Agricultura Urbana 15

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Ma K. Hik

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Division of Applied Social SciencesJ 2012

Uba Auu B Pa a Pb

Report developed or the Urban Sustainability Directors in the

cities o Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, through thfnancial assistance o the Urban Sustainability Directors Netwo


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contents

Aba 4

Ii 5

Project methodology 5

Denitions o urban agriculture and local ood systems 6

Structure o this report 8

K i ab ba ail a m 10

ci ia a i lai 12

A a / A apial 17

Bfl a amia il 19

F pli il 21

Halh a 24

Lal m ia 27

Aggregation and distribution 28

Processing 31

Mii ba ail 33

cli 37

Best practices or encouraging and promoting urban agriculture 38

How-to approaches rely on communication 38

Bridging the gaps: What work may need to be done 39

Appi 41


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This report provides an overview o urban agriculture and local ood system resources and

practices across the United States and parts o Canada, with a primary emphasis on providingresources that can encourage and support urban agriculture in Missouris metropolitan areas.We analyzed inormation rom a survey o Urban Sustainability Directors Network memberswho belong to either the national network or the Heartland Sustainability Network. We provideexamples o emerging practices that are working well or cities and collate a number oresources that exist or cities and their urban agriculture practitioners and advocates. Thisinormation is accessible in this report, but is highlighted in the website created or this projectat http://extension.missouri.edu/oodsystems/urbanagriculture.aspx, which includesa public, searchable database that provides documents and websites o zoning ordinances,promotional and educational inormation, and resources on urban agriculture and ood systems.

ABstrAct


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IntroductIon

At the request o the cities o Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis, we seek to provide

research-based guidance that can help these cities to realize the potential o regional oodsystems as an entrepreneurial strategy or urban economic development, paying specialattention to urban agriculture. In particular, these cities were interested in seeing how regionalood systems can be developed to bring together the interests o municipalities, advocates andpractitioners.

Our specifc objectivewas to assess and compile best practices and policies to promote urbanagriculture, working with members o the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) andurban agriculture advocates and practitioners in the cities o Kansas City, Columbia and St.Louis. This report joins several other major guides and assessments that have been publishedrecently in the constantly changing eld o urban agriculture. The results o this project arepresented in several dierent ormats. First, this written report helps to dene and describe

urban agriculture and local ood system eorts within Missouris metropolitan areas and othercities across the nation. A report is a static document that is good only at the time o writing.Thus, a second output o this project is a dedicated web page created within University oMissouri Extensions website to provide inormation and resources on urban agriculture aspart o larger ood system eorts. The third output, a searchable database housed on thewebsite, contains links to existing resources that cities can use to support and encourage urbanagriculture and local ood system strategies. This database also aords access to existingordinances concerning urban agriculture as well as educational and promotional eorts madeby cities to help advocates and practitioners o urban agriculture. This database is meant to bea dynamic tool that can help cities share inormation and resources with each other and thegeneral public in the rapidly emerging eld o urban agriculture.

Project methodologyTwo primary methods were used to collect data or both the written report and the web

page. First, we conducted an online survey o USDN members and members o the HeartlandSustainability Network; 29 members responded. This survey included questions about whatkinds o urban agriculture existed in their cities; what challenges urban agriculture acedin their cities; and what kinds o policies, ordinances and practices they used to promoteurban agriculture. The survey included space or respondents to upload any relevant publicdocuments rom their cities. Second, we conducted ace-to-ace interviews with eight advocatesand practitioners o urban agriculture in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis. Interviewees wereasked about urban agriculture practices in their cities, challenges aced by urban agriculture inthose cities, and opportunities to work with city government to promote urban agriculture. All

data gathering was conducted in accordance with the rules o the Internal Review Board o theUniversity o Missouri.

While this report draws primarily rom the survey and interview responses, it also usesinormation collected and shared through the listserv o the Community Food Security Coalitionon specic urban agriculture practices, ordinances and programs.1 In the course o ourwork, several queries about municipal policies, ordinances, programs and support or urban

1 The Community Food Security Coalition has existed since 1996. It is one o the most important groups opractitioners, advocates and scholars in the United States and Canada connecting nutrition, ood security andlocal ood systems. Its mission is to catalyze ood systems that are healthy, sustainable, just, and democratic bybuilding community voice and capacity or change. See http://oodsecurity.org/ or more inormation. The listservis ([email protected]).


