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  • From: Koreen Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Urban Farming in Wheat Ridge Colorado
  • Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 11:00:58 -0700 (PDT)

In my research, urban farmers often do have to pay something for land. If
they had to pay fair market rent, they mostly couldn't afford to farm unless
doing super high intensive growing techniques like hydroponics, etc. Grocery
stores that use their roofs for hydroponics gardens may reduce costs of
acquiring food. Some urban farms supplement income from grant money,
education, value added products, etc. They are competing against a fair
amount of subsidies -(in some cases) and cheaper land/labor, etc. You usually
have to be pretty clever, frugal, and out of the box to make a living as an
urban market farmer.  I know a few people who are doing it - one is a
beekeeper who keeps hives in friend's yards and sells at farmer's markets and
local groceries. Another  is using friend's yards to grow greens and other
veggies and fruits for market. They both have pretty happy lives, gotta
admit! :-) 
 

Koreen Brennan


Permaculture Design and Consulting, Florida
Permaculture Design Courses - Tampa Bay and Costa Rica
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Edible Landscape Advanced Course
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www.growpermaculture.com
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On Wednesday, April 23, 2014 10:58 AM, Toby Hemenway
<toby@patternliteracy.com> wrote:

Land cost in cities, as a share of farmed food cost, is highly variable, and
is much less than it seems to be. Most land on residential lots in urban
areas is a by-product of the need for housing--in other words, I didn't buy
my urban house for the land--I'd be making that payment anyway, to own the
residence. So my urban lot is very inexpensive, as a share of home-grown food
costs. In truth, home-grown food costs should come out of the food budget,
not the rent or mortgage budget, and they reduce food costs.

Little of this is the case with a rural farm, where the property is bought
mostly for the land value.

Thus, amortizing the overall cost of an urban lot into the cost of food grown
isn't accurate accounting. Urban land for farming is, in many cases, very
inexpensive. Also, many urban farmers are given land for free or for a
produce share,  making it very cheap.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Apr 22, 2014, at 10:11 AM, Jay Woods <woodsjaya@gmail.com> wrote:

> The cost accounting is very important.
>
> It is likely that stable, bulk foods are far cheaper in the market.
> However, specialty crops, perishables, and processed foods are likely to
> come out cheaper from your garden and kitchen.
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Paul Cross <charybda@newmex.com> wrote:
>
>> One of the best ways to discover how incredibly inexpensive food is in
>> supermarkets is to start an urban farming project with very careful
>> accounting. Keep track of the harvest and taking into account the land
>> costs, labor, inputs, distribution, taxes, benefits, etc. I imagine you
>> will find that rising food prices in supermarkets are not solved by urban
>> farming. There are a host of other benefits, though.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Since I am not sure if I get your point completely, I want to say
upfront, that my 5 cents worth below is not meant as a counter
statement, nor as an agreement - I am simply putting mine next to
yours, Toby.

> It's one thing if you are a market farmer, selling produce for
> money; then your labor and land are part of cost accounting. But if
> you are growing some food strictly to eat, then I don't think
> monetizing—commoditizing—your home produce make sense, from either a
> practical or an ethical stance. Figuring the "cost" of that food, to
> me, is a different kind of accounting.
>
> Unless growing your own food reduces your income from a job, or you
> have the kind of job where you can add billable hours whenever you
> want (I wish!) AND you do gardening instead of doing billable work,
> then your home labor isn't convertible into paid labor. But if you
> have a fixed salary or a limit to your billable hours, counting your
> labor as part of your food costs doesn't make sense, because working
> (or playing) in your garden cannot change your income. But it does
> reduce food expense.

I think that growing one's own food (or part of it) is a matter not to
be soiled with any financial considerations, just like you do not hire
someone to take walks with your wife, just because you have to
sacrifice billable hours for this, and your hours sell better than
what you pay for the guy from the escort service.

As a matter of fact I am sick and tired of the monetizing of
everything short of martial intercourse, and even this might happen
these crazy days. I have a picture of the world --it was not me coming
up with this idea, but it is so long ago that I read it that I do not
remember who wrote it, and I just feel so at home with it that it is
mine after all-- where the sphere of human interaction is divided into
four realms: the house, the market, the castle, and the temple. And
only in one of them --the market-- money has a rightful function. But
in our times of cultural degradation the market encroaches on all the
other realms, thus wrecking the world.

The house is the realm of subsistence, family life, care for children
and old folks, gardening and neighbourhood collaboration. Here already
big chunks have been put under the markets rule, so we have to pay
people to look after our children and to wipe our butts when we are
old and feeble, and most of us have to buy food (!)

The market is the marketplace --production of goods and buy and sell
of them as well as of rare skills that cannot be bartered in the
neighbourhood.

The castle is the realm of (lean) administration and protection --this
includes police, firefighters and the army.

The temple is higher education, healing beyond the level of home
remedies, science, and whatever is necessary for common and socialized
spiritual practice.

But I am well aware, that there is a reason, that that financial
considerations now also applied to castle and temple - and I think
this reason is the fact, that the unquestioned funding of those realms
was abused. I still vouche for the old system, because the monetizing
of them as not stopped the abuse, quite the contrary. It only got more
anonymous, so we cannot easily define the suckers.

Greetings
Georg



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