November 7, 2014 | Nina Ignaczak

What the Doctor Ordered: Urban Farming

Excerpt: At a dead-end street in a blighted section of this city, crumbling roofs of old factories, smokestacks and the Interstate 95 overpass loom overhead, casting long shadows on an October afternoon. Along one end of a field, children play soccer; on the other, men stand around motorcycles, sipping from beer cans.

This is hardly the city’s garden spot. Yet alongside the street, on a quarter-acre of land tucked between a muddy parking lot and the Quinnipiac River, a garden does grow; a lush, well-tended vegetable garden, where, on a recent Tuesday, about 35 people, most of them local residents, were busily harvesting carrots and kale that they helped raise.

Source: New York Times

How Did Agriculture Politicos Fare in the Midterms?

Excerpt: Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress last night. And a handful of races focused on specific agriculture issues and legislation or have implications on future food and farm policy decisions. Civil Eats updates you on what’s at play with the major politicos who will impact agriculture after the midterms.

Source: Civil Eats

RoyseLaw launches AgTech Incubator

Excerpt: A couple of years ago if you were an agtech company there wasn’t much for you in the way of ag-focused incubators or accelerators. Today we can add RoyseLaw’s AgTech Incubator to the list, which just announced a call for applications to their new AgTech incubator in Palo Alto.

Source: AgFunder News

These Maps of California’s Water Shortage Are Terrifying

Excerpt: Just how bad is California’s water shortage? Really, really bad, according to these new maps, which represent groundwater withdrawals in California during the first three years of the state’s ongoing and epochal drough.

Source: Mother Jones

Reports detail strengths, challenges in local food systems

Excerpt: Just over a year ago three participants in the AmeriCorps Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) program began intensive projects to detail the food issues and assets in Curry, Coos and Douglas counties. RARE Program members have completed 17 community food assessments covering 24 counties under the guidance of Oregon Food Bank. By 2016, community food assessments will be available for all rural counties in Oregon.

Source: The Umpqua Post

Urban Agriculture Takes Root on a Roof in Boston

Excerpt: Can cities grow their own food? That’s the premise behind urban agriculture, a movement to convert urban spaces into growing spaces. An experiment in urban agriculture is taking place at the Boston Design Center, a huge building in a formerly industrial space in South Boston. I visited Higher Ground farms and talked with one of its founders, Courtney Hennessey, about the project, which started growing in 2013. The farm’s experience shows some of the potential and challenges with urban farming.

Source: XConomy

Jason Mraz does a little farming in the Motor City

Excerpt: Jason Mraz wanted to get his hands into some Detroit dirt. The smooth-rocking singer-songwriter popped in this afternoon on Plum Street Market Garden at MGM Grand Detroit, a 1.7-acre urban farm on the edge of downtown.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Greenville Tech program brings farming to the table

Excerpt: The organic teaching farm on Greenville Technical College’s Northwest campus is quiet these days. The cooler months aren’t as exciting as summer when red-ripe tomatoes are hanging from the vines, but still, there is much to learn from the acre plot that was established last spring.

Source: Greenville Online