BLOG OF iECYCLE

For the first time in history, there are more people living in urban centers than in rural areas around the world.  U.N. estimates suggest that by the year 2050, there will be over 9 billion mouths to feed globally. In order to address this challenge, experts believe that innovative new food production practices and technologies will have to be developed. Although issues of food security have played central roles in many developing nations, most of the developed world has (up to this point) enjoyed the luxury of access to cheap and plentiful sources of food. What most of us don’t realize however, is the inherit vulnerability of the system that has been put in place to produce, transport and deliver us the food that we receive in such abundance. As the effects of climate change slowly come into focus, we are beginning to see new weather patterns disrupting existing agricultural cycles, compromising harvests that are dependent upon a stable and predictable weather cycle.  For the most part these trends have failed to set off any alarm bells in the heads of policy makers in most major metropolitan cities. Yet, as more and more people migrate to cities being serviced by fewer and fewer farmers, it is difficult to understand why issues of food security have not played a more prominent role in the long term policy goals of the worlds major cities.

One of the simplest and perhaps most elegant solutions to this developing challenge is the integration of large scale, commercial grade urban agriculture programs into the infrastructure of a city. The adoption and implementation of such a policy would produce a host of direct and indirect benefits that would not only make the city more self sufficient, but generally a better place to live.

Although it is true that many urban agriculture programs currently exist, most are very small scale and lack the governmental support necessary to make them city wide ventures. Perhaps the most famous Urban Agriculture program currently in operation is the Milwaukee based Growing Power Inc.  A national not-for-profit organization dedicated to “Inspiring communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time.”

Though small in scale, Growing Power Inc. exists as a model to be emulated by other cities around the world in order to ensure continued access to affordable, healthy food for citizens living within urban areas. Over the next few months, I will be looking at various incarnations of a common theme. Commercial level urban agriculture is an emerging industry with the potential to solve many of today food security and environmental challenges. With enough support, it could fundamentally re-define our relationship with the food that sustains us.