Author Archive

Posted by Ariela Summit | February 18th, 2010

At the Rooting DC conference this Saturday, activist, scholar, and consultant Joe Nasr will speak about how North American cities have been organizing for urban agriculture, and what the DC region can learn from that. Joe, who is based in Toronto, has worked on urban agriculture and food issues globally since the early 1990s. He has had longstanding ties to the DC region, discovering the subject by working with Jac Smit, “the father of urban agriculture.”

He is the co-ordinator for MetroAg – Alliance for Urban Agriculture, co-founded The Urban Agriculture Network and maintains several worldwide affiliations, including the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University in Toronto . He received a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

Joe brings hands on experience to his perspective at the conference. He has mentored a number of students interested in urban agriculture worldwide, including architecture students working with food- and agriculture-related design. Joe also co-curated the traveling exhibition: Carrot City – Designing for Urban Agriculture, which showed how the design of buildings and cities can enable the production of food in the city, and is now being turned into a book. Hopefully we’ll see the Carrot City exhibit in DC in the near future!

Posted by Ariela Summit | February 4th, 2010

The National Building Museum was packed this past Tuesday for a panel focusing on the challenges and opportunities for urban agriculture. The event was part of a larger public series at the Building Museum entitled For the Greener Good that calls on experts from diverse backgrounds to investigate links between environmental sustainability and design, public health, energy policy, bioscience, infrastructure, education, and popular culture.
The panel featured Josh Viertel, the president of Slow Food USA, Steve Cohen, Portland’s food policy and programs manager, and our very own Liz Falk, founder of Common Good City Farm.
Panelists stressed the need for everyone to get involved in the movement for “good food,” activating their networks of contacts to advocate for change on a both a local and regional level. Josh Viertel acknowledged the formidable structural barriers for sustainable urban agriculture, and pointed to the opportunities inherent in having strong government allies (Kathleen Merrigan, Tom Vilsack) and significant legislation pending on child nutrition.

Likening the movement for “good food” to other social phenomenons like civil rights, Viertel recounted what Obama had said to an aid, in confidence: “Show me the social movement behind it!” By marshaling activists, educators, and officials from the public health, environmental, and poverty sectors, we can create a movement that holds government accountable for producing food that is “good, clean, and fair” in the parlance of Slow Food USA.

Moderator of the panel Allison Arieff exposed some tension when she asked: “Is there a sustainable business model for growing food in the city?” Viertel actually answered no. He pointed out that

Posted by Ariela Summit | January 25th, 2010

Tomorrow (Tuesday, January 26 at 6:30-8pm) the National Building Museum kicks off the 2010 season of its ground-breaking series, For the Greener Good: Conversations that Will Change the World, with an exploration of urban agriculture.