How New Is Urban Farming?

Men plowing the Boston Common, 1944.

Urban Farming is far from a recent development!

Cities and agriculture have been co-mingling for quite some time.

Urban farming may seem like a brand new concept, hatched by 21st century minds ready to take on the commercial food system, but actually, people have been growing their own food in dense areas since...always. As dense urban settlements began to form, there were always those who grew their own food in backyards or on unused plots in the city. Some even say that agriculture came as an outgrowth of cities and that cities actually came first (2)! (see Jane Jacobs and her book "The Economy of Cities"). Which ever came first, it is clear that agriculture has had its place in the cities from very early on.

One keen observer in 1883 wrote:

I live in a good neighborhood, close to a country station, ten miles from the city, where each house has its garden…The families are not rich, but intelligent and of good taste. They like to make their salaries go as far as possible, to have something for concerts and journeys… Each one raises potatoes enough for the year, summer berries and green corn for the season…Everybody says a garden is a great help.

For some quick perspective, take these figures into consideration:

• In 1800, approximately 75% of the U.S. population were directly engaged in agricultural production.  By 1850, it was less than 60% and by 1900, less than 40% (4).
• In 1900, the Chicago stockyards employed more than 25,000 people and produced 82 percent of the meat consumed in the U.S. (2).
• More than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40% of American produce by the end of WWII (1).
• War gardeners alone in the U.S. grew crops estimated at $350 million in the year 1917 (3).

1940s era victory garden

Hmm...so if urban farming was so common in the past, why did we stop?

Without drifting too far into this question, we can say that essentially industrialization and large-scale agricultural techniques made growing your own produce seem outdated. Growing your own food is hard work, no doubt about it. The combination of cheaper produce, modern zoning laws, increased work weeks, and the farming lifestyle falling out of vogue, all seemed to contribute to a decline in urban farming through the 20th century. As farms became increasingly isolated in the vast expanses of the country, cities grew their suburbs outward, sometimes turning farms into developments, further dividing the landscape.

As the country modernized, many family farms died out, sold to developers, or became corporate farms. As a result of most of the food you buy from the supermarket today is usually grown half-way across the country if not half-way around the world for certain items. When was the last time you bought anything that you knew was grown within 100 miles of your house? Considering resources, it doesn't make much sense to have these items shipped across many miles when there is land or at least some open space (rooftops) within 20 miles of you to grow these crops.

It has only been in recent years that activists and people watching our food supply have become alarmed with the amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and other hazards that have come to pervade our corporate-controlled food system. Somewhere along the line, farms became synonymous with vast expanses of land and disassociated with the urban environment. Just because large companies can manage to grow at such a large scale, doesn't mean they can do it with any kind of quality.

Remember, urban farmers have been growing their own food right in their backyards for centuries and it has been damn good! The corporate farming of today is the experiment, not the urban farming.

Ah...good ole' urban farming, the tradtion lives on!

Sources

1. http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=1737
2. http://grist.org/article/food-the-history-of-urban-agriculture-should-inspire-its-future/full/
3. http://exhibits.mannlib.cornell.edu/kitchengardens/guides3.htm
4. http://www.gardendigest.com/timegl.htm