
How much food can you really grow in a city? You’d be surprised. - robg
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/07/12/qa_novella_carpenter/
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bokonist
Probably the world's number one example of urban farming is Shanghai: "The
magazine Urban Agriculture describes how Shanghai has in effect created a
nutrient recycling zone around the city. The municipal government manages
300,000 hectares of farmland to recycle the city’s night soil. Half of
Shanghai’s pork and poultry, 60 percent of its vegetables, and 90 percent of
its milk and eggs come from the city and the immediately surrounding region. "
(source: <http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch11_ss4.htm>)

Of course, you're not going to this kind of scale from scattered community
gardens.

~~~
kiddo
Havana, Cuba is another successful example:
<http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/273>

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absconditus
If you are interested in this sort of thing I highly recommend checking out
Path to Freedom.

"The yard has over 350 varieties of edible and useful plants. The homestead's
productive 1/10 acre organic garden now grows over 6,000 pounds (3 tons) of
produce annually."

<http://www.pathtofreedom.com/about/urbanhomestead.shtml>

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mhb
This wasn't about how _much_ food she is growing. What was surprising?

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wallflower
Also check out Zolt's square foot garden project that he is doing with his
kids:

<http://www.toddalewis.com/square-foot-gardening.aspx>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=538503>

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pasbesoin
I like how she is "just doing it". As described, it's not primarily part of or
subservient to some "agenda". Seems rather "hackerish"; hacking the local
setting to combine urban and rural elements in a mix that suits her.

My one caveat would be to make sure your soil is safe; urban settings have
trouble with contamination, from "brown fields" to lead paint, motor oil, etc.
The problems can be remediated or worked around; the thing is to know about
them so that you can do so.

I think the HN crowd is more likely to understand this safety issue. My
challenge when talking with friends who start urban gardening is to point the
concern out without sounding negative about their project. I'm really just
concerned for their health; as long as that is assured, more power to them.
Unfortunately, I think sometimes my attempt to be helpful in this regard just
comes across as negative.

~~~
hs
the very fact that she still is alive to tell the story negates the safety
issue (i imagine the concerns are trumpeted for decades toward her, not new
thing)

she's probably healthier than those safety-conscious people who buy groceries
at wal-mart

by volume, plants are consist of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, phospate,
potassium; thus major elements. they do take CO2 from air pollution to grow.
motor oil, if it ever breaks down, probably will just supply C and O. lead is
not even a trace element, average plants probably don't take Pb and if they
do, probably extremely minute, like 0.0000001% (# pulled out of my ass)

maybe just washing it with baking soda and rinsing it with running water is
sufficient, probably overkill -- don't worry much about plants, they are
normally safe, that's why you rarely read news about people got killed by
eating plants.

i'm starting urban gardening too (i played with aquascape before) ... it will
be interesting

~~~
easp
Lots of 'probablys.' You should probably do more reading and less writing.

There are elevated lead levels around "civilization" due to human activity.
(Lead paint, tetra-ethyl lead in gasoline, pesticides, etc). Food crops vary
in the degree to which they accumulate lead, but they do. In general, the skin
of roots and tubers have the higest levels and fruits the lowest. Keep in mind
though, stems and leaves can have higher levels, particularly since various
members of the mustard family (which includes broccoli, cauliflower, brussel
sprouts, etc) are deliberately used for phytoremediation of lead.

~~~
hs
fine, can you point me the cases when someone die due to lead poisoning from
eating plants alone?

my point is that the amount of Pb is minimal in plant, esp if you wash&clean
it. you probably will get more Pb from eating pesticides, inhaling gasoline or
licking the paints

the more reading you do, the more you will be asking questions. some of
conclusions i had in past years are now broken. i keep learning stuff -- so
really, i don't have absolute knowledge about anything ... but it's okay

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llimllib
Counterpoint; Will Wilkinson on urban farming:
[http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2009/07/08/urban-
farm...](http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2009/07/08/urban-farming/)

~~~
absconditus
It isn't clear exactly what he is arguing against. Does he take exception to
the term "urban farming" because it contains the word "farming"? What is the
connection between the fact that farmers in Iowa overgrow a handful of crops
because the government pays them to and people wanting to garden in the city?

~~~
absconditus
Lest anyone doubt that corn is overproduced, here are some actual numbers:

[http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/winter_07/article...](http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/winter_07/article4.aspx)

See the paragraph titled "Corn Utilization and Surpluses for 2004".

This of course wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that we (US
taxpayers) pay for it. The artificially low price of corn has also led to a
glut of processed garbage being sold back to us.

~~~
easp
And don't forget how its spurred other perversions, like the corn ethanol
industy.

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tectonic
I've heard that city soil can be highly contaminated. I wonder what the best
way to deal with this is?

