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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] fresh food, 'green' jobs
  • Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:48:53 -0700


Lake Clifton greenhouse project harvests 1st crops
Installation's backers hope to produce fresh food, 'green' jobs
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bal-md.gr.hoophouse17dec17,0,601643.story
December 17, 2009

Though it's nearly freezing outside, fresh arugula, kale and more greens are
flourishing in Hoop Village. That's the name given to Baltimore's newest
urban farming venture - a trio of plastic-skinned hoop greenhouses on the
historic Lake Clifton schools campus.

The structures, finished in October, are already yielding harvests that will
provide wholesome snacks to some city elementary students this winter. And
students at the three Lake Clifton schools are helping to raise the food
they'll be eating.

"I love my vegetables," Michelle Simpson, a Heritage High School senior, said
Wednesday as she proudly showed visitors the kale and cabbage she helped
plant. Inside the greenhouses, it's a balmy 20 degrees warmer, with neat rows
of lush kohlrabi, radish, Swiss chard, lettuce and spinach. About 1,000 tulip
bulbs await spring, tucked into the rich soil of other rows.

The hoop village's builders and supporters gathered to celebrate its first
crops, sampling sweet potato soup laced with collard greens, plus kale and
mixed green salad. They talked of their vision to provide "green" jobs to
youngsters while also supplying the Northeast Baltimore community with fresh
homegrown produce.

The portable greenhouses are a joint project of two local nonprofits, Safe
Healing Foundation and Civic Works, with funding from the state and city, as
well as several foundations and individuals.

"It's great that food can come out of here and go straight into our
cafeterias. Our young people are learning that food does not just come out of
a can," said Nzinga Oneferua-El, the foundation's executive director and head
of the Entrepreneur Training University, a community school on the Lake
Clifton campus.

Oneferua-El said the idea for the village grew out of her quest five years
ago for a place to raise the raw materials used in classes on floral design,
wreath-making and the like. She originally wanted to repair the old,
dilapidated greenhouse at Clifton Park, she explained, but jumped at the
offer of the portable hoop houses instead.

The steel-framed, plastic-clad houses were erected with help from the
University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne. The university also
had 56 tons of organic soil trucked across the Chesapeake Bay so the
vegetables would have fertile dirt in which to grow.

"They showed us how to bend the hoops and the whole shebang," said John
Ciekot, project director for Civic Works, the city's urban service corps.

Along the way, the project grew in scale and ambition. Civic Works, through
its Real Food Farm operation, hopes to raise 150,000 pounds of fruits and
vegetables annually to serve the low-income communities around Clifton Park,
which lack easy access to supermarkets with extensive fresh produce.

Beyond improving urban diets, the project aims to provide jobs in the
greenhouses to local youths and adults, while also teaching them skills in
agriculture, horticulture and marketing.

"We all know the drug business is accessible here," noted Ciekot. "Well,
food-raising is accessible, too. They have another career path they can take."

Organizers hope eventually to build 20 hoop houses in Clifton Park in an
unused field beyond the high school's track. At that scale, they hope the
urban farming operation can generate enough income to be self-sustaining, and
allow them to hire more gardeners rather than relying so much on volunteers.

Tony Geraci, food service director for Baltimore city schools, said he's
ready to buy produce raised in the Lake Clifton greenhouses as part of his
push to provide fresh, locally produced food to students. As a first step,
the greenhouses will supply some produce this winter for 20 elementary
schools. The project dovetails with his ambitions to transform nutrition in
schools and communities.

"Our goal is to have one of these at every school," he said. "We want to
create jobs and bring real food to a region that doesn't have access to it."

As the harvest begins for Lake Clifton's first crops, Ciekot is already
fielding requests for portable greenhouses from other city neighborhoods that
want to try producing food for their tables year-round.

"Whether run by nonprofit organizations like ours or by for-profit
businesses," he said, "Baltimore has a green future, and it starts here."













Attachment: hoophouses.jpg
Description: JPEG image



  • [Livingontheland] fresh food, 'green' jobs, Tradingpost, 12/24/2009

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