Backyard Farming
As cost of meat sinks below costs of raising it and certified slaughterhouses remain scarce, livestock producers in southern Maryland turn attention to other sources of income: greenhouse-grown vegetables, grain, specialty animals, agri-tourism or jobs off the farm.
By Jenna Johnson
The Washington Post 2009-01-03 (entry)
As local food movement gains popularity, urban dwellers think beyond salad gardens to laying hens for eggs and meat, backyard goats for meat and lawn control, bees for pollination and honey, and fish in unused swimming pools for lean protein. Then, they question rules against farming.
By Diane Peters
National Post (Canada) 2008-10-24 (entry)
With price of bread linked to that of petroleum, metal and other goods, and a billion people in extreme poverty, we must refine farming. Much of the world's best farmland in Russia, Ukraine, Africa produces nothing; poor infrastructure dooms 40 percent of world's food to rot. We need to invest in farming, make it globally desirable, productive, with tangible benefits.
By Doug Saunders
The Globe and Mail (Canada) 2008-10-25 (entry)
In Malawi, where one in five adults has HIV/AIDS, ecologist digs backyard fish ponds for farmers and benefits accrue. Childhood malnutrition in region drops from 45 to 15 percent; affected households double income; residents eat more fresh fish and more corn grows via irrigation. Success means expansion into Mozambique, Zambia, but demand for fingerling tilapia has pushed prices up.
By David Biello
Scientific American 2008-08-20 (entry)
MacArthur Foundation/youtube
Will Allen uses aquaculture and vermiculture, and heats greenhouses with composting.
Urban farmer in Milwaukee wins $500,000 MacArthur 'genius grant' (click 'See also) for developing farming methods and educational programs designed to provide healthy food to everyone. His nonprofit, Growing Power (www.growingpower.org), just expanded its program of selling bags of fruit and vegetables for $14 -- a week's worth for a family of four.
By Lee Bergquist
Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI) 2008-09-22 (entry)
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Perceived health benefits, ambience and food safety concerns turn shoppers from supermarkets to farmers' markets. 'Salmonella scares are good for business,' says Massachusetts vegetable farmer. Governor lauds markets for raising awareness of both agricultural diversity and need to preserve open space.
By Robert Knox
The Boston Globe 2008-08-28 (entry)
Patti Moreno is Modern American Homemaker and Urban Homesteader (click 'See also') who's hardworking, media-savvy. Former city girl started kitchen garden to lose weight; will soon release DVD, garden goods line. Already host of PBS's Farmer's Almanac TV, she's now talking to Sundance Channel and Regis; also opens farm stand to neighbors.
By Carlene Hempel
The Boston Globe 2008-08-17 (entry)
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Twelve years ago, would-be writer finds that his tomato seedlings have outgrown his fourth-floor Brooklyn walkup so he returns to Pennsylvania roots to grow Black Krims, Cherokee Purples and Green Zebras, and chefs seek them out. His book tells the tale. And: Tim Stark figures he must be the only Princeton grad who sells tomatoes (click 'See also').
By Melissa Block
National Public Radio/All Things Considered 2008-08-08 (entry)
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Genetic engineering comes to Honduras corn fields, and country distributes seed, fertilizer to supplement pricey imported corn, rice. And: Transformation from farmer to agricultural entrepreneur in Honduras and other developing countries begins with seeds, fertilizer but requires decent roads, irrigation and help in using technology (click 'See also').
By Dan Charles
National Public Radio/Morning Edition 2008-08-07 (entry)
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Proposition 2, which would ban factory farms in California from using small pens or cages, brings to mind childhood on Oregon farm. Of animals raised for food, two provided pause: Pigs, with their characters and obvious intelligence; and geese, many of which could overcome panic at slaughter time to step away from flock and comfort a doomed mate.
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times 2008-07-31 (entry)
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The American chestnut tree once grew from Maine to Florida.
Hybrid disease-resistant chestnut touted as conservationist's dream: easily grown source of food, fuel and rot-resistant building material, says researcher. Chestnut flour predates wheat flour by a thousand years; it can be made into bread or pasta. Mario Batali, chef, says that pigs fed on chestnuts gives pork an intense, woodsy flavor. And: Breeding the blight out (click 'See also').
By Greta Cunningham
Minnesota Public Radio News 2008-06-07 (entry)
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Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post
Volunteers plant potatoes that eventually will be harvested for food banks. Fresh produce gives needy people a sense of dignity, says worker.
Retired FEMA worker realizes vision in 40 acres of volunteer-grown watermelons, cantaloupes, green beans, beets, turnips, onions, corn, peas, cucumbers, potatoes, okra and lima beans - for charity. 'If we don't do something, then we're not going to close this poverty. Obesity. Diabetes. It's a gap we're not even trying to zero in on.' He says youthful volunteers 'almost through sensing it,' know the hungry kids in class.
By Jackie Spinner
The Washington Post 2008-04-13 (entry)
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Striving to create a metropolis that can feed itself, garden activists target the 5,000-plus private- and city-owned vacant sites in San Francisco as sites of temporary, volunteer-tended organic gardens. Landowners wouldn't be charged, produce would go to local food banks and maybe to farmers' markets. Skeptics wonder about water sources and hidden costs.
By Matthew Green
San Francisco Chronicle 2008-03-22 (entry)
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Thieves, with a swipe of the chainsaw, remove source of maple syrup from Vermont farm, black walnut trees from Michigan park and butternuts from Ohio as timber prices rise with demand for American hardwood in Europe and China. But much timber theft, with victims older or poor, goes unreported or is grouped with general property theft and handled locally.
By Susan Saulny
The New York Times 2008-01-20 (entry)
Some despair at erratic winter weather that has brought hail, thunderstorms and flooding to the Northeast, but maple sugar farmers are smiling. They know that the more varied the temperature, the sweeter the sap. They're cleaning their sugar houses and preparing to tap.
By Rinker Buck
The Hartford Courant 2008-01-12 (entry)
Keeping chickens in the back yard is less work than a dog, says Colorado city dweller - and the bonus is the eggs. But, she cautions, check the municipal regulations before hatching the chicks, stay away from raucous roosters, and guard against coyotes, foxes, raccoons and bears.
By Cindy Sutter
Daily Camera (CO) 2007-12-21 (entry)
Longtime farmer couple in Tennessee go organic, raise chickens, sell eggs, raise llamas, sell honey, garden year 'round, and now have started cooking classes to encourage converts to the Slow Food movement. They enlisted the help of local chefs, two of whom credit their grandmothers for igniting their passion for food.
By Melanie Tucker
The Daily Tiimes (TN) 2007-11-28 (entry)
A laying hen (Karla Cook/thefoodtimes)
Urban chickens finding a niche between warehouses and vacant lots, but those who choose to raise up the chicks can please their neighbors with eggs, or annoy them with roosters, who tend to crow at sunup and other times.
By Jenny Gold
National Public Radio 2007-11-04 (entry)
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Though many in sub-Saharan Africa depend on farming for their living, new study shows that World Bank has long neglected support for region and its most important client; poverty expert likens criticism to saying that Coca-Cola is bad at making soft drinks.
By Celia W. Dugger
The New York Times 2007-10-15 (entry)
As population ages, diminishes in rural Japanese communities, social services are cut for lack of use; with no way to get crops to market, isolated farmers let them rot in the fields, or abandon their farms and rice paddies, leaving soil to erode and slip into waterways.
By Masaki Takakura
Daily Yomiuri (Japan) 2007-10-06 (entry)
Pineapple farms paired with certified organic practices and local exporters are becoming the ticket out of poverty for rural Ugandans; country's export share of organic products, including passionfruit, dried mangoes, vanilla and sesame, now leads Africa.
By Evelyn Lirri
Daily Monitor (Uganda) 2007-05-28 (entry)
Uganda's robust coffee market, mostly the domain of family businesses, might be approaching bubble phase, considering damage from coffee wilt, advanced age of trees, and poorly managed soils.
By Tucungwirwe Rwamutega
Daily Monitor (Uganda) 2007-10-02 (entry)
Praying to the god of corn has its price: nitrogen waste in the waterways, taxpayer money feeding the industry, low-nutrition meat from animals that eat it, but it provides a fertile field of medical research, and in Mexico, growing corn is the only way one farmer ensures his wife's tortillas have the authentic taste.
By Hugh Dellios
Chicago Tribune 2007-09-09 (entry)
Norway's Bastoey Prison now operates with ecologically sound food production, solar panels, wood-fire heating instead of oil and strict recycling to teach its 115 inmates respect for environment and for others.
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Whether in miniscule back yards or near abandoned houses, urban farmers find every sunny spot and put it to use in effort to connect to their food; backyard chicken and egg trend in Salt Lake City is nothing short of coop d'etat.
By Chris Adamson
Salt Lake City Weekly 2007-08-23 (entry)
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In northeastern Brazil, farmers use simple technologies and great persistence to harvest, pick, raise and slaughter, despite high temperatures, little rain and unfertile soil; they begin with a mud-patch, to hold rainwater to create oases of production.
By Isaura Daniel; translated by Mark Ament
Brazil-Arab News Agency (entry)
