiful, medicinal weed ready for plucking by those willing to risk the sting for greater health. Our ancestors have shared their trick to harvesting the nettle. Taking a firm hold of the leaves actually crushes down the stinging hairs, making them less likely to penetrate the skin. I would recommend wearing gardener’s gloves.  And be careful about letting the leaves or branches brush up against any exposed skin on your arms or legs.  Make sure you have a bag or bucket for carrying the picked nettles.

Many organic farmers will gather and sell nettles (very cheaply at about $3.00 per pound) during the Spring.  For instance, Cheryl of Rogowski Farms has been selling nettles at the Carroll Gardens (Brooklyn) Farmers Market on Sundays.  And recently, my colleague, Derek visited his friend’s farm in Connecticut where they were scything and composting this furiously propagating herbaceous perennial.  He harvested an armful with the help of his friend’s son and they made Nettle Soup, a traditional Spring dish in Ireland.

To prepare nettles for eating, immerse completely in cold water in the sink or other vessel. Add a teaspoon of vinegar to the water to loosen soil and pests.  Using tongs or gloves, transfer nettles, still wet, to a stockpot and cover.  Cook on medium heat until the leaves wilt.  Remove from the pot when cooled enough to handle.  You may either remove the leaves or chop the leaves and stems together.  As the plant ages the stem becomes more woody and less edible.  Derek told me that he substituted Nettles for spinach in the Persian national dish Gormeh Sabzi.  We even found a recipe for Nettle Schnapps.  I would stick with Nettle Soup as a way to taste the plant for the first time.  For more recipes and handling foraged foods, you could check out Wild Food Larder.

And, if you are game to learn more about finding the hidden treasures of the City parks and streetscapes, you might consider taking a foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill or other botany or mycology societies that offer similar outings.

Irish Nettle Soup (from Saveur)

SERVES 6 – 8

2 tbsp. butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
7 cups duck stock or 5 tbsp. glace de canard
dissolved in 6 1⁄4 cups hot water
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 leek, trimmed, white and light green parts only,
washed and chopped
3 tightly packed cups young nettle tips and tender
leaves (about 1⁄4 lb.)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1. Melt butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until softened, 6–8 minutes. Add the duck stock, potatoes, and leeks and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer gently until potatoes and leeks are soft, about 15 minutes. Add the nettles, season to taste with salt and lots of pepper, increase heat to medium, and cook until nettles are tender, 5–7 minutes.

2. Working in batches, carefully purée the hot soup in a blender until smooth, 2–3 minutes per batch. Pour puréed soup into a clean medium pot and reheat. Add lemon juice and adjust seasonings. Stir in some cream before serving, if you like.