You don't have to journey to a rural paradise to find the farm of the future. It's your neighbor’s suburban lawn, the roof of your uptown condominium, or the co-op market garden in the vacant lot down the street.Urban Agricultureis a detailed look at how food is taking root in our cities. It offers inspirational advice and working examples to help you dig in and become more self-sufficient with your own food choices. Taking the local food movement to its next logical step, this fully illustrated, design-rich guide presents a cornucopia of proven ideas for: Windowsill and container growing Edible landscaping Farming the commons Community gardening from allotments to collectives and community orchards Taking urban agriculture to the next level with creative spaces, bigger lots, and higher yields Urban Agricultureis about shaping a new food system that values people and the planet above profits. First-time farmers and green thumbs alike will be inspired to get growing by working examples and expert interviews. Proving that the city of the future will be green and tasty, this book is packed with edible solutions for anyone keen to join the new food revolution. David Traceyis a journalist, environmental designer, and the author ofGuerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto. The director of EcoUrbanist in Vancouver, he is an advocate for all those reclaiming our right to great food through urban agriculture.

People have always grown food in urban spaces--on windowsills and sidewalks, and in backyards and neighborhood parks--but today, urban farmers are leading an environmental and social movement that transforms our national food system. To explore this agricultural renaissance, brothers David and Michael Hanson and urban farmer Edwin Marty document twelve successful urban farm programs, from an alternative school for girls in Detroit, to a backyard food swap in New Orleans, to a restaurant supply garden on a rooftop in Brooklyn. Each beautifully illustrated essay offers practical advice for budding farmers, such as composting and keeping livestock in the city, decontaminating toxic soil, even changing zoning laws.

Our reliance on industrial agriculture has resulted in a food supply riddled with hidden environmental, economic and health care costs and beset by rising food prices. With only a handful of corporations responsible for the lions share of the food on our supermarket shelves, we are incredibly vulnerable to supply chain disruption. This book provides a recipe for community food security based on leading innovations across North America. The author draws on his political and business experience to show that we have all the necessary ingredients to ensure that local, fresh sustainable food is affordable and widely available. He describes how cities are bringing food production home by: Growing community through neighbourhood gardening, cooking and composting programs; Rebuilding local food processing, storage and distribution systems; Investing in farmers markets and community supported agriculture; Reducing obesity through local fresh food initiatives in schools, colleges and universities; Ending inner-city food deserts. Producing food locally makes people healthier, alleviates poverty, creates jobs, and makes cities safer and more beautiful. This is an essential resource for anyone who has lost confidence in the global industrial food system and wants practical advice on how to join the local food revolution.

The expanded, updated version of the best-selling classic, with a dozen new projects. "A delightfully readable and very useful guide to front- and back-yard vegetable gardening, food foraging, food preserving, chicken keeping, and other useful skills for anyone interested in taking a more active role in growing and preparing the food they eat."#151;BoingBoing.net"...the contemporary bible on the subject."#151; 'The New York Times' This celebrated, essential handbook shows how to grow and preserve your own food, clean your house without toxins, raise chickens, gain energy independence, and more. Step-by-step projects, tips, and anecdotes will help get you started homesteading immediately. 'The Urban Homestead' is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.Written by city dwellers for city dwellers, this copiously illustrated, two-color instruction book proposes a paradigm shift that will improve our lives, our community, and our planet. By growing our own food and harnessing natural energy, we are planting seeds for the future of our cities.Learn how to: #149; Grow food on a patio or balcony #149; Preserve or ferment food and make yogurt and cheese #149; Compost with worms #149; Keep city chickens #149; Divert your grey water to your garden #149; Clean your house without toxins #149; Guerilla garden in public spaces #149; Create the modern homestead of your dreams

Over the past two decades, how has urban agriculture changed in sub-Saharan Africa? Is city farming now better integrated into environmental management and city governance? And, looking ahead, how might urban agriculture address the needs of the low-income households and modernizing cities of Africa?In this book, leading specialists in the fields of urban agriculture and urban environment present a unique collection of case studies that examines the growing role of local food production in urban livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. Amongst many issues, the authors probe the changing role of urban agriculture, the risks and benefits of crop–livestock systems, and the opportunities for making locally produced food more easily available and more profitable. Concluding chapters reflect on the policy and governance implications of greater integration of urban natural resources and the built environment, an expanded role for urban agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and the crucial role of women in urban food systems.African Urban Harvest will be of interest to decision-makers, development professionals, researchers, academics, and students and educators in urban planning, development studies, African studies, and environmental studies.

Spring Warren#146;s humorous account of her quest to grow most of what her family consumed for one year in her suburban yardWhen Spring Warren told her husband and two teenage boys that she wanted to grow 75 percent of all the food they consumed for one year#151;and that she wanted to do it in their yard#151;they told her she was crazy.She did it anyway. 'The Quarter-Acre Farm' is Warren's account of deciding#151;despite all resistance#151;to take of her family's food choices, get her hands dirty, and create a garden in her suburban yard. It's a story of bugs, worms, rot, and failure; of learning, replanting, harvesting, and eating. The road is long and riddled with mistakes, but by the end of her yearlong experiment, Warren's sons and husband have become her biggest fans#151;in fact, they're even eager to help harvest (andeat) the beautiful bounty she brings in.Full of tips and recipes to help anyone interested in growing and preparing at least a small part of their diet at home, 'The Quarter-Acre Farm' is a warm, witty tale about family, food, and the incredible gratification that accompanies self-sufficiency.

Urban Farmsprovides in-depth profiles of 16 innovative farms located in major metropolitan areas across the country, each operated by passionate individuals and communities committed to growing their own fruits and vegetables and raising animals. Included in these pages are some of the leaders in the movement, from Novella Carpenter’s farm in an empty lot in Oakland to Growing Power’s vast compound in Milwaukee. In addition to stories about the farms and their owners, sidebars provide basic how-to tips for such activities as composting, canning, beekeeping, and growing vegetables. A burgeoning movement that is fast catching on, urban farming taps into many touchstones of the zeitgeist, including environmental awareness, the foodie culture, localism, distrust of mass-production farming practices, and the DIY approach to life and living. Praise forUrban Farms: “Sarah C. Rich’s handsome, intelligentURBAN FARMS (Abrams, $30)chronicles a movement to bring kale to the people, an effort that stretches across the country, from Brooklyn to Oakland. . . . Benson’s spirited photographs capture the joy and beauty of urban farming’s bounty. No vase full of lush peonies from the grounds of an elegant estate could inspire such looks of eager joy as do the tomatoes harvested out of New York City’s Edible Schoolyard. These vegetable gardeners—and farmers—are working against such odds that there’s simply no excuse to let a comparatively lush suburban backyard lie fallow.” —New York Times Book Review

It doesn’t take a farm to have the heart of a farmer. Now, due to a burgeoning sustainable-living movement, you don’t have to own acreage to fulfill your dream of raising your own food. Hobby Farms Urban Farming, from Hobby Farm Press and the same people who bring you Hobby Farms and Hobby Farm Home magazine, will walk every city and suburban dweller down the path of self sustainability. Urban Farming will introduce readers to the concepts of gardening and farming from a high-rise apartment, participating in a community garden, vertical farming, and converting terraces and other small city spaces into fruitful, vegetableful real estate. This comprehensive volume will answer every up and coming urban farmer’s questions about how, what, where and why—a new green book for the dedicated citizen seeking to reduce his carbon footprint and grocery bill.

Fifteen people-plus a class of first graders-tell how local food, farms, and gardens changed their lives and their community...and how they can change yours, too. Growing a Garden City includes: Fifteen first-person stories of personal and civic transformation from a range of individuals, including farmers and community garden members, a low-income senior and troubled teen, a foodie, a food bank officer, and many more Seven in-depth “How It Works” sections on student farms, community gardens, community supported agriculture (CSA), community education, farm work therapy, community outreach, and more Detailed information on dozens of additional resources from relevant books and websites to government programs and national non-profit organizations Over 80 full-color photographs showing a diverse local food community at home, work, and play Read Growing a Garden City to: Learn how people like you, with busy lives like yours, can and do enjoy the many benefits of local food without having to become full-time organic farmers Gain the information you need to organize or get involved in your own "growing community” anywhere across the country and around the world

Since the 1890s, providing places for people to garden has been an inventive strategy to improve American urban conditions. There have been vacant-lot gardens, school gardens, Depression-era relief gardens, victory gardens, and community gardens--each representing a consistent impulse to return to gardening during times of social and economic change. In this critical history of community gardening in America, the most comprehensive review of the greening of urban communities to date, Laura J. Lawson documents the evolution of urban garden programs in the United States. Her vibrant narrative focuses on the values associated with gardening, the ebb and flow of campaigns during times of social and economic crisis, organizational strategies of these primarily volunteer campaigns, and the sustainability of current programs.

"A world-changing innovation whose time has come. This visionary book provides a blueprint for securing the world's food supply and at the same time solving one of the greatest environmental crises facing us today" - STING "The vertical farm is a world-changing innovation whose time has come. Dickson Despommier's visionary book provides a blueprint for securing the world's food supply and at the same time solving one of the gravest environmental crises facing us today." - StingImagine a world where every town has their own local food source, grown in the safest way possible, where no drop of water or particle of light is wasted, and where a simple elevator ride can transport you to nature's grocery store - imagine the world of the vertical farm.When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. Despommier's stroke of genius, the vertical farm, has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Despommier explains how the vertical farm will have an incredible impact on changing the face of this planet for future generations.Despommier takes readers on an incredible journey inside the vertical farm, buildings filled with fruits and vegetables that will provide local food sources for entire cities.Vertical farms will allow us to: _ Grow food 24 hours a day, 365 days a year Protect crops from unpredictable and harmful weather Re-use water collected from the indoor environment Provide jobs for residents Eliminate use of pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides Drastically reduce dependence on fossil fuels Prevent crop loss due to shipping or storage Stop agricultural runoffVertical farms can be built in abandoned buildings and on deserted lots, transforming our cities into urban landscapes which will provide fresh food grown and harvested just around the corner. Possibly the most important aspect of vertical farms is that they can built by nations with little or no arable land, transforming nations which are currently unable to farm into top food producers. In the tradition of the bestselling The World Without Us, The Vertical Farm is a completely original landmark work destined to become an instant classic

Public Producemakes a uniquely contemporary case not for central government intervention, but for local government involvement in shaping food policy. In what Darrin Nordahl calls “municipal agriculture," elected officials, municipal planners, local policymakers, and public space designers are turning to the abundance of land under public control (parks, plazas, streets, city squares, parking lots, as well as the grounds around libraries, schools, government offices, and even jails) to grow food. Public agencies at one time were at best indifferent about, or at worst dismissive of, food production in the city. Today, public officials recognize that food insecurity is affecting everyone, not just the inner-city poor, and that policies seeking to restructure the production and distribution of food to the tens of millions of people living in cities have immediate benefits to community-wide health and prosperity. This book profiles urban food growing efforts, illustrating that there is both a need and a desire to supplement our existing food production methods outside the city with opportunities inside the city. Each of these efforts works in concert to make fresh produce more available to the public. But each does more too: reinforcing a sense of place and building community; nourishing the needy and providing economic assistance to entrepreneurs; promoting food literacy and good health; and allowing for “serendipitous sustenance." There is much to be gained, Nordahl writes, in adding a bit of agrarianism into our urbanism.

A pioneering urban farmer and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner points the way to building a new food system that can feed—and heal—broken communities. The son of a sharecropper, Will Allen had no intention of ever becoming a farmer himself. But after years in professional basketball and as an executive for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Procter & Gamble, Allen cashed in his retirement fund for a two-acre plot a half mile away from Milwaukee’s largest public housing project. The area was a food desert with only convenience stores and fast-food restaurants to serve the needs of local residents. In the face of financial challenges and daunting odds, Allen built the country’s preeminent urban farm—a food and educational center that now produces enough vegetables and fish year-round to feed thousands of people. Employing young people from the neighboring housing project and community, Growing Power has sought to prove that local food systems can help troubled youths, dismantle racism, create jobs, bring urban and rural communities closer together, and improve public health. Today, Allen’s organization helps develop community food systems across the country. An eco-classic in the making,The Good Food Revolutionis the story of Will’s personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats.