São Paulo's green roof and wall incentive & agrihoods take off

If there's one thing I learned this week, all good things come from the NY Times.

While reading about São Paulo mayor, who is trying all sorts of things to reduce gridlock, I stumbled upon other initiatives he has enacted including the stipulation that companies must pay for "environmental conservation works" and can do so by installing green walls or green roofs, like the one above.

-Two weeks ago in Santa Clara a plan was selected for a 1.5 acre parcel. It includes 165 affordable senior rental units and much, much more. If you want a list of prominent agrihood/agriburbia developments across the nation, one was convenient posted last week.

That article is one of three I saw over the next 10 days detailing newish and future agrihoods.

-An interesting pairing has Back to the Roots teaming with Sodexo to supply 2,300 schools with garden tool kits, including aquaponics kits, mushroom mini-farms and their “garden-in-a-can”. There’s curriculum for the toolkits as well.

-Vancouver is now offering $10 trees to encourage home owners to build up their urban forest. Fruit trees are available too, including prunes!

-India is working on creating a green wall of their own, this one featuring palm trees to stop sea coast erosion.

Quezon City signs incentives for green roofs and green walls

 
Quezon City, the Philippines largest city, recently approved tax discounts for residential, industrial or commercial buildings which install green roof or green walls! This makes it the first, and only municipality on Earth, to offer incentives for both green technologies!

Last week was filled with so many big news stories...

-In Montreal an organic farming initiative was launched to cultivate vacant land. The hope is by 2019 to have an operation "the size of 55 football fields"!

-Across the province in Quebec City the first rooftop farm on a homeless shelter began it's growing season. It will supply about 1/3 of its growing needs.

-In Wisconsin, the Aquaponics Innovation Center opened last week. With the help of $677,000 in federal funding, the "center will provide education and resources for economic and workforce development". If you're really interested in a career in aquaponics as a career, have a peek at this new job site.

-Yesterday was National Permaculture Day in Australia. I'll have a roundup later in the week on the best activities in Oz.

-A new agrihood is sprouting up in North Carolina on 230 acres of functioning farmland. The developers envision educational events for students, in addition to the working community farm.

-The vertical farming sector is growing every day. However for most people some of the most basic facts are hard to find out. For instance, how big is vertical farming or indoor farming worldwide? In China, according to one researcher, they grow 25% of their food indoors already!
How much does it cost to start a vertical farming operation? In South Korea at least we know it's roughly 10 times the cost of a standard, glass greenhouse.