Urban Farming is Not an Urban Myth

Urban farming is not a myth. It could be the wave of the future. The end results are fresh vegetables, grown locally served to school children, neighbors, and the hungry. The question is how. How to grow the food? How to grow the food for a profit? Can it be done by non-farmers, and can it be done on a low budget?

I propose that urban farming is viable. It can be profitable. It can be done by a non-farmer. And it can be done on a low budget.
Some architects and green activists recommend vertical farms. They are multi-story buildings designed for the single purpose of growing food. Vertical farms are designed to produce large amounts of vegetables or fruit. The problem is that they require a significant upfront expense. If someone does not know if they can make an urban farm work, building a vertical farm would not be a good first option.

The average city offers several different alternatives. Empty office buildings or even occupied office buildings are one suggestion. If there is a city in the United States that does not have an empty office building or an empty office, then they have empty store fronts. Either way, commercial space which goes unused is lost revenue. Empty lots or deserted buildings are other suggestions. Why leave buildings unused? Abandoned buildings attract drug dealers and others.

Hydroponic garden beds can be set up quickly, inexpensively, and require little space. Why use hydroponic gardens? They are not a requirement of an urban farm but the level of automation that you can easily incorporate with a hydroponic garden would result in less manual work. Depending on your business model - you may choose to go the more manual route. Working on one or more urban farms would be great job for someone just entering the workforce from a homeless shelter, halfway home, or some equivalent.
How much space is required for an urban farm to make it profitable? It depends upon the crops and the method of growing.

Enough.

It is easy to write these words. It is tough to make them a reality. Okay. I make this promise. I will make an urban farm work and be profitable. I will do this without farming experience and without much of an investment. I am not a farmer and have never been. Watch this experiment on www.ecoconstructs.com/projectMAY2010.htm.