USDA People's Garden
It just sounds funny, doesn’t it? Does that mean rooftop gardens, or cultivated lots, or parks filled with fruit and nut trees? Sure it does, not to mention basement mushroom caves, indoor sprout trays, high-tech greenhouses, and—perhaps, one day—skyscrapers designed as “vertical farms.” Newly legalized beekeeping is all the buzz in New York City, Seattle now welcomes (OK, ‘tolerates’) goats, and chickens outnumber labradoodles in the urban landscape by a significant margin.
Why all this interest in agriculture, and why now? For many urban farmers in the U.S., the two questions are closely linked: to know the source of one’s meals after a decade of food scandals, to feed oneself amid intractable poverty, to beautify urban spaces blighted by development, to teach today’s youth business skills for tomorrow, to reduce one’s carbon footprint, to connect with a less industrialized past…you name it.
Urban agriculture already accounts for over a third of our food production by value, and may well revolutionize our food system over the next decade. To find out how, check out the book.