Agricultural Urbanism- February 14th

Seminar Leaders- Caleb McGinn, Darylanne Hammlin, Brydget Lewicki, Anita Robels, Lindsay Ledohowski, Amanda Reis, Samantha Brodick, Ellen Enns, Mitch
McIntosh

The integration of Urban Agriculture into urban planning- An analysis of the current status and constraints- This paper discusses the benefits of implementing urban agricultural into cities. The author discusses how the cost to bring them into cities may be pricy however not doing it can cost much more. Some of the benefits of urban agriculture that were discussed are providing food security to the urban poor, improvement of soil quality, less pollutions in the air due to not transporting food. The public is slowly becoming more aware of farming activities but urban agriculture is still seen as, "economically unimportant," (Drescher, 1). Most of the best soils are being built on, which causes them to loose all nutrients which never allows them to be able to sustain agriculture. It was discussed that people who live too far will not get involved with the land, therefore it will not be a success. Placing these gardens strategically around the city to all dense areas is key. There is also a great educational role involved with urban agriculture.1 

Urban Agriculture: Environment, Ecology and the Urban Poor- This paper discusses how all the benefits that claim to come from Urban Agriculture are not necessarily true due to the lack of evidence. In urban agriculture someone has to be constantly taking care of the gardens, watering them, ploughing them, etc. and the experts say that self alliance will occur and people will naturally want to take care of the land. However this is not true, the gardens are created for the poor in order to help with food supply, but general poor families work multiple jobs and take care of children, when is there time left to go and take care of a garden. "It is simply assumed that the new 'urban agricultural' sites, and the labour-intensive, resource-saving, food-cropping system that are envisaged, will be exploited by the poor," (Webb, 97). Urban agriculture does provide some benefits with getting healthier food, however people tend to buy what is cheap. The cheaper option may be the imported goods or simply canned food. "The irony behind this type of reasoning is that while the rest of the city population pursues its livelihood in an ecologically wasteful fashion, it is the poor who are required to search for and to adopt an ecologically sound means of making a living," (Webb, 98).2

  

Seminar Discussion- Do you think inner- city people are going to implement Urban Agriculture?
It was discussed that the only thing inner city people could be seen actually doing is having really small scale gardens. There is simply no room in cities to have anything large enough to really sustain the entire city or even a small community. There may be some room but it is not necessarily the open space that is needed for gardens. It also depends on the cities nature, it was brought up that there is no way anyone could see gardens popping up in the middle of a city like Los Angels.
It was suggested to do large scale gardening on the roof tops, however Winnipeg's harsh climates do not necessarily allow for this. Maybe creating some sort of green house on top of a building?
It was also mentioned that now since gardens are being brought into cities there are other things that need to be taken into consideration such as animals and using pesticides.
We need to consider the weather, cultures, sizes of cities, the mentality of the people, etc. to be able to consider if a city garden would be appropriate in a certain location and if people would even bother to look after it.
It was mentioned that someones neighbour utilized their front lawn for a garden. We have some sort of weird notion that front lawns need grass or a lawn or flowers, but why not use this space for a purpose?

3) Urban Agriculture in a front lawn.

What are some of the benefits of including designers in the implementation of urban agriculture strategies?
Designers can implement the aesthetic aspect of the gardens. Instead of including designers who will probably turn the space into some non useful piece of land again there should be tax breaks for having a garden or some sort of green space.
There should be specified parts of cities that have a garden, such as school zones or hospitals.
There was a discussion on if urban agriculture really supports it environment or not, and it does not necessarily show the true environment either.

Should the urban poor be the only ones to participate in the urban agriculture, or should all classes be concerned?
People need to realize that there are other advantages to urban agriculture then just a cheaper economy, there are health benefits from the better and healthier food it produces. It should not have anything to do with the classes, anyone who would like to participate should be aloud to without judgement. People should concern themselves more with the well being aspect of the gardens.

What are some of the myths about the benefits of urban agriculture?
-Self Alliance: people are naturally going to want to take care of the garden, however there are many problems with this theory. What if the space is super far from you and it is completely unrealistic to drive all the way across town to water a garden.
-What these gardens promise are not necessarily measurable, there is no evidence.
-Where there is a garden there is recycling.

Why do you think there is a disconnect between what the experts say and the data that is being collected in relation to urban agricultural practice?
Because people just do not care for these gardens. There was also a suggestion on doing tax returns for maintaing gardens and such however there is no way the government would know if you did it properly 100% of the time. People are amazing liars.

If there is local food then there is no need to drive to get it, saving you money and this saves the environment from CO2 emissions. Local food also helps improve soil quality and H20 in soil.

What do you think are some of the obstacles preventing the widespread implementation of urban agriculture in poor neighbourhoods?
Cost is a major one, also time. People may care to take care of these things and may want to however they just do not have the time to do it. Most poor families parents work multiple jobs and raise children, where do they have the time for taking care of gardens. People also buy whats cheap, organic products even local ones may not be the cheapest so people tend to linger to the unhealthier foods because they are cheap. Also people do not have the education required, it was suggested to teach children how to garden in school so they carry through when they grow up and follow up with it.

Personal Reflection- Urban Agriculture sounds like a good idea and like it would work, however the lack of evidence to back up these 'assumptions' really takes away from the argument. Utilizing spaces within the city for locally growing is a great idea, such as green roof tops. Winnipeg's harsh climates may limit the amount of growing, however building greenhouses on top of roofs can help. The idea that it is up to the poor to take care of the gardens is a big shock to me, because it will not only be the poor that use these gardens so why should they be the ones required to manage them for the rest of the city. Creating some sort of tax break is a great way to help get people motivated to garden locally as much as possible. Even gardening at home is a great way to grow locally and live healthier. A big issue that seems to arise with the gardening is they just do not have time, but if their gardens reduce the amount of trips needed to go to the grocery store and save you a considerable amount of money on food, then it may be worth spending a few extra hours outside instead of watching TV.

4) Urban Farming in Brooklyn

1) Drescher, Axel. "The integration of Urban Agriculture into urban planning – An analysis of the current status and constraints." Urban Agriculture. : 1-12.
2) Webb, Nigel L. "Environment, Ecology and the Urban Poor." Urban Agriculture- Urban Forum. 9. no. 1 (1998): 95-107.
3) Andrew, Vowels. University of Guelph, "Conference Focuses on Farming in the City Urban farmers learn how to get growing ." Last modified 2013. Accessed February 16, 2013. http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2012/07/conference-focuses-on-farming-in-the-city/.
4) Unknown, . Big Ten Science, "Could large scale Urban Farming actually work?." Last modified 2011. Accessed February 16, 2013. http://bigkingken.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/could-large-scale-urban-farming-actually-work/.