Posts Tagged: Urban agriculture

Roof-top gardens on LA skyscrapers connect people with food

Galvanized horse troughs arranged on the top of a Los Angeles skyscraper have become a productive high-rise herb and vegetable garden, providing ultra-fresh produce to an on-site restaurant, reported Robert Holguin on KABC TV.

"Chefs are using what's produced (in the garden) in their kitchens because they know their customers appreciate fresh, local food," said Rachel Surls, the sustainable food systems advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in Los Angeles County.

Surls was part of a recent tour of urban agriculture in downtown Los Angeles, a story that was also covered by the LA Times.

The visitors — who included growers, urban policymakers, consultants, entrepreneurs and representatives of nonprofits — wandered around the vegetable beds and asked questions as they got a taste of the garden. The article said the garden, on the fifth floor of a building at 6th and Figueroa streets, cost about $40,000 to build and yields as much as $150,000 worth of produce every year.

Other news:

Drought clouds future of California wine industry
W. Blake Gray, Wine-searcher-com

The California drought didn't impact the wine industry in 2014, but a dry forecast for next year has growers worried. One major issue is the buildup of salts in soils, said Mark Battany, UC Cooperative farm advisor in San Luis Obispo County. During a wet winter, these salts are washed away. But California hasn't had a wet winter in three years. Farmers were able to irrigate at the beginning of the drought to make up the difference, but increasingly water supplies are restricted.

Battany says that excess salt buildup in the soil can cause grapevines to lose their leaves. "Without a way to process sunlight, you won't see sugar ripening," he said.

Showdown looms as California eyes pesticides
Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press

Organic farmers are challenging a proposed California pest-management program they say enshrines a pesticide-heavy approach for decades to come, including compulsory spraying of organic crops at the state's discretion.

The farmers are concerned about the California Department of Food and Agriculture's pest-management plan, the article says. The 500-page document lays out its planned responses to the next wave of fruit flies, weevils, beetles, fungus or blight that threatens crops. Many groups challenging the plan complained that it seems to authorize state agriculture officials to launch pesticide treatments without first carrying out the currently standard separate environmental-impact review.

The article reported that the California organic agriculture industry grew by 54 percent between 2009 and 2012. California leads the nation in organic sales, according to statistics tracked by UC Cooperative Extension specialist Karen Klonsky, who says the state is responsible for roughly one-third of a national organic industry.

UCCE advisor sees cultural shift toward urban ag in Los Angeles

Parkway gardens, neighborhood nurseries and schoolyard veggies can be found throughout Los Angeles County, but there is not good way to track it all, blogged Rick Paulas on the KCET Food Rant. Things are changing and Paulas got all the details from Rachel Surls, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in LA County.

Surls is the "client" for a group of UCLA students that are tracking Los Angeles' urban ag. She said the students, called Cultivate L.A., contacted the county's 88 cities to investigate their municipal codes related to food production.

"Are bees allowed? Are chickens and other kinds of poultry allowed? Are goats allowed? So that's one of the outcomes of the project I'm very excited about," Surls said.

The information has been incorporated into a map of LA, which allows users to navigate local municipal codes and find out how urban ag is taking shape in their neighborhoods.

Surls hopes the information can be used to establish "best practices" Los Angeles County cities can use in adapting planning codes to become more consistent and more rational in their approach to urban agriculture.

"People are very interested in this. So there's been a cultural shift towards wanting urban agriculture and having more opportunities for very small scale food production," Surls told Paulas. "But the codes and the policies have not been keeping pace. Hopefully, all the research that's been done by the students will help urban planners and city officials update the policies."

Trending: Urban agriculture in California

Volunteers are turning a food desert green in the Los Angeles Del Aire neighborhood as they plant more trees that will bear fresh fruit for the community, said an article in the LA Weekly Fruit and Vegetable Blog.

Twenty-eight fruit trees and eight grapevines were planted in Del Aire park, near the intersection of freeways 105 and 405. A sign declares, "The fruit trees in this park are public. They are for everyone, including you."

The story noted that UC Cooperative Extension is part of the urban agriculture trend. Writer Chris Chiao reported that the Fruit and Flowers Freedom Act passed unanimously in 2010 by the L.A. City Council, with the help of the Urban Farming Advocates and Councilman Eric Garcetti, and that UC Cooperative Extension launched the Grow L.A. Victory initiative earlier that year, designed to teach Angelenos gardening skills.

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