Rooftop agriculture

A rooftop agriculture project at Thammasat University in Bangkok is getting lots of attention. The garden is designed to produce food across 7,000-square-meters of campus rooftops. And the landscape architect responsible for the project, Landprocess' Kotchakorn Voraakhom, has balanced art and science to create a remarkable experience.

"We tend to make a distinction between buildings and green spaces but green spaces can be part of building design in cities like Bangkok, which has few green spaces," said Ms Kotchakorn. If you haven't heard of Landprocess already, you will after this project.

Urban agriculture in Tulsa

An article in The Guardian on urban agriculture in Tulsa served as a reminder of how differently community gardening is perceived in different cities:

Newsome says she and her husband are considering leaving Tulsa, perhaps for Philadelphia to be with her son, who is also involved in community gardening. “I didn’t believe it until I was there: you have gardens on every corner in low-income neighbourhoods, and you don’t have to talk people into it. You have elders, young people, everyone just coming out.” 

 It is an important lesson for us that social response is not uniform across all landscapes.

Loss of diversity in American cropland

Researchers at Kansas State and the USDA have documented a substantial drop in crop diversity across the US over the last 34 years. The data-intensive study required longitudinal data, across the entire US that allowed them to study changes at the county level.

Dissertation defense

PhD Dissertation Defense
Deborah Greenwood, Feb 24, 10:30 AM
Cook Office Building Room 226

Understanding Agricultural Tranformations:
The Urbanization and Feminization of Agriculture in the United States

Olmsted's plea for scientific agriculture

Watching science improve farming in other places, particularly England, Frederick Law Olmsted wanted his fellow farmers to see these same improvements. He plead for a better exchange of information that would help them all improve their yields and keep up with these standard bearers. Having detailed the great outcomes that were being elsewhere ("the average crop of all England has increased eight bushels per acre") he made this plea:

Farmers of Staten Island! it is the application of Science, of THOUGHT TO AGRICULTURE, that does this! What results might we anticipate if the Thought, the Skill, the Enterprise, the Energy, should be brought to bear upon our noble employment, which have given to the world the Steam Engine, the Cotton Gin, the Steamboat, the Railroad, the Electric Telegraph! And why shall we not ask it? No man expects the Merchant, the Mechanic, the Manufacturer of the present day to succeed in his calling while stupidly shutting his eyes to the light of Science, or scornfully pushing aside the proffered aid of the student. They readily avail themselves of aid from all sources. It is time the Farmer did so too. They have no patent right to improvement. Progress is no half-hardy plant that must be trained to the walls of cities. Why is it, then, that in all the pursuits of Human Industry we see such rapid achievement, while in our Art, the art on which all other arts depend, the wheels of progress move so strangely slow?

From the Appeal to the citizens of Staten Island by the Board of Managers of the Richmond County Agricultural Society, by Frederick Law Olmsted as corresponding secretary of the newly formed Richmond County Agricultural Society - December 1849.

Lecture on urban agriculture

PLANT BIOLOGY SEMINAR SERIES 

Matthew Smith 

Sabedo Argueta 

Mark Robson 

Rutgers University will present a seminar entitled 

“Case Studies: Urban Agriculture in Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee” 

Friday – November 8, 2013 

12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. 

Foran Hall Room 138A Cook Campus 

Rutgers Alum in the news

One of our RU LA alums, Nina Zinn, is in the RVA news. The story describes how Nina has been working in Richmond to promote growing healthier food, “You can have a very pleasing landscape and still be able to harvest from it.” It is a hot trend and nice to see yet another one of ours doing well.

The Emerging Ecological Paradigm of Agriculture and Scholarship

Hear Executive Dean Goodman Give Special Lecture on January 31

As one of the foremost authorities on agriculture, agricultural research, sustainability, the environment and related topics, Executive Dean Bob Goodman is called upon frequently to address diverse groups at various venues. Those of us close to home will have the pleasure of hearing him on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, at 11 a.m. in the Alampi Room of the Marine and Coastal Sciences Building on the G.H. Cook Campus. Dean Goodman and Associate Dean Xenia Morin will team up to present "The Emerging Ecological Paradigm of Agriculture and Scholarship."

Here is a News21 video about artist Matt Moore using time-lapse video photography to document (or memorialize) the crops on his family's farm as development moves in.

Lost in Sprawl from News21 Berkeley 2011 on Vimeo.

Public Farm 1

This Friday at 12:35 in Blake Hall Room 152, Dan Wood and Amale Andraos of WORK Architecture Company, NYC will be presenting their urban ag project that was built for MoMA Queen, Public Farm 1.  It's a fresh look at community-building and agriculture in the City.  All are welcome.

Urban Farm at Battery Park

NY1 reports on an Urban Farm being grown at Battery Park in Southern Manhattan. Unfortunately I didn't know to look for the turkey that lives there, Curbed shows you a plan of the turkey shaped gardens.
I did get a picture of the bamboo fencing being built out of bamboo from the Big Bambu roof exhibition at the Met.

Feeding Philly

Michelle Byers writes about how the Garden State serves as the foodshed for Philly.  But do they have an interest in protecting this resource?

Factory Farm Map

Where does your food come from? Unless you shop local, FactoryFarmMap shows you the answer. (h/t Peter M)

Prairie Crossing

Grist takes a closer look at Prairie Crossing, which is a sort of hybrid between a new urbanist community and an old farm town near the Illinois/Wisconsin border.

Urban farming on the rise

PlaNetizen links to yet another urban farming story.  So, is this just a recession-based fad spinning off of Michael Pollan books, or is this really going to last?  Unlike more sophisticated responses, like CSAs which require momentum, you can start and stop many of these examples very quickly.

Christie and the State Ag Board

When a new governor is elected, it is widely understood that they will replace the old political appointees in the cabinet with one of their own. To the victor go the spoils, right? Governor Christie has already named several new Secretaries or Commissioners as part of that process. But, when it came to the Ag Commissioner Christie's transition team had to deal with a process that was different than the rest because of the politics behind the 1947 state constitution.

In New Jersey, the Commissioner of Agriculture is not chosen by the governor but is named by the State Agriculture Board and then accepted or rejected by the governor. Since the Star-Ledger reported that everyone was happy with Commissioner Doug Fisher (D), it didn't seem like an issue. Oops. Reports are that the new governor wants to appoint Harold J. Wirths (a Republican freeholder from Sussex County) but the Board isn't interested right now. Still, the S-L says that "New Jersey laws permit the governor to remove the secretary of agriculture from his post "upon notice and opportunity to be heard." "

This has traditionally been a less politicized position in favor of stability. For around a 70 year period, from 1938 to 2008, there were only four Commissioners (Willard Allen, Philip Alampi, Arthur Brown and Charles Kuperus). If I have my math right, Republican Charles Kuperus served exclusively under Democratic administrations.

Anyway, I am told that there is an "emergency" open-to-the-public Ag Board meeting TODAY at 3 at the Rutgers Eco-Complex where they will be discussing the future of the Commissioner as well as the future of the Department. Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore will be representing the transition team's agriculture subcommittee and clarifying their intentions.

So? What does ag matter in a place formerly called the Garden State? First, farming is still a big industry in NJ. This department is responsible for farmland preservation as well as deeply involved in fighting urban childhood obesity. They are key to the landscape industry and soil and water conservation.