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agriculture suraced on this listserv. We used answers to these queries not only to supplementthe scan done through the survey but, more important, to cover a wider range o tools andresources or the web page. Finally, material or this report also came rom public testimonyreceived by the State o Missouris Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture. Hearings wereconducted in our cities in Missouri rom July to October 2011. This testimony was reviewed orrelevant inormation.

definitions of UrBAn AgricUltUre And locAl food systems

The popularity o urban agriculture has increased considerably in the last ew years asconcerns about the environment have combined with increased interest in health andcommunity-building issues, giving rise to support or ood systems in metro areas as an integralpart o a sustainable development path or cities. More cities, advocates and practitioners aremoving to take advantage o the rise in interest in sustainable local or regional ood systems,but they ace many challenges, which accounts or the act that a number o resources providedin this document have appeared only within the last six to twelve months.

Many o the respondents to our survey mixed conversations about local ood systems withquestions and policies dealing specically with urban agriculture, which is actually onesubsector o a citys ood system. A ood systm is all the growing, processing, distributing,

retailing, consumption and waste disposal activities associated with ood (Figure 1). Denitionso local ood systems oten incorporate two other components the location o these activitiesin a specic geographical area, and specied goals to enhance the environmental, economic,social and nutritional health o a particular place.2 However, these denitions vary rom placeto place, leading to little consensus on what local means. Finding a consensus denitionrustrated authors o a report on localood systems prepared by the UnitedStates Department o Agriculture in2010. For their purposes, they deaultedto the Congressional denition in the2008 Farm Bill, which was locally orregionally produced agricultural ood

product [that] is less than 400 milesrom its origin, or within the State in

which it is produced.3 Clearly, localood systems and urban agriculturevary substantially rom place to place,making them sensitive to local contextand the specic people involved;thus, cities must defne and clariy theirmeanings or urban agriculture and oodsystem issues when changing codes orwhen providing education and resources.

A citys ood system is ed by local, regional and global systems o production andconsumption. In local ood systems, the emphasis is on building community relationships inthe ood system that can meet overall goals o enhancing the health, economy, society andenvironment o a particular place. For instance, while a notion o geographical place has beenat the heart o local ood system discussions, the USDA report concluded that consumersoten associate other characteristics with local ood systems such as marketing arrangements(e.g., direct armer-to-consumer marketing like armers markets), product characteristics (e.g.,

Figure 1. A ood system and its components.

2 Garrett, S., and Gail Feenstra. 1999. Growing a Community Food System. Pullman, Wash.: Western RuralDevelopment Center.

3 Martinez, Steve, et al. Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues. ERR 97. U.S. Department oAgriculture, Economic Research Service. May 2010.


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produced with reduced use o synthetic ertilizers or other chemicals,humanely raised), and who produced the ood (e.g., ethics o thearmer, air labor practices).4

Urban agricultureis one component o local ood systems. As asubsector o such a complex system, urban agriculture can be denedin many ways and will need to be adapted to the local context. For thepurposes o our project, the denition provided by Bailkey and Nasris used: Th growng, rocssng, and dstrbton o ood and othrrodcts throgh ntnsv lant cltvaton and anmal hsbandry n andarond cts.5 In our ace-to-ace interviews, respondents generallyollow the path o Goldstein et al.6 by broadening the denition: urbanagriculture reer[s] to growing and raising ood crops and animalsin an urban setting or the purpose o eeding local populations.Cities choose to narrow and ocus this denition in various ways,oten categorizing urban agriculture as one or more o the ollowing:community gardens, commercial gardens, community supportedagriculture, armers markets, personal gardens, and urban arms.One o our interview respondents (M-1) said that urban agriculture iscommunity-based and community-minded. We believe it is important

or cities to understand urban agriculture as a ood-producing andcommunity activity, one that is sometimes a or-proft business, especiallyas urban agriculture is incorporated into sustainable development goals.

Figure 2 shows that survey respondents generally believe that urban agriculture is usedto supplement household income or to provide ood or the household. This may not refectreality, but as we show in this report, there is little ongoing research to provide answers to thisquestion. Thus, cities may want to separate out orms o urban agriculture that are primarilyprot-based essentially arming in the city7 rom those that exist primarily to benetthe common good (e.g., community gardening) when thinking about policies, education ortechnical assistance that can or should be provided (Figure 3).

