Is urban farming really a sustainable lifestyle?
This is a question Novella Carpenter spent ten years of her life trying to figure out in Oakland, California, and it's a question she answers in her new book Farm City.Here's a picture of the writer on her urban farm:
The book gets a favorable mention on Maud Newton's site, and the interview that goes with the mention is great.
Carpenter describes the nature of urban farming this way:
I want to send a cautiously optimistic message. Urban farming is really intense and requires discipline, thrift, and a strong back (just like “real” farming). While I did make some mistakes that rendered some of my farming experiments economically unfeasible (hundred-dollar turkey), over the years I did learn ways to make it sustainable. I think urban farming does have the chance to change the way we eat. You know, I finish narrating my book in December of 2007. That moment was the end of an era of massive cultural bloat—a time when urban farming was considered fringe-y and outsider. My how times have changed! But, I do want people to be realistic. If you look at places like Detroit, which has the most advanced urban agricultural scene in the US, they still only grow 3% of the city’s produce. So it can’t replace, it just supplements, rural farms.
Another book to read, but it sounds like a good one...
