Questions and answers from our urban farming webinar
Urban agriculture — including its economics, successes, and challenges — was the topic of a free web-based seminar that took place on Friday, June 27. Below are some questions and answers from the session.
What are the general benefits of urban farms?
- Community Gardening in NH: From the Ground Up addresses this issue.
What land use regulation challenges have the urban farms had to overcome? How have they done this?
- The City of Boston recently created Article 89, an Urban Agriculture zoning code that allows most urban ag practices in residential areas.
- Guide to Urban Farming in New York State
- Cleveland, Ohio has also developed Urban Ag Regulations and Guidelines including reducing the costs of High Tunnel Hoop House Permit Fees.
Have you encountered any urban farms that are in partnership with rural farms? For instance, a rural farm with an urban outpost?
- Real Food Farm is located on a city park, which gives it a high degree of land security AND it is run in collaboration with a major job training non-profit that gives it serious institutional support. This has allowed it to invest in farm infrastructure like a walk in fridge and a greenhouse, which it shares with other farms in the city.
What work is being done for soil remediation and use of plants to remove soil toxins to help urban farms?
- Kansas State University has several resources on removing toxins from soil using plants (phytoremediation).
- State's Cooperative Extension Services will do free soil tests and provide recommendations.
Are the farm and food business incubators that work along with urban farms?
- Farm Incubator: intervale.org
- Food business incubators/training programs
Questions for which we are looking for contributions from Northeast urban agriculture professionals
Please provide response to dosingh-knights@mail.wvu.edu for transmission to others.
- Has anyone looked into the impact of more established urban farms providing aid to and perhaps increasing viability of smaller, newer urban farms?
- Have any of you looked into the connection between farm-to-school educational programming and urban farms?
- Has anyone researched the costs and returns, and profit margins, associated with urban farms?
- Since most urban farm programs are initiated through grant funding, how do urban farms promote sustainability and profitability after life of grant?