Cities should also understand matters o scale in urban agriculture. Although many urban

armers are small producers who use prots mostly to subsidize household income rather thanmake a living, it is important that cities understand that urban agriculture projects can also belarge-scale. For example, the FarmWorks project in St. Louis envisions redeveloping a our-acresite in the downtown area to provide jobs, resh oods and processing in one place.8 In KansasCity, Kansas, a two-acre plot o organic land grosses over $100,000 in sales or CultivateKansas City, a nonprot that uses the land as a arm incubator.9 In Detroit, one private investor,Hantz Farms, and Michigan State University have both announced plans to establish large-

Impa I cii:Policies, education and technicalassistance are going to dier basedon the type and scale o urbanagriculture. Prot-making arms needierent support than community

gardens or other more communalor community-based arming. Themajority o urban arms are small,most being less than one acre,which is approximately hal a cityblock. However, larger scale urbanarms rom our acres to 100acres are possible. With intensivecultivation and good marketingpractices, urban arming businessecan gross more than $50,000 peracre, which may be an important

economic development tool.

4 Ibid.

5 Bailkey, M., and J. Nasr. 2000, From Brownelds to Greenelds: Producing Food in North American Cities,Community Food Security News, Fall 1999/Winter 2000:6

6 Goldstein, M., et al. (2011). Urban agriculture: a sixteen city survey o urban agriculture practices across thecountry. Page 4. Retrieved rom http://www.georgiaorganics.org/Advocacy/urbanagreport.pd.

7 The U.S. Department o Agriculture denes a arm as any operation that sells at least one thousand dollarso agricultural commodities or that would have sold that amount o produce under normal circumstances. Forinstance, urban armers can qualiy or assistance under USDA arm programs, including those or conservationand income support.

8 Written testimony provided by Farm Worksat the Missouri Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture hearing inMaplewood, Mo., on October 4, 2011.

9 Testimony rom Katherine Kelly provided to the Missouri Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture hearing in KansasCity, Mo., July 11, 2011.


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acreage urban arms o 100 acres or more.10 Thus, it is important or cities to understand urbanagriculture as private enterprise that can exist rom a micro to macro scale.

Interest in urban agriculture as a viable economic enterprise is refected in some responsesto our survey o USDN members. For instance, a couple o respondents specically asked orresources that would help them answer the ollowing questions:

How can we address the nancial viability o urban or peri-urban arming or incentivizeurban/peri-urban agriculture to increase ood security but also consider issues o

aordability? Can urban agriculture create ull-time employment through ood production?

Other cities responded that they were working on activities to make urban agriculture morenancially viable, including establishing a centralized incubator arm11 and working with locallenders to help capitalize urban ood production eorts.

strUctUre of this rePort

We have chosen to ocus on a ew key areas in this written report, including key questionsthat USDN members and urban agriculture practitioners/advocates have about urbanagriculture; city ordinances and zoning regulations; access to water and capital; brownelds

and contaminated soil; ood policy councils; ood access; local ood system inrastructure;and Missouri-specic inormation. These particular discussions ollow this introduction. Eachsection presents a discussion o the issues, an analysis o USDN members interest in thoseissues, and a highlight o either a best practice or a best resource. In the concluding section,we identiy some gaps in the work and discuss overall ways that cities can successully dealwith local ood system and urban agriculture work. As noted above, this written report is onlyone o the outputs o this project.

Another key output is the development o a web page at the University o Missouri thatincludes a searchable database o educational resources, reports, best practices and specicordinances that apply to urban agriculture or local ood systems. We believe this databasewill be the most signicant output o this work or its ability to unction as a dynamic tool or

USDN members and the general public. S th scrn shot on .10 o the opening page o thewebsite, which provides access to the searchable database and an online copy o this report.

10 Gallagher, John. 2012. Michigan State proposes 100-acre, $100-million urban-arming research center inDetroit. Detroit Free Press. April 13. Also consulted Hantz Farms website at http://hantzarmsdetroit.com/.

11 For good examples o urban arm incubators, see Cultivate Kansas City (http://www.cultivatekc.org/) and GrowingPower in Milwaukee (http://growingpower.org/).


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Figure 3. Most common orms o urban agriculture surveyed in cities.

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20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

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Notatall Veryli5le Somewhat Toagreatextent

Towhatextentaretheseurbanagriculture

prac44onersusingitsproductsfor:?

Supplemen@nghousehold

foods

Bringingincashincome

Enhancingthemageof

theneighborhood

Makingaliving

Figure 2. How urban agriculture is used in cities.


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In general, we have noted these key questions that have been arising about urban agriculturebased on analysis o queries on listservs, interviews and in a limited review o the literature:(note that questions are grouped by level o requency; bold ty representing the most requentquestions and italic typerepresenting the less requent.)

How can cty mncalts and racttonrs work togthr to mak rban agrcltrfnancally aordabl? (.g., How can racttonrs aord th cost o accss to watr?)

How can rban agrcltr b bttr ncororatd nto cty lans?

What ar th bnfts and sllng onts or rban agrcltr? How can w gt mor ol nvolvd n rban agrcltr?

How have other cities handled liability issues, and what are some o the best managemen

practices or urban agriculture?

What are other cities/practitioners/advocates doing to promote the growth o urban

agriculture?

Is there a way to map our existing resources in each city?

Written report andanswers to the surveyo USDN members will

be placed here whennalized.

Searchabledatabase becomesa dynamic tool orurban agriculturepractitioners, cityocials and thegeneral public.

Key questIons ABout urBAnAgrIcuLture And Food systeMs


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USDN members are generally struggling with many o the same questions, but USDNmembers are primarily interested in the how-to strategies:

Political engagement and community organizing (e.g., How can we incentivize thecommunity in urban agriculture projects? What models have other communities used toorganize urban agriculture eorts?)

Land use and associated city ordinances (e.g., How has urban agriculture been includedin zoning? How can greenbelts be used or urban agriculture? How can we change

cumbersome zoning that thwarts urban agriculture?) This issue has received the mostattention rom cities, and there are a number o resources highlighted in this report andloaded in our database that specically address these issues.

Access to capital (e.g., How can one get access to capital or urban armers?) This isparticularly important as access to capital is seen as a key barrier to expansion o urbanagriculture eorts.

Support or local oods (e.g., How can we make institutional purchasing o local oodseasible or both the city and local growers? How can we cultivate ood hubs?)

Liability (e.g., How have cities handled the liability issue, particularly regardingcommunity gardens and edible landscaping on public lands?)

Urban agriculture practitioners and advocates in St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City,Missouri, are also interested in how-to issues:

Land use and city ordinances that could support urban agriculture, including a desire orresources rom other cities.

Best practices or ood production and ood saety in urban agriculture.

But they are also concerned with nding inormation that could help them position urbanagriculture or the uture:

Research and evaluation o urban agricultures economic, social and other benets.

Future trends in urban agriculture, including larger questions o overall development

strategies or cities.

We have identied a gap in the academic literaturewhere there is little data on the long-term benets that urban agriculture can provide. Many o the benets are assumed, asinterest in urban agriculture generally increases during times o economic uncertainty andthen decreases when stability is restored,12 leading to a dearth o research on the long-termimpacts. However, simply collecting data at the city or metropolitan level could help citiesmake good decisions about the best ways to incorporate urban agriculture into overall plans.

12 Mukherji, N., and A. Morales. 2010. Practice urban agriculture. Chicago: American Planning Association. Page 2.


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Urban agriculture can oer health, environmental and economic advantages that make it an

appealing movement. For example, arming in cities can provide increased access to healthy,cheap produce or urban residents, while lowering pollution impacts rom transportation andwaste products.13 Urban agriculture also has the potential to help in the economic revitalizationo cities through the use o vacant land and the potential to use urban agriculture or smallbusiness opportunities. However, there are typical concerns associated with urban arming,including aesthetics, worries over property value, and concerns about nuisances. Zoningregulations are well suited to balance these concerns and benets because they are designedto regulate competing land uses and thus should be a starting point or any municipalityinterested in promoting urban agriculture. In act, 13 o our respondent cities indicated theywere reviewing city ordinances, and another eight indicated they were reviewing policies suchas ood codes. (See Table A2 in Appendix or more inormation.)

While municipal eorts to accommodate urban gardening have been useul, many areineective amendments that ail to take a broader view in addressing urban agriculture.14Unortunately, a piecemeal approach can serve to discourage urban armers because it addscomplexity and increases costs, thus deterring would-be armers and entrepreneurs. To makeull use o urban agriculture as a tool or promoting revitalization o a town or city, ocialsshould consider a more comprehensive approach or incorporating urban agriculture into theirzoning regulations.15 Such an approach would involve steps that clariy the citys support orurban arming, standardize the urban arming activities that are permitted, and acilitate thesale o goods produced rom those permitted activities.16 Because a citys comprehensiveplan is where a municipality identies the goals and priorities it seeks to implement throughits zoning code, such a plan is an important starting point or a community committed toencouraging urban arming through land use controls.17

USDN member cities are making critical strides in this direction. Because urban agricultureis being practiced in so many o USDN members cities, the majority o survey respondents (21o 29) said that urban agriculture was addressed in their city plan. This corresponds to ndingsrom 16 case studies on urban agriculture conducted or Georgia Organics by the Emory LawSchool in 2011 where most cities had some provision or urban agriculture in their zoningordinances.18 However, as we see throughout the report, clarity on goals or urban agriculture isimportant.

When asked to List the goals related to urban agriculture that your citys comprehensive planaddresses or will address, respondents gave a wide variety o answers, but the mode (7) wascreate sustainable ood systems (see Table 1). At least three respondents directly mentionedhealth, primarily access to healthy oods, and another our specied a ocus on community

gardening in some orm. However, there were also goals associated with community economicdevelopment (2), local oods (3), and zoning. Most cities were trying to address overall goals

13 Mukherji, N., and A. Morales. 2010. Practice urban agriculture. Chicago: American Planning Association.

14 Pothukuchi, K. J. K. (January 01, 2000). The ood system: A stranger to the planning eld. Journal o PlanningLiterature, 15, 1.)

15 Mougeot, L. J. A., and International Development Research Centre (Canada). 2006. Growing better cities: Urbanagriculture or sustainable development. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.

16 See Mukherji and Morales 2009.

17 National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity. 2009. Public Health Law and Policy,Establishing Land Use Protections or Community Gardens 2, 4.

18 Goldstein et al. 2011.

cIty ordInAncesAnd zonIng reguLAtIons


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o sustainability by including urban agriculture in their comprehensive plans as evidenced bythe inclusion o goals related to developing local ood systems, or overall community economicdevelopment. Table A2 in the Appendix shows the approaches used in various cities to includeurban agriculture and ood systems in their comprehensive plans.

Tabl 1. Goals n comrhnsv lan

Cts

Create sustainable ood systems 7Address or support community gardening 4

Use urban agriculture or community economic development 2

Support access to healthy oods to address health issues 3

Support local oods 3

Create open space 1

In our survey, the city ordinances and zoning were key challenges to urban agriculture(see Table 2), where 83% o respondents reported city ordinances were sometimes, oten oralways a problem; zoning was reported by 76% o respondents as sometimes, oten or alwaysa problem. Health codes, homeowner association restrictions and contamination/browneldswere less problematic, but all were considered barriers at least some o the time. Over 40% orespondents said that health codes and homeowner association restrictions were rarely or neverproblematic.

Tabl 2.

To what dgr has ach barrr rvntd rsdnts rom dvlong rban agrcltr rojcts n yor cty? (N=29)

Nvr Rarly Somtms Otn Always

No

rsons Mod Man

Halth cods 0 11 11 4 0 2Rarely/

Sometimes2.54

Zonng 1 6 11 9 2 0 Sometimes 3.17

Cty ordnancs 0 5 14 8 2 0 Sometimes 3.24

Accss to watr 0 4 12 9 3 1 Sometimes 3.28

Accss to catal 0 1 6 15 7 0 Oten 3.97

Homownrs assocaton

rstrctons2 12 10 3 0 0 Rarely 2.52

Contamnaton/ brownfld

rdvlomnt3 7 13 4 1 0 Sometimes 2.75

Most cities were trying to address the barriers identied above in some way either bychanging ordinances or by reviewing policies that act as barriers to urban agriculture (18 o 29cities).

By amending its model ordinances to include support or urban agriculture, a municipalitycan establish urban agriculture as a priority in its communities and set the stage or therevision o its zoning regulations. When incorporating urban agriculture into its plan, a cityshould include its goals and objectives or urban agriculture, and the policies and actions itwill use to implement those goals and objectives. To do this, the municipality should identiythe benets it is hoping to gain rom promoting urban agriculture. These benets can includehealth, environmental, or economic benets; or example, access to resh, local produce,additional open areas, nutrition or job training or their children, community gathering spaces,


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increase economic opportunities, or promoting community gardening opportunities, nonprotprograms or small businesses.19

Traditional planning policies can be critically important or urban agriculture. While urbanagriculture and local ood systems have largely emerged as a grassroots movement in the last15 years, the movement has developed to the point that cities need to plan or it to the sameextent as they do or streets, buildings or other inrastructure. In 2011, the American PlanningAssociation20 provided recommendations or cities in addressing ordinances, zoning regulationsand city plans, calling or:

Use o non-zoning regulations that aect private land(e.g., animal control and residential composting ordinances)

Land use policies that promote public land to be used or gardens or arms(e.g., Hartord, Conn., keeps track o all o its vacant public lands to match gardeners tothose lots)

Land disposition policies that permit surplus properties to be acquired or urbanagriculture

Policies and regulations that strengthen inrastructure or widespread urban agriculture(e.g., abandoned property management programs, browneld cleanup programs, localprocurement policies)

As summarized in the Missouri-specic section below, tenure and security o land is akey issue or urban agriculture practitioners. Without security on the land, urban armersare unlikely to make investments in soil or inrastructure that could lead to more productivearms and greater availability o locally produced ood products in cities. For instance,

soil remediation and improvement is a long-term strategy thaturban armers will be working on or the lie o their enterprise.Inrastructure investments such as water lines or hoop houses21require multiple years to show a return on investment. Both urbanarmers and community gardeners need security on the land, so citiesshould work with urban agriculture advocates and practitioners to ndthe best practices or transerence o vacant lots and use o public

land or ood production.Inormation about zoning practices identied during our study

is available through a searchable database at http://extension.missouri.edu/oodsystems/policysearch.aspx. Figure 4is ascreen shot o how the database works as a search engine. To date,we have entered over 100 articles and resources into this database.However, it will remain a dynamic tool that can be updated or a longperiod o time.

19 Rhoads, Amanda, et al., Portland Multnomah Food Policy Council, The Diggable City Phase II: Urban AgricultureInventory Findings and Recommendations 30 (2006), available at http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cm?c=42793.

20 Hodgson, K., M. Caton Campbell, M. Bailkey. 2011. Growing Healthy, Sustainable Places. Chicago: AmericanPlanning Association.

21 Hoop houses are relatively inexpensive structures made by stretching plastic over metal hoops and used orgrowing produce. These are unheated structures that can provide signicant opportunity to extend the growingseason; or example, spinach may survive all winter in Midwestern climates or tomatoes may be produced asearly as June. Such season extension can provide income opportunities or growers. Use o hoop houses can alsoprotect against water and pest damage to produce. As these innovations appear, there are several issues or citiesto consider. How do these agricultural buildings t into current city codes? Are there agricultural exemptions?How do cities value these structures or tax purposes that t the best interest o cities and urban armers?

In June 2010, the city council oKansas City, Mo., reviewed andupdated codes aecting urbanagriculture activities. The new code

secures the right o homeownersto grow produce in their ront yardor consumption or o-site sales;allows or on-site sales rom urbanarms; enables local growers tohave apprentices and interns; andallows gardening as a principal oraccessory use o a property.


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BeST pRACTiCeS

For the general public, clearly explaining ordinances and how to comply with them isvery important. We highlight two websites that are good examples. One was developed bythe nonprot Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA)22 and ocused on backyardchickens. While it explores only one orm o urban agriculture, it may be a model or howcities would like to construct an urban agriculture website that would help educate their

population interested in practicing urban agriculture. This could be especially important whengovernance occurs across multiple municipalities in one metropolitan area, and ordinancesdier rom jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

The website shares la inormation by providing a database o towns inMassachusetts and their poultry-keeping laws and regulations, and an article on how citizenscan best comply with rules and changes to laws. It also provides pai tips that demystiycommon myths about chicken keeping, a brie history o chicken keeping, a narrative ontrying to change zoning laws in one town, and a partial list o resources or urther research,study and inspiration. This inormation tool provides an ecient way to break down barriers thattypically impede the keeping o chickens and lays the ramework or a relationship betweenmunicipalities and their citizens. It also allows or someone to upload new documents bysending them to a correspondent.

Another model we identied as helpul is the Ontario Ministry o Agriculture, Food andRural Aairs Urban Agriculture Business Inormation Bundle23. This website serves as a centralresource or inormation about urban agriculture or a city-dweller who wants to produce ruitor vegetables or raise livestock, or a municipal policy maker exploring the topic. The websiteprovides means to help assess and improve soil conditions, marketing, ood saety andlegislation/regulations or those considering commercial production, and it collates relevantlegislation and regulations that are required reading or producers and policy makers alike.

Figure 4. Screen shot o the searchable database developed through this project.

22Backyard chickens in Massachusetts. (July 23, 2011). Retrieved rom http://noamass.org/programs/backyardchickens.php

23 Urban agriculture business inormation bundle. (April 28, 2011). Retrieved rom http://omara.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/urbanagbib/welcome.htm


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BeST ReSOuRCeS

Two resources rom the Amia Plai Aiai provide extremely useul analysisand tools or cities engaged in changing ordinances and planning policies.

The rst is Growing Healthy, Sustainable Places, which provides an overview o the urbanagriculture movement, discusses how cities can acilitate urban agriculture and local oodsystems, provides case studies o 11 U.S. and Canadian cities that are working on urban

agriculture (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans,Philadelphia, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver), and extensively summarizes urban agriculturecodes in cities across North America. (Most o the codes provided in the appendix o thisresource are uploaded into our searchable database.) The main ndings o the report arethat urban agriculture can positively contribute to a healthy, resilient community, especiallywhen combined with other planning strategies but that it takes public engagement andan engaged political leadership to develop and implement urban agriculture policies andprograms. Moreover, urban agriculture prolierates in communities with a wide range opolicies and programs to support the diversity o urban agriculture types, sizes, and scalesand its integration into the urban abric. For cities, traditional planning tools can be deployedto support urban agriculture, which means they do not need to develop special skill sets butrather communicate eectively with stakeholders. Finally, data gathering through ood system

assessments and land inventories can help justiy the need or urban agriculture planning,even in the ace o the act that land values oten dictate policy and programs or urbanagriculture.

The second resource, a shorter document called Zoning Practice: Urban Agriculture, waspublished by the American Planning Association in 2010 and is available online. This resourcepresents a number o denitions and examples o urban agriculture as well as ways thatplanners can support and encourage urban agriculture. This short resource is available athttp://www.planning.org/zoningpractice/2010/pd/mar.pd.

Finally,Urban Agriculture: A Sixteen City Survey of Urban Agriculture Practices Acrossthe Countrywas developed by the Emory Law School or the nonprot Georgia Organics.Published in late 2011, this report analyzes urban agriculture codes in 16 dierent cities andprovides an overview o codes that cities may be interested in adopting. The report specically

states that local context is extremely important in considering how codes may be bestupdated. It is available at http://www.georgiaorganics.org/Advocacy/urbanagreport.pd.


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As noted earlier, (see Table 2 on p.13), key challenges or cities in supporting and promoting

urban agriculture were access to capital (with nearly 100% reporting this is at least sometimesa problem) and access to water (86% reported this sometimes, oten or always a problem).Access to water and capital, as well as contamination, were the only three o seven probablebarriers to be selected by at least some recipients as always a problem.

Access to water can be dicult or community gardeners and urban armers because othe costs associated with installing water lines to long-vacant lots, hooking into existingwater sources or paying ongoing costs o using water at retail rates. In St. Louis, respondentsobserved that securing water rom a hydrant has not been dicult but does not allow ordrip irrigation because o the high water pressure. Drip irrigation is a best practice that useswater eciently and should be encouraged. In San Francisco, the city is providing $100,000to install water meters or community gardens and areas zoned or urban agriculture. Several

cities, including Milwaukee, Madison and Cleveland, are working with water utilities ordepartments to help urban arms and gardens access water and adjust water usage rates orurban agriculture. Minneapolis developed a more transparent process or accessing water,while Dallas and Dubuque are working on water collection (e.g., rain barrels) and conservationpractices.

The consistent lack o unding poses a large obstacle to the success o urban agriculture as aviable community development or economic strategy. Some cities are addressing the problem oaccess to capital in creative ways. Baltimore, or instance, reported working with local lendersto investigate options or capitalizing urban agriculture operations (small grants, revolving loanund, micro-loans). Clevelands oce o economic development oers small grants or marketgrowers, while Minneapolis provides low-interest business loans to urban armers.

Tabl 2a.To what dgr has ach barrr rvntd rsdnts rom dvlong rban agrcltr rojcts n yor cty? (N=29)


No

rsons Mod Man

Accss to

watr0 4 12 9 3 1 Sometimes 3.28

Accss to

catal0 1 6 15 7 0 Oten 3.97

In general, ew local governments provide nancial resources to assist with urban agriculturalstart-up, management and expansion.24 Diculty in obtaining access to capital has alsobeen exacerbated by ederal unding decisions. Despite opportunities to include urbanagriculture activities in new and existing public housing, schools, and other civic spaces, theEnvironmental Protection Agency, the Department o Housing and Urban Development and theDepartment o Health and Human Services oer little to no nancial support, although this isslowing changing.25 Part o the problem is that agriculture is still widely viewed as rural, noturban, by many ederal and state agencies.

Access to wAter /Access to cAPItAL

24 Kauman and Bailkey 2000.

25 Hodgson, K., M. C. Campbell, and M. Bailkey. (2011). Urban agriculture: Growing healthy, sustainable places.Chicago, Ill: American Planning Association. Pg. 34.


18/5218

However, there are some ederal resources or urban agriculture and local ood systems.The USDA Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program provides unding or small-scale urban agriculture projects that address ood insecurity in low-income communities,although the amount allocated to this program is inadequate to cover the growing numberand variety o urban agriculture projects throughout the country, and urban agriculture isnot its specic ocus. In the past several years, urban armers have qualied to receive cost-share assistance or constructing hoop house high tunnels (examples exist in Kansas City,Cleveland and Harrisburg, Pa.)26 through USDAs Natural Resources Conservation Service

(NRCS) Environmental Quality Incentives Program.27 Urban armers can also receive technicalassistance and consulting rom NRCS. In October 2011, Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretaryo Agriculture, issued a memo detailing unding and assistance available or urban agriculturethrough USDA and other ederal agencies.28

Other important actions to deal with barriers to urban agriculture were development o oodsystem assessments or action plans and direct engagement with community residents to helpthem practice urban agriculture. Specifc examples o how cities are dealing with various barriersto urban agriculture are urther elaborated in the Appendix.

26 McDonough, M. 2012. Urban arm supports local community. USDA Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Blog,March 29. http://ky.blogs.usda.gov/tag/high-tunnels/.

27 See more about this initiative at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailull/national/programs/?&cid=stelprdb1046250.

28 Merrigan, Kathleen. 2011. Memo on Urban Agriculture and Gardening Supporting arm viability, buildingaccess to nutritious, aordable ood and encouraging rural-urban linkages. October 14. Accessed on October31, 2011 at http://ky.blogs.usda.gov/les/2011/10/USDA_Urban_Ag_Memo-Final.pd.


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For many urban agriculture advocates and practitioners, the large swathes o vacant land in

the core o some major cities are an urban arm paradise waiting to happen, but access to landis oten more dicult than anticipated. Such access is a critical issue that was articulatedmany times during the Missouri Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture hearings.29 While havinga large contiguous piece o property available or ood production is extremely valuable, the soiland the contaminants it may hold are basic, critical issues or urban agriculturalists. There isalso a crucial dierence between access to land and access to good soil; the latter is arguablythe most important resource any armer has.

For any armer, rural or urban, the structure o the soil, its organic matter content, its abilityto hold water, and its microbial activity are critical to raising good crops. While armers canamend their soil through composting, application o synthetic ertilizers, use o manure, oruse o cover crops to increase the availability o soil nutrients and organic matter content,

the basic quality o the soil they start with aects crop yields. Soil orms over millennia, anddisturbances to soil are not readily xed in one, two or even three generations.30 Thus soilis a critical human resource that needs to be stewarded and treated as extremely valuable.Vegetable and ruit crops, in particular, need high-quality soil. Grain and vegetable crops, aswell as orchards, can absorb a number o contaminants, particularly heavy metals, rom soil;thus brownelds31 and contaminated soils are o particular concern to urban ood producers. Inact, brownelds and contaminated land were reported by the majority o survey respondents(18 out o 29) as sometimes, oten or always a problem or urban agriculture (see Table 2b).However, because crops can absorb contaminants and encourage new microbial activity in thesoil, agricultural uses are also benecial to browneld redevelopment.

Tabl 2b.

To what dgr has ach barrr rvntd rsdnts rom dvlong rban agrcltr rojcts n yor cty? (N=29)


No

rsons Mod Man

Contamnaton/

brownfld

rdvlomnt

3 7 13 4 1 0 Sometimes 2.75

For any urban ood producer gardener or armer researching the history o the proposedarm site is the rst step. Knowing what the property has been used or in the past, particularly

29 The Missouri General Assembly appointed a Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture that held our public hearingsacross the state rom July to October 2011 to collect inormation on critical issues in urban agriculture and oodsystems. For more inormation see http://www.house.mo.gov/committeeIndividual.aspx?com=806&year=2012.

30 In rural areas, soil is easily lost to wind and water erosion. Intense rainall events (oten occurring in spring)can cause massive soil erosion as can runo rom metropolitan areas. Recovery is centuries long as it can take500-1000 years to orm an inch o soil. One agronomist at the University o Missouri, Peter Schar, cited datathat losing one inch o topsoil leads to a permanent reduction in corn yields o 2.2 bushels per year, which onaverage yields o 120 bushels per acre is almost a 2 percent loss. Other crop yields can suer as much or more.In urban areas, many o which are located along rivers that created abulous soils, soils are generally lost todevelopment. The very process o construction largely destroys the quality o the soil, which will take centuriesto replