One of the hottest topics in food is to go from farm to table.  But what if you live in the middle of a city?

Urban farming is not as strange as it may sound.  All over the world, city dwellers with roots in agricultural communities have taken to the rooftops and vacant lots to harvest they’re own crops, raise bees, and even livestock.

The East New York Farm United Community Center is one such urban agricultural oasis that thrives in one of the most economically depressed areas in the country.

Sarita Daftary, Youth Program Coordinator and Project Director.

“Before we even started our project, East New York had over 140 registered gardens. So what we really started to do was to support those gardens and use them as a resource for food production.  And we also added in the youth training component and leadership development.”

Success stories like 12 year old interns going on to start their own farms to senior citizens organizing farmers markets and helping to feed those in need are just two examples of the power of organized urban farming.

For more on East New York Farms and urban farming, visit the links below.

East New York Farms! Blog

Urban Agriculture Notes (CityFarmer.org)

Urban Agricluture News

An Abbreviated List of References and Resource Guides (USDA)

Heavy Petal (Gardening: From a West Coast Urban Organic Perspective)

See below for the full slideshow of our trip to the East New York Farms.

What’s the simplest and most enjoyable way for city dwellers to  get back to nature?

The answer… eating.

If there’s one thing that makes the cramped conditions and lack of open spaces of city life worth the high cost of living, it surely must be the food.  International merchants, master restauranteurs, and local producers all converge in American cities to connect, and conduct business with a cultured and diverse consumer base.

Anna Lappe, bestselling author and co-founder of the Small Planet Institute, shares her thoughts on the future of food at a recent Sustainability Roundtable Discussion at the Mini Rooftop series in New York City.

As agriculture begins to turn back it’s clock to methods more conducive to sustainability, city dwellers will have more opportunities to dig into the freshest of what urban markets can bring.  So while there may not be much dirt to farm in the concrete jungle, know where your food is coming from and how it can transport you back to nature.

For more on sustainable agriculture and the full interview with Anna Lappe, click here.

Photo by Patrick Boland.

Discussed: Disconnect/Phobia of Nature, Community Supported Agriculture, Federal Trade Commission, Industry Supported Lies, Center for Global Food Issues, Chemical Farming, Monsanto, Against the Grain, Permaculture and Ancient Agriculture

There are a few voices that speak with resonant clarity through the noise of the “too much information generation.”  They are the conscientious mavericks whose passion and diligence in finding the truth of things have elevated them beyond mere mortal thoughtless drones but as hyper-human change makers, or as we like to call them, superheroes.

One such individual is Anna Lappe, co-autohor of Grub and Hope’s Edge, founding principal for the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund.  Her literary work brandishes a samurai blade in the face of the chemically tainted, spurious battle against the evils of the commercial agriculture and biotech industries.  Her ambitious work with the Small Planet Institute prods and ignites the basic human tendency toward social mimicry by generating a broad spectrum of “entry points” through media to understand, accept, and impart democratic social change.

See below for more photos from the MINI Space Rooftop: Sustainability Roundtable Discussion:

For the full transcript of this interview, click below.

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Word of the day - permaculture.

What does it mean for the future of farming and the survival of humanity?

It’s best understood through its roots, permanent and agriculture:  Something permanent exists perpetually without significant change and agriculture is the science and art of cultivating land, livestock, and crops.  The combination forms the basis of permaculture, where we give back to the land as much as we take.

Developed in the 1970s by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, this natural systems design model was born in response to the mistreatment of billions of acres of farmland jeopardized by overuse of chemical fertilizers and genetic mutation of crops.

Permaculture provides us with a toolkit for how we can inhabit our world through integration instead of domination.  By careful attention to life’s full spectrum from mammals to microbes, permaculture can sustain huge populations without disrupting nature’s delicate balance.

To find out where you can visit, volunteer, apprentice, and enjoy permaculture sites in your area, the links below should help get you started:

Midwest Permaculture

Northeastern Permaculture

Permaculture Research Institute, USA

Planetary Permaculture Directory

Illustration is the cover of Permaculture: A Designers Manual by Bill Mollison.