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City Farmer's Urban Agriculture Notes
http://www.cityfarmer.org/
Title: City Farmer's Urban Agriculture Notes
by City Farmer
Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture
Established 1978
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Prepared by Michael Levenston, Executive Director
cityfarm@unixg.ubc.ca
(C) Copyright City Farmer 1994-1996
On-line on the World Wide Web since October 15,
1994
Welcome to City Farmer's new home on the World Wide Web. After 17
years digging in the fields of Urban Agriculture, we want to share with you what
we have learned. The Web makes it possible for us to reach a much larger audience
than we were reaching before the arrival of on-line publications.
Our non-profit society promotes urban food production and environmental
conservation from a small office in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia and from
our demonstration food
garden in nearby Kitsilano, a residential neighbourhood.
Urban
Agriculture is a new and growing field that is not completely defined yet even by
those closest to it. It concerns itself with all manner of subjects from rooftop
gardens, to composting toilets, to air pollution and community development. It
encompasses mental and physical health, entertainment, building codes, rats,
fruit trees, herbs, recipes and much more.
Please note our new web address http://www.cityfarmer.org
Our Office wants you to know about some of the issues we deal with from day to
day. There are very few offices in the world that have our experience serving
city farmers all year round or have done so for as many years as we have.
These pages will grow as we select the latest breaking information that comes to
us, as we review our large library of resources for useful documents to put
on-line, and as we hook you up with other Urban Agriculture Web sites that most
certainly will emerge.
Urban Agriculture Notes is written for those who want to start up their own
"Office of Urban Agriculture", for those who have already done so, and for
gardeners who are curious about what we refer to as political
horticulture.
So sit up, bear with us as we add to this site week by week and listen to the
birds singing in our garden.
The Easiest Way
To Predict The Future
Is To Invent It
- Urban
Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities
- Landmark publication just released (February 1996) by the United Nations
Development Programme. Written by Jac Smit and his team at the Washington based
Urban Agriculture Network, this book marks the beginning of a new age in the
development of Urban Agriculture.
- 21st Century Cities
What Would the World be Like in the 21st Century if Cities
Were Nutritionally Self-Reliant? Paper delivered by Jac Smit in Marmaris, Turkey
on April 20, 1996
- City Farmer's Net Bulletin
Board
- As announcements of upcoming events cross my desk, I'll thumbtack them up
here.
- Jerry Seinfeld's Worm
Bin
- "What's The Deal With Worm Composting?"
- Urban Home
Composting
- If all our urban organic waste was turned back into
crop nourishing humus, think how fertile the ground would become.
- Composting With Red
Wiggler Worms
- The great advantage of worm composting is that
this can be done indoors and outdoors, thus allowing year round composting. It
also provides apartment dwellers with a means of composting.
- City of Vancouver Distributes Worm Bins!
Newsweek magazine, Feb. 12, 1996, reports "Entire cities are getting into
the act. Vancouver sells worm bins, wrigglers included at half price." (Kitchen
Help: Wrigglers Under the Sink, page 76)
- Dealing With a Rat in a
Compost Bin
- An individual who calls the Compost Hotline is
usually quite shocked that he has a rat on his property.
- Community
Gardens.
- By far the largest collection of information on this
subject can be found amongst the membership of the American Community Garden
Association (ACGA)
- Garden Policy Approved
Vancouver Park Board approves a unique community garden
policy. Spring, 1996
- International Urban Agriculture.
- A number of excellent
publications have come out which show International Urban Agriculture being
treated very seriously by development professionals.
- City Farms in United
Kingdom
- Things you can do here include: daily feeding and
mucking out, milking and cheese making, beekeeping and general animal care.
- Bangkok Food
Gardens
- Short-life vegetables are lettuce, phak khana,
khuenchai, phak bung (morning glory), tang-o, scallions, cucumber, and
cauliflower.
- Urban Agriculture in
Philadelphia
- The hundreds of garbage strewn vacant lots have
stimulated citizens to create what has been called "the largest comprehensive
urban greening program in North America."
- Montreal Community
Gardens
- Pierre Bourque, community garden champion and a 30
year veteran of Montreal's civil service, was recently elected Mayor of Montreal.
- Food Gardens in South
Africa
- The Foundation sells a wide variety of resources in a
number of different languages including English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana,
and S. Sotho.
- City Farm in Perth,
Australia
- "We all wanted to move out of the city and find some
greenery. Then we thought, 'Why not bring the greenery to the city?'"
- School Gardens
- "The food garden increases their sense of wonder. It's pretty magical, but at
the same time, it demystifies the concept of food production."
- Setting Up These Pages On
The World Wide Web
- City Farmer doesn't need a mailing list, a
layout artist, a printer or publisher, a distributor, tons of paper or postage to
produce this new publication (May 1995).
- UPDATE: Setting Up Pages On The World Wide Web - A Case
Study
This revised piece is published in the May 13, 1996
edition of Canada Internet Daily.
- Canada's IDRC
Produces 'Cities Feeding People' Series
- Copies can be obtained
free of charge.
- Urban Food Production:
Evolution, Official Support and Significance by Luc J.A. Mougeot
- A major paper (16,479 words) by the Senior Program Officer, Environment and
Natural Resources Division at Canada's IDRC.
- Victory Gardens: The
Garden Warriors of 1942
- In 1943, there were 209,200 Victory
Gardens in Canada, and on the average they produced 550 lbs. of vegetables each.
One gardener in seven was a city dweller.
- Rooftop
Gardens
- Toronto's Rooftop Gardens Resource Group delves into
roofing, structural considerations and building codes.
- Funding an Office of Urban
Agriculture
- Some people assume that City Farmer is a
government department and address their letters to "The Minister of Urban
Agriculture".
- Photographs of Community
Gardening in New York
- Operation Green Thumb celebrates the
beauty and joy of New York's community gardens in an exhibition of 43
photographs. Published in conjunction with the show is a wonderful booklet titled
Tales From The Field II, Stories By GreenThumb
Gardeners
- $$$ From Your
Garden
- "Design information for a model garden that will
produce over $10,000 of vegetables from less than 1/3 acre."
- Arable Acres Within City
Limits
- It's amazing to discover that the City of Vancouver has
enough land available so that its inhabitants can grow all their own vegetables
within city limits.
- Julie McCarroll's Horticultural
Delights
- Beautiful posters and cards created by this Toronto
watercolour artist.
- The
Tele-Garden
- No garden space whatsover? Then garden through
your computer screen! "This tele-robotic installation allows WWW users to view
and interact with a remote garden filled with living plants. Members can plant,
water, and monitor the progress of seedlings via the tender movements of an
industrial robot arm."
- Composting
Toilets
- In Vancouver, British Columbia, a soon to be completed
30,000 sq. ft. office complex, utilizes composting toilets and urinals for human
waste disposal. The new building is not connected to the city's sewer system.
- City of Vancouver,
Compost Capital
- Vancouver is a model city when it comes to
composting. The City's Engineering Department supports both a yard and worm bin
distribution program, a Compost Demonstration Garden and Hotline, and large-scale
yard waste composting.
- Gardening Questions?
Visit one of these sites.
- The Internet is a treasure chest
full of gardening secrets and these excellent sites will link you to many of
them.
- Horticulture
Therapy
- Strolling along a path in her electric wheelchair, she
paused, and a gleam came to her eye. Glancing mischieviously over her shoulder,
she leaned closer to confide, "I like getting dirty the best."
- The Spirit of
Healing. This piece was presented at "The Healing Dimensions of
People-Plant Relations Research Symposium" in March 1994. It follows the course
of the presenter's experience with cancer and how environment, landscape and
gardens played a vital role in the recovery process from her illness.
- World's Urban
Population
- Majority of world's population will live in urban
centres by 2015, UN report says.
- Rain
Barrels
- The City of Vancouver is providing subsidized rain
barrels for up to 1,000 residents under a pilot program to conserve water.
- Vancouver Begins Disconnecting Downspouts
Disconnecting residential roof
downspouts from the combined sewer system may be an important way to reduce water
pollution caused by Combined Sewer Overflows.
- Chickens In
Soup
- Some people believe that an egg-producing hen is of
greater value than a barking dog or a noisy lawnmower, but City Hall doesn't
agree.
- Condo Farming
- Victoria urban farmers work with developer to build "edible" three-storey
condominium.
- Sprouting at
Home
- Fresh organic vegetables every day from a square foot of
counter space.
- Improving Nutrition Through
Home Gardening
- The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization
publishes Improving Nutrition Through Home Gardening: A training package for
preparing field workers in Southeast Asia.
- Waterwise
Gardening
- Even in rainy Vancouver water-saving, gardening
techniques are recommended for coping with summer droughts. City Farmer in
cooperation with the City of Vancouver has opened a new public garden which
demonstrates conservation methods such as contouring of the ground, soil
conditioning using compost, collection of rain water, the use of native plants,
and passive watering.
Readers in the following countries have accessed our web site since February 12,
1996. We will be looking at our web stats each day to see what new additions can
be made to this list.
- Files transmitted from our site during summary period March 1 to March 31,
1996 totalled 41,056.
- Files transmitted from our site during summary period Apr 1 1996 to Apr 30
1996 totalled 45,989.
- Files transmitted from our site during summary period May 1 1996 to May 31
1996 totalled 42,919.
Anguilla
Argentina
Austria
Australia
Bahrain
Belgium
Bermuda
Brazil
Brunei Darussalam
Canada
Chile
Costa Rica
Croatia (Hrvatska)
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Korea(South)
Latvia
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
New Zealand
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russian Federation
Singapore
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
USSR
Recognition Of Our Site
World
Wide Web Top 1000
"We're delighted to tell you that your site was nominated as one of the elite
1000 included in this book. The reviews are modified and expanded versions of
our Website entries, and some also include screen shots." See page 434.
Frank Severa's Useful URLs
Pick of the week for January 28, 1996
GardenNet's Guide to Internet Resources
says:
Urban Agriculture Notes is
"the only urban agriculture site on the Internet."
Urban Agriculture Notes
is reviewed in six new books:
1996-97 Edition
Microsoft Bookshelf
Internet Directory
With CD-ROM
1996 McKinley Internet Yellow
Pages
by Christine Maxwell
Que's Mega Web Directory
by
Rositano, Rositano and Stafford
1996
1996 Canadian Internet
Directory
by Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead
Prentice Hall,
Canada
1996 Edition
New Riders' Official World
Wide Web Directory
Over 8,000 Web Sites Described
The International Internet
Directory
by Mitzi Waltz, Ziff-Davis Press, 1995
Over 3000
sites from around the world
rating by
The McKinley Internet Directory
Point
Survey rates Urban Agriculture Notes
in the top 5% of all WWW
sites.
"Uptown hipsters will dig this back-to-nature guide to urban agriculture."
"Your home page has been rated by Point Survey as one of the 10 best (in its
category/content/presentation/overall) on the Internet. Only the best 5% of all
Web sites are included in Point Survey, and we believe your site is among the
best of the best!"
NetGuide Magazine reviewed Urban Agriculture Notes
in their August, 1995 issue and in their January, 1996 issue.
"City Farmer has created a 'demo' garden in the heart of the city that gives
novices hands-on experience and skeptics a flourishing example of what can be
done."
NutForce awards Urban Agriculture Notes
The "Webnut
Seal of Approval".
"City Farmer...Coolest way to handle trash and tons of links! "
COMMENTS
What would you like us to add to Urban Agriculture Notes ® ?
Tell us about Urban Agriculture activities in your city.
Send comments
here cityfarm@unixg.ubc.ca
revised, June 26, 1996
E-mail us at: cityfarm@unixg.ubc.ca
Snail-mail at:
City Farmer
Canada's Office of Urban
Agriculture
#801-318 Homer St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6B 2V3
Phone: (604) 685-5832
Fax: (604) 685-0431