I’ve been hearing/reading alot about BLDGBLOG lately. So today I poked my head in the check out their site. Today’s post is titled “London Yields, Harvested” It was in reference to an event called “London Yields: Getting Urban Agriculture off the Ground” a kind of workshop covering how to get urban agriculture in London.
So here I am in Fresno, California. Above the soil capable of growing a great diversity of plants. In a climate with one of the longest growing seasons outside the tropics. About the harvest the corn growing in my front yard. And I think if London can get moving on urban agriculture, then Fresno can.
So where do we start?
The first thing BLDGBLOG mentioned was “become public policy”. This is a big one for Fresno because every one of our community gardens seems to be met with resistance from police or code enforcement in the City of Fresno.
There also needs to be the organization and popular support. Fresno Metro Ministries has some recomendations.
What do you think? Could be an urban farmer? Do you have a sunny spot and a few hours a week to tend?
And an important question would yo take a hands on class that I’m going to teach next spring about urban agriculture?
I love the idea of urban agriculture, and wish more people around here would do it instead of cultivating lawns! Too bad community gardens meet so much resistance when they have the potential to really bring communities back together in very healthy ways. Is the lack of urban agriculture in this city which is completely surrounded by agriculture an example of cognitive dissonance? Or do many living in this city have chosen it to escape the farms?
The whole issue is really interesting to me, and I’m intrigued that you wrote about it on the very day when I’ve had several interesting discussions around the topic while working on a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation for a new multidisciplinary urban ecology research project here! In one of the meetings, Hank Delcore (anthroguy is part of the grant team) was describing how someone in his neighborhood is growing corn in their front yard, and now I see the picture above and wonder if he was talking about your house?!
It seems to me that our project could benefit from collaborating with you and archop, and if that interests you we should talk. I’ll try to email you a synopsis if I can find your email address. In case you are wondering, I’m an urban ecologist on the biology faculty at Fresno State.
Madhu
That’s great. Hank Delcore is a great addition to any team. We worked together on the archop about homeless housing.
It was my front yard that he was talking about. Another of our neighbors is doing something similar.
I’d like to hear more about your project.
I’ve sent you synopsis of our proposed project. Once grant is submitted, I may blog about it as well, at Reconciliation Ecology.
I didn’t know about your homeless housing project, and am intrigued. Art Dyson recently brought a proposal to CSUF to develop a program of building sustainable eco-housing for homeless instead of the usual tent-city style govt. response. He cited Rural Studio and Design Build Bluff as models to emulate in a university-architects-community partnership to address this problem. Do you know about this idea? I see you’ve linked to Dyson’s firms among archop exbitors.