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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Urban Farming on Small Plots
  • Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:42:02 -0400


I think at least some folks here will be interested in this.
Pat

---------------------

Wally Satzewich operates Wally's Urban Market Garden which
is a multi-locational sub-acre urban farm. It is dispersed
over 25 residential backyard garden plots in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, that are rented from homeowners. The sites
range in size from 500 sq. ft. to 3000 sq. ft., and the
growing area totals a half acre. The produce is sold at The
Saskatoon Farmers Market.

Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen initially started
farming on an acre-sized plot outside of Saskatoon 20 years
ago. Thinking that expanding acreage was critical to their
success, they bought some farmland adjacent to the South
Saskatchewan river 40 miles north of Saskatoon where they
eventually grew vegetables on about 20 acres of irrigated
land.

"This was a site to die for," Ms. Vandersteen said. "It was
incredibly beautiful, but the pestilence was incredible too!
We couldn’t believe what the bugs and deer could do. Not to
mention the wind."

"We still lived in the city where we had a couple of small
plots to grow crops like radishes and salad mix, which were
our most profitable crops. We could grow three crops a year
on the same site, pick and process on-site and put the
produce into our cooler so it would be fresh for the
market."

After six years farming their rural site, the couple
realized there was more money to be made growing multiple
crops intensively in the city, so they sold the farm and
became urban growers. "People don’t believe you can grow
three crops a year in Saskatoon," observes Vandersteen.
"They think it’s too much work, but the truth is, this is
much less work than mechanized, large-scale farming. We used
to have a tractor to hill potatoes and cultivate, but we
find it’s more efficient to do things by hand. Other than a
rototiller, all we need is a push-type seeder and a few hand
tools."

Mr. Satzewich points out that city growing provides a more
controlled environment, with fewer pests, better wind
protection and a longer growing season. "We are producing
10-15 different crops and sell thousands of bunches of
radishes and green onions and thousands of bags of salad
greens and carrots each season. Our volumes are low compared
to conventional farming, but we sell high-quality organic
products at very high end prices." The SPIN method is based
on their successful experiment in downsizing which
emphasizes minimal mechanization and maximum fiscal
discipline and planning.

Brian Halweil, a food issues writer and researcher at the
Washington-DC-based Worldwatch Institute, interviewed Mr.
Satzewich and referenced his farming approach in Eat Here,
which documents worldwide initiatives in building a
locally-based food industries.

Roxanne Christensen

Roxanne Christensen is co-founder and President of the
Institute for Innovations in Local Farming. In partnership
with the Philadelphia Water Department, the Institute
operates Somerton Tanks Farm, a prototype sub-acre urban
farm that serves as the U.S. test bed for the SPIN-FARMING
method. The farm has received the support of the
Pennsylvania Dept. Of Agriculture, the Philadelphia
Workforce Development Corp., the City Commerce Department,
the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and the
Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic
Development.

Ms. Christensen contends that the separation of country and
city is a bankrupt concept. “As development erodes the rural
way of life, agriculture is creeping closer and closer to
metropolitan areas. SPIN-FARMING leverages this trend in a
positive way – by capitalizing on limited resources and
space. Creating Somerton Tanks Farm using the SPIN method
required minimal upfront investment, and it keeps operating
overhead low.

"For aspiring farmers, SPIN eliminates the 2 big barriers to
entry – sizeable acreage and substantial startup capital. At
the same time, its intensive relay growing techniques and
precise revenue targeting formulas push yields to
unprecedented levels and result in highly profitable
income."

In 2003, its first year of operation, Somerton Tanks Farm,
located in northeast Philadelphia, the fifth largest city in
the U.S, produced $26,100 in gross sales from a half acre of
growing space during a 9 month growing season. In 2005 gross
sales increased to $52,200. So in just three years of
operation Somerton Tanks Farm achieved a level of
productivity and financial success that many agricultural
professionals claimed was impossible. And it is providing a
way for independent farmers to once again have a viable role
in the food production system that has tipped too much in
favor of large scale mass production agriculture.

Ms. Christensen’s role at the Institute is to attract and
support new farming talent. "The farming profession has been
on the decline – and for good reasons. The global economy
favors agribusinesses, the amount of available farmland is
rapidly shrinking, and family farms are going out of
business at an unprecedented rate. It is not an opportune
time to become an independent farmer."

But, Christensen contends, SPIN-FARMING is a method uniquely
suited to entrepreneurs, and it provides a new career path
for those who have a calling to farm. It is enticing a new
breed of farmer who is keenly interested in matters of
principle, but who understands that to have a significant
positive impact, they have to function within the existing
system, pushing their cause while paying their bills.

As SPIN becomes established and is practiced more and more
widely, Christensen says, it will create new farmland closer
to metropolitan areas, which, in turn will produce
environmental, economic and social benefits. "It offers a
compelling value proposition."

See: http://www.spinfarming.com/
----------------------------------------------

Pat
--
Northern Pennsylvania

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism,
since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini



  • [Market-farming] Urban Farming on Small Plots, Pat Meadows, 04/05/2006

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