Agriburbia in Missouri

If you know foraging, you know Wildman Steve Brill. Rarely do we get background on his life, here's a little bit. And check out his old school website!

-Remember that urban farm in Vancouver which shut down and then was taken over by a company to possibly grow marijuana?  Business in Vancouver has an update on the situation

-Agriburbia hits Columbia, Missouri with the construction of a new housing development with an urban farm as it's focal point.

-If you're an urban farmer in Baltimore, rejoice, there's a new 90% property tax break for urban farmers!

-Sydney, Australia is getting an urban farm. The Daily Telegraph doesn't like that at all!

Singapore - the green leaders keep pioneering

Singapore is definitely a green infrastructure and living architecture leader. And they proved it once again with the announcement of $41 million dollars (USD) in funding for tropics oriented green research (into technologies like green roofs) and incentives for green retrofits.  The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations even dropped by recently to have a look at what they are doing.

-A Calgary urban agriculture farmer wants to create the world's biggest farm. Which made me think, the biggest is a tremendous achievement, what would be even better is the world's most PRODUCTIVE urban agriculture operation. Case in point, Calgary was just hit with a September snow storm. Just being big isn't great if you can't produce food. 

-Trinidad and Tobago has another aquaponics project in the works.

-Why do people reject urban agriculture operations in their neighbourhoods? A report from Johns Hopkins investigates and proponents to take note.

-If you're in the field no doubt you've had to address the questions or assertions as to why urban agriculture can't work. This article summarizes all of them, with plenty of snark and condescension (why not ask legal marijuana growers how much light they require, instead of illegal ones?) to make it go down easier.

Free webinar on how to run a permaculture farming business

Big news from Illinois and Connecticut. Illinois' Governor Quinn announced $5 million in investments to 13 communities for green infrastructure improvement projects. And Connecticut's Governor Malloy has provided a $1 million grant to fund an urban agriculture center which will produce 800,000 tons of free produce and provide 40 green collar jobs.

-I forgot to mention Yale's free green infrastructure seminar this past Monday (whoops!), but there is still time to check out part two next week. The topic of discussion is green infrastructure tools in the nation's capital, which segue's nicely into Baltimore's new, 64 page urban agriculture plan.

-So, back to the webinar which slipped my memory. I almost to forgot to post a second one!!!  There's a fantastic one happening today! The topic is permaculture and how to train a core of employees, create a lasting legacy for your children (and grandchildren) through farming and market to a diverse audience.

A few (urban agriculture) things

Every once in a while I like to do a roundup of the stories that might have fallen between the cracks.

-Lending further credence to the importance of greening the environment, especially through edible means, the Atlantic published an article about the power of greening vacant lots in Philadelphia and a recent report details the restorative effect of urban forests.

-Milwaukee's mayor wants to win the 2012 Mayor's Challenge and he's hoping urban agriculture is the key. Contact the mayor's office with any specific ideas.

-Check out the urban farming being done in Hong Kong (!) and the ongoing urban farming conversation in the Middle  East and North Africa.

-Baltimore's urban agriculture law project, designed to provide legal advice to urban farms and gardens, is off to a flying start and is now a part of a larger community law project expanding its reach.

Aquaponics in Bahrain, Rwanda and worldwide in 2012!

This is the last post of 2011, so I have to make it good.

-Last week I did a Battle of the Book Reviews. One of the books I reviewed was by David Tracey, and earlier in the year he wrote an article detailing the word, Usufruct. It seems, thankfully, this hasn't been necessary in New York, where real estate developers are actively seeking out urban agriculture entrepreneurs to use their land when construction has ground to a halt.

-Two quick articles about deconstruction, an oldie and a new one. They give ample reason for you to be the first in your community (because, the Living Architecture Daily blog has a global audience of go-getters) to inspire or launch a deconstruction business.

-A couple of aquaponics stories to finish up the year, because I believe aquaponics will be on the tip of everyone's tongue in 2012. Others agree.
In Bahrain it looks like a rather large public-private partnership could fall through because of new demands by city councillors. It doesn't say how big the project would be, but if there's a 25 year lease, I would guess pretty big.
And it looks like Rwanda had a $9 million dollar project launched in 2011.

Thanks to everyone who checked out the blog this year! The number of readers has skyrocketed and I can't wait to see what the living architecture and urban agriculture (LAUA! Did I just create a new acronym????) world has in store for us in 2012! verticiel has big things planned, see you on the other side!

Gaia university debuts permaculture diploma in 2012

-Starting in 2012 Gaia University will begin offering an International Diploma of Permaculture Design. In my opinion the most important parts of this development are:

*that this diploma offers an intermediate step before one attains their master permaculture teachers and:
*it offers a course (online!) which is not region specific, so anyone, anywhere can get their feet wet with permaculture.

-There was great hope in Baltimore that a bill giving tax breaks to urban farmers might make it through city council.It's not to be, unfortunately.

-In Kenya, urban farming can mean the difference between is life and death. There are a TON of startling facts in this comprehensive article, including that 95 percent of those surveyed in Kibera, Kenya reported worrying about running out of food.

Take the Green Infrastructure Survey (yes, that means you green roof enthusiast!) - Deadline April 15!!!

I had to make that explicit because I know sometimes people are tired and don't pick up on information which is germaine to them...unless they see key words. The "Barriers to Green Infrastructure
Implementation Survey" is coordinated by Clean Water Alliance and gives us all a chance to share our green infrastructure barrier experiences to alert the EPA and other officials to what's really going on! The deadline for survey participation is April 15, 2011. That's tomorrow, folks!!!!
Who should take the survey? Those involved in

• Green roofs
• Trees and urban forestry
• Rain harvesting
• Downspout connection
• Rain gardens
• Green streets and permeable pavement
• Vegetated swales
• Water conservation retrofits
• Decentralized systems
• This planet!

-Here's a nice story about some folks on the Queen/Long Island border who have mostly financed an urban farm all by their lonesome.

-Will Allen, on the other hand, is getting some help from some friends.$425,000 to hire 150 workers and make 150 hoop houses I only have one question...when is the book out? Because Will Allen's gets all kinds of awards and, indirectly, serve Obama dinner..If you're in Baltimore, you have an opportunity to do Will Allen one better with your own enterprise. Make it big and Obama can eat your food on a DAILY basis!

In Honor of the World Cup...

...I feel it's my duty to spread the word about this incredible green roof soccer field. So that makes TWO that we've profiled this year. Do I see a connection? The first was in Slovenia, the second France. Does that mean you need to build a green roofed soccer field to have a shot at World Cup glory?

-In Vancouver, a few urban food security projectssplit $100,000 to do a slew of cool things, including expanding composting programs.

-You never know when a mayor makes an announcement for his/her city to be the "biggest _______" (<----insert cool/trendy initiative here), but it looks like Indianapolis is giving this infill urban gardening thing a try. Baltimore too, has changed it's zoning codes for only the third time in city history, to create space for urban farms to grow.

-Lastly, via City Farmer, I stumbled upon this fantastic dissertation by entitled: Urban Agriculture as Revolution. Grab your favorite beverage, it's a good but long (over 200 pages) read.