Hi hoe hi hoe it's off to work we grow

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 4

Now that the election is over and Walkabout can't be accused of influence peddling, we would like to remark on the great idea Franco Dok Harris advanced during his campaign - that every neighborhood have an urban farm.

Urban farms are most immediately antedotes to the lack of economic development in neighborhoods with oodles of vacant land, idle hands and bad nutrition.

On remediated soil and in greenhouses, this city could help spawn a significant agricultural industry to give people in these neighborhoods entrepreneurial capacity. We all would benefit, as growers and consumers. But a farm in every neighborhood reaches a broader, more environmentally responsible goal: Making food available where it is consumed. Not only does trucking tear up our highways, bridges and tunnels, trucking time and grocery shelf-life means many foods are treated to hold up for days and even weeks.

Neighbors growing crops and even raising the animals we eat could be held to much higher standards - for food safety and humane treatment - than corporate farms are. (We would need to allow farm animals to live in the city, but zoning could figure that out.)

Now comes an article about how little we know about growing grains - the foods "that stand between the human race and starvation." Below is an excerpt of the complete article at http://www.culturechange.org/go.html?540

Growing Your Own Grains
By Peter Goodchild   

Most of what are called grains are members of the grass family, which has the scientific name of Gramineae or Poaceae. Grains are the most important plants in human diet, contributing most of the carbohydrates as well as a certain amount of protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Generally speaking, grains are quite undemanding in terms of soil or weather.

Unfortunately most of our knowledge of raising grain in small quantities with simple tools has been lost, or at least it is hard to find. Nearly all of the present-day research is geared to modern agribusiness -- hybridization, genetic engineering, and very expensive machinery and chemicals. The information gained from such research would be of no use if anything went wrong with the technical or economic infrastructure. Grains are all that stand between the human race and starvation, but the human race has made very little effort to record the fundamental information.

To its credit, the current administration of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has answered many calls for turning vacant land into agricultural opportunity.Seventy vacant lots have been sold or granted to groups or individuals for farms and gardens. A more aggressive plan would be to assemble a series of large tracts working with neighborhood groups to establish year-round agri-businesses that generate jobs in the neighborhoods.