City Agriculture - July 2, 2024

 The world’s first organic state:  Sikkim

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26234911-000-take-a-photographic-tour-around-the-worlds-first-fully-organic-state/
hat tip Monica Raymond

Kansas Ioway tribe shifts to regenerative agriculture
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-soil-kansas-tribe-shifts-regenerative.amp
hat tip Soil4Climate.org

Pioneer ecological designer John Todd has a Substack
https://oceanarks.substack.com/

Aquaponics in city farming
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/circular-economy-aquaponics-in-city-farming
Editorial Comment:  John Todd was a pioneer in the integration of aquaculture with gardening and water purification

Chinese agri and aqua voltaic projects
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/06/03/dual-harvest-agrivoltaics-boost-food-energy-production-in-asia/

Keystone plants by ecoregion - "we have included critical plant genera and local species that host significant numbers of butterflies, moths, and pollen specialist bees. Without these ‘key' plants, the ecosystem and the wildlife would suffer."
https://nwf.org/keystoneplants

Growing food on Mars can help on Earth, using an indigenous agricultural method
https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/why-a-new-method-of-growing-food-on-mars-matters-more-on-earth/

Future-Proof Food Systems in Europe
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-03-04/future-proof-food-systems-in-europe-a-call-for-action/
Marburg Action Plan for Future-Proof Food Systems in Europe
https://www.arc2020.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Marburg-Action-Plan_final.pdf

Fork Farms provides hydroponic farming systems to schools
https://www.forkfarms.com/
Editorial Comment:  Learned about this on 6/13/24 CBS Evening News “Eye on America” segment where they featured their installation at an Appleton, WI school (and a food pantry)

Fighting for the right not to mow - rewilding lawns and the law
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/21/the-gardener-who-took-a-canadian-city-to-court-for-the-right-to-not-mow-his-lawn

The Man Who Planted Trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_zuNtf3_g
Editorial Comment:  A classic.  It is fiction but there are working examples of others doing the same all around the world.  We need more.

Urban agrivoltaics for Detroit
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/06/25/solar-neighborhoods-in-detroit-choose-lightstar-to-illuminate-the-future-with-innovative-neighborhood-agrivoltaic-solar/
https://detroitmi.gov/government/mayors-office/office-sustainability/solar-neighborhoods

City Agriculture - May 23, 2024

 Restoring Scotland’s Uplands - 25 years of experience in rebuilding a valley

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/20/a-mecca-for-rewilders-the-community-led-project-restoring-scotlands-southern-uplands
Editorial Comment:  rebuilding healthy ecological systems in distant places can make cities and the whole world more resilient

$1 billion, 6,000 acres for agrivoltaics in Ohio
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/ohio-greenlights-massive-solar-storage-and-agrivoltaics-project

Solar racking design specifically for agrivoltaics
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/22/gorgeous-agrivoltaic-system-gilds-the-rural-solar-lily/

American Solar Grazing Association - agrivoltaics, combining agriculture and solar power production
https://solargrazing.org/

The energy costs of controlled environment agriculture
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/03/27/vertical-farms-climate-energy/
If you need to get past the pay wall:  https://archive.ph/TrQqF
Editorial Comment:  In all the years I’ve been collecting these links I have found very few CEA businesses that thought about energy from the beginning

Orbital Farms “is a Circular Project Development company which is developing 200 large scale closed loop farms around the world in the next 10 years."
http://orbital.farm
Editorial Comment:  Orbital Farms is one of those few CEA businesses I mentioned above

The House of Green - buildings that bring nature inside
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240420-12-stunning-buildings-that-bring-nature-inside

World’s first zero waste restaurant
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0hs7sj4/world-s-first-zero-waste-restaurant-without-a-single-bin

Planning Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems:  From Soil to Soil By Julia Freedgood  (ISBN 9781032276861)
https://www.routledge.com/Planning-Sustainable-and-Resilient-Food-Systems-From-Soil-to-Soil/Freedgood/p/book/9781032276861

Making urban agriculture more sustainable
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/how-can-we-make-urban-agriculture-more-sustainable

"World’s largest coastal regeneration project” - mangroves for Dubai
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/travel/dubai-mangroves-design-spc
hat tip Bethany Leach Parmley

A microfarm in LA
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/15/urban-microfarm-farming-environment
The organization which helps homeowners go from lawn to microfarm in LA
https://www.cropswapla.org/

City Agriculture - March 20, 2024

 Dickson Despommier Wants Our Cities to Be Like Forests

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/dickson-despommier-wants-our-cities-to-be-like-forests

hat tip G. S. Murphy from Boston Food System https://elist.tufts.edu/sympa/subscribe/bfs 

Babak Babakinejad Ph.D., the MIT whistleblower who brought attention to public safety concerns and the lack of scientific integrity in MIT Media Lab’s Open Agriculture Initiative and its Food Computer Project
https://www.whistleblowers.org/whistleblowers/dr-babak-babakinejad/

A longitudinal field study across 5 years (2018–2022) to understand how insect communities responded to newly established habitat on solar energy facilities in agricultural landscapes
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad0f72
"Our observations highlight the relatively rapid (<4 year) insect community responses to grassland restoration activities and provide support for solar-pollinator habitat as a feasible conservation practice to safeguard biodiversity and increase food security in agricultural landscapes."
hat tip cleantechnica.com

Agroecology in Barcelona and other cities around the world
https://theurbanactivist.com/idea/agroecology-a-long-brewing-urban-fight/

Vertical Farm Daily
https://www.verticalfarmdaily.com/

Comparing the carbon footprints of urban and conventional agriculture
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-023-00023-3
Urban ag is 6x more carbon intensive than conventional but some crops and 25% of individually managed gardens outperform conventional ag

City University of NY [CUNY] Urban Food Policy Institute
https://cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org/

The Solar and Storage Industries Institute (SI2) Solar + Farms Survey, a research project on agrivoltaics, or agricultural dual-use solar. This initiative will examine the sentiments surrounding the development of agrivoltaics projects
https://www.ssii.org/solar-farms-survey/
Editorial Comment:  Plants have a light saturation point which means that they can’t do more photosynthesis with more light after they reach that point, which is about 2/3rds of the sunlight that falls on them.  You can shade a field up to about 1/3rd without reducing yields, according to what I’ve read and the Japanese, among others, have been doing it for nearly 2 decades.

Urban agriculture and climate
https://theconversation.com/urban-agriculture-isnt-as-climate-friendly-as-it-seems-but-these-best-practices-can-transform-gardens-and-city-farms-221537

Fish farm paired with offshore wind turbines
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/08/fish-to-frolic-among-floating-offshore-wind-turbines/
and
Seaweed farm with offshore wind turbines
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/18/worlds-first-commerical-seaweed-farm-in-an-offshore-wind-farm/

China's first innovation center for urban food production from the horticultural company AgriGarden and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science CAAS
https://www.archdaily.com/1014197/vertical-farm-beijing-van-bergen-kolpa-architects

Cooling Medellín, Colombia with trees 
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/green-corridors-medellin-colombia-urban-heat/

City Agriculture - January 16, 2024

 Liquid3, an urban photo-bioreactor that uses microalgae to remove CO2, produce O2, and biomass

https://theindexproject.org/award/nominees/7109
hat tip MonkCanatella@MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works

Farm to wetland
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/22/farm-wetland-bird-animal-sanctuary-oregon
NB:  Not exactly “city agriculture” but I’m betting wetlands can be scaled down similarly to Miyawaki Forests

Farm to school in Washington DC
https://dccentralkitchen.org/2023/10/24/beyond-the-buzzword-how-dc-central-kitchen-makes-farm-to-school-work-for-everyone/
hat tip Craig Newmark

First private Miyawaki Forest in Cambridge MA (and maybe USAmerica)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/22/metro/cambridge-resident-wanted-bigger-things-her-urban-front-yard-neighbors-helped-plant-miyawaki-forest-there/
To get past the pay wall:  https://archive.ph/7nVHB
Previously:  NYTimes on Miyawaki Forests
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/climate/tiny-forests-climate-miyawaki.html?unlocked_article_code=v8kupwL3yFzi2-IC0KNf0BfACVFIpjsbxhk-7AhXQAjnPcgfL1u0jgLszg6uQztWlpZc6_V1QOwLy6Gv10Xwtcw4Ht8XwkuGji4rDhmQ9qYforZU9MX8B7Q19uUpL1k9IKEMDgPfj6FekloEFoqn1Y2VdY6nwLtGMfO64JI_zm6W9HOOXuzcd3NCbBmj1eTS-5WwgnUq0Tm-ywZl4thMTz41iiE6RiRI11a0b8w_kTUQ855mbxbQVNWMm6Snn-J99xG67V4n4GNA2UfGJGq0DHfoU4lbAHtzu2ALpW-XHk-wGjHpUCFZ1zvw6xBW2LkxalBrw803-EJSR0-3v-fbax0XyIIi7FY&smid=url-share
Editorial Comment:  My sources at Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (https://bio4climate.org/) report that this article brought many new members and attention to their great work.

Naturebase - a database of Natural Climate Solutions (NCS)
https://www.naturebase.org/

AppHarvest - the collapse of an indoor farming start-up in Kentucky
https://grist.org/agriculture/appharvest-indoor-farming-morehead-kentucky/
Editorial Comment:  This is at least the second example where approaching food production as if it were a computer start-up resulted in a crash and burn disaster. The other example I know of is CityFarm at MIT’s Media Lab which, from what I’ve read, seems to have been a complete fraud, a fraud MIT would like everyone to forget.

Netherlands’ agriculture and how they plan to be the breadbasket of the world
2017 NatGeo article:  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming
To get past the paywall:  https://archive.ph/BRZCZ
2021 article:  https://investinholland.com/news/from-agtech-to-table-how-the-dutch-are-reaping-a-new-harvest/

Banking winter ice in Ladakh
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-67469222
Editorial Comment:  This technique may also be useful in urban areas

Tree Folio NYC:  The right tree in the right place for urban forestry
https://labs.aap.cornell.edu/daslab/projects/treefolio
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/30/new-york-city-tree-planting-lidar-mapping

Paris begins an urban forest to cover up to half the city
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-08/paris-s-urban-forest-plan-takes-a-new-step-with-trees-at-the-place-de-catalogne

Dallas sees a future in urban farming
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2023/12/why-dallas-sees-a-future-in-urban-farming/
hat tip Henry Gordon-Smith

Two compendia of geotherapy:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QR9Xk3aq3soidmob6nS9PMstKcllmRlgpaVDyFzRkwY/edit
https://bio4climate.org/compendium/

City Agriculture - October 2, 2023

 Babylon Micro-Farms - for corporate dining, student dining, senior living communities, and event and hospitality venues now in 31 states

https://babylonmicrofarms.com/

Local ecosystem restoration and food forestry - the transformation of one yard in San Antonio, TX
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/25/2159617/-Local-ecosystem-restoration-and-food-forestry

Green Shades - vegetal awnings
https://www.singulargreen.com/en/green-shades/
hat tip Alexandra Sokol

Festival of Debate 2023: Cities, farming, construction and greenspaces - series of 4 recorded webinars
https://grantham.sheffield.ac.uk/webinars/

City Farmer News - from Vancouver, BC, Canada with news of urban farming from everywhere
https://cityfarmer.info/

Montreal street in transition from parking to community garden
https://mastodon.social/@arndell/110922058146104641

NYTimes on Miyawaki Forests
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/climate/tiny-forests-climate-miyawaki.html?unlocked_article_code=v8kupwL3yFzi2-IC0KNf0BfACVFIpjsbxhk-7AhXQAjnPcgfL1u0jgLszg6uQztWlpZc6_V1QOwLy6Gv10Xwtcw4Ht8XwkuGji4rDhmQ9qYforZU9MX8B7Q19uUpL1k9IKEMDgPfj6FekloEFoqn1Y2VdY6nwLtGMfO64JI_zm6W9HOOXuzcd3NCbBmj1eTS-5WwgnUq0Tm-ywZl4thMTz41iiE6RiRI11a0b8w_kTUQ855mbxbQVNWMm6Snn-J99xG67V4n4GNA2UfGJGq0DHfoU4lbAHtzu2ALpW-XHk-wGjHpUCFZ1zvw6xBW2LkxalBrw803-EJSR0-3v-fbax0XyIIi7FY&smid=url-share
Editorial Comment:  My sources at Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (https://bio4climate.org/) report that this article brought many new members and attention to their great work.

Urban oases combine roof gardens and solar panels
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66054688

Green corridors instead of heat islands in Medellin, Colombia
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230922-how-medellin-is-beating-the-heat-with-green-corridors

Improving photosynthesis in plants through genetics
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66798680

Botanarchy - guerrilla gardening on public property
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/i-call-it-botanarchy-the-hackney-guerrilla-gardener-bringing-power-to-the-people
Editorial Comment:  I’ve been known to do something similar myself from time to time and enjoy the idea that the concept of “seed bombing,” preparing balls of mud full of wildflower seeds to throw into vacant lots, seems to have gone from a kitchen table conversation in late 1970s to an underground reality today

Learning from India
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66717353

City Agriculture - July 8, 2023

 Bottle Farm - growing system for windowsill hydroponics

https://bottle-farm.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfdIMiJPI
hat tip:  core77.com
Editorial Comment:  A good idea which can probably be replicated with available materials like peat pellets and liquid fertilizers.

Bt Farms is building an agri-hood, "a regenerative community plan for approximately 220 acres of farm and wetlands land in Madison, Wisconsin”
https://btfarms.org/
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2023/3/13/one-of-a-kind-agri-hood-would-blend-housing-farming-and-racial-justice-on-far-east-side-of-madison

Badger Rock Middle School in Madison, WI "the state’s first charter school centered around agriculture, biodiversity and environmental studies”
https://badgerrock.madison.k12.wi.us/

Snail farming
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2022/7/20/snail-farming-raising-low-carbon-alternative-protein

Combining green roofs with agrivoltaics
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/04/07/more-bad-news-for-fossil-fuels-rooftop-solar-meets-agrivoltaics/

Urban food forests
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2023/4/5/food-forests-are-bringing-shade-and-sustenance-to-us-cities-one-parcel-of-land-at-a-time

Why and how of city agriculture plans
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2023/5/10/why-your-city-needs-an-urban-agriculture-plan-amp-how-to-start-one

Local microfarms
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/10/local-food-microfarms-equity

Urban pollinators
https://theconversation.com/bees-and-hoverflies-are-key-to-growing-more-fruit-and-veg-in-cities-new-research-207665

Bus shelter rooftop gardens to prevent urban flooding
https://gothamist.com/news/rooftop-gardens-bus-stops-cheap-remedy-nyc-flood-problem-pratt
hat tip to https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/15/flooding-issue-in-nyc-rooftop-gardens-for-bus-stops-to-the-rescue/

First roof gardener in Barcelona turns 100
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/26/barcelona-centenarian-organic-gardener-joan-carulla-rooftop-farm-aoe

What you need to know about green walls
https://inhabitat.com/what-do-you-need-to-know-about-plant-walls/

City Agriculture - March 17, 2023

 Chinese natural restoration project

https://inhabitat.com/a-restoration-project-in-china-uses-a-sponge-system/

Urban Permaculture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qXgbrIYcFE

Floating farm in Rotterdam
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/20/say-hello-to-the-floating-farm-in-rotterdam/

Editorial Comment:  Previous mentions of Rotterdam in City Agriculture
World’s first floating dairy farm in Rotterdam, Netherlands
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45130010
https://cityag.blogspot.com/2018/08/city-agriculture-august-30-2018.html

Floating Park in Rotterdam made from recycled plastic
http://www.recycledpark.com/
http://www.recycledisland.com/about.html
https://cityag.blogspot.com/2018/08/city-agriculture-august-30-2018.html
Editorial Comment:  The Floating Park seems to have vanished but the group behind it is still removing plastic from waterways.
Editorial Comment:  Aztecs and other South American peoples built floating gardens for hundreds of years.  They called them chinampas

A rooftop forest for Rotterdam
https://www.mvrdv.nl/news/2603/with-construction-almost-complete-depot-boijmans-van-beuningen-prepares-for-preview-opening-in-september
https://www.mvrdv.nl/news/2652/depot-boijmans-van-beuningen-rooftop-forest-awarded-rooftop-award-2020
https://inhabitat.com/an-award-winning-forest-tops-the-worlds-first-publicly-accessible-art-depot/
https://cityag.blogspot.com/2021/01/city-agriculture-january-20-2021-happy.html

Rotterdam’s roofscape - greening 10 million square feet of rooftops
https://www.c40.org/case-studies/cities100-rotterdam-mitigation-meets-adaptation-on-rotterdam-s-rooftops/
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f082078d610926644d22e00/t/621e3b2a1ee23c373149cac0/1646148404157/URBANISTEN_Rotterdam_Rooftop_Potential_EN.pdf
https://www.fastcompany.com/90755913/inside-rotterdams-quest-to-green-10-million-square-feet-of-rooftops
https://cityag.blogspot.com/2022/07/city-agriculture-july-31-2022.html

Dallas TX plans for urban farms
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/urban-farms-in-dallas-will-be-vital-to-a-healthier-population-city-officials-say-15696187
Dallas Climate Action Plan on food access
https://www.dallasclimateaction.com/foodaccess

How container farms can help with climate change
https://energynerdshow.com/episodes/mit-lab-explores-how-container-farms-can-help-with-climate-change
hat tip Bruce Biewald

Kroger partners with Gotham Greens to supply more than 1000 stores
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2023/2/9/kroger-expanding-gotham-greens-to-more-than-1000-stores

Japan’s agricultural decarbonization plan
https://sponsored.bloomberg.com/article/jco/japan-where-food-security-meets-innovation
Editorial Comment:  government press release