Urban Farmers

Gothamist points to an article that looks at how cityslickers who are turning their city into farmland. We wrote about Hipster Farmers who were leaving the city to set up farms, but the Times looks at the growth of allotments and the redevelopment of vacant lots into arable land:

John Ameroso, a Cornell Cooperative Extension agent who has worked with local farmers and gardeners for 32 years, said that when he first suggested urban farm stands in the early 1990s, city environmental officials dismissed the idea. “ ‘Oh, you could never grow enough stuff with the urban markets,’ ” he said he was told. ‘ “That can’t be done. You have to have farmers.’ ”

But local officials have come around.

Holly Leicht, an associate assistant commissioner at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, helped provide two half-acre parcels of city land last year. One became Hands and Hearts and the other is in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The Red Hook farm began in 2003 when the Parks Department gave the youth group Added Value permission to use an abandoned three-acre asphalt ball field. The group started with two raised beds, built a hoop house where it could start seeds, then laid down an acre of compost two feet deep on top of the asphalt. Last year the young farmers sold more than $25,000 in goods.

Urban agriculture has been an even larger undertaking in other cities, particularly those with weaker real estate markets and a declining population.

NY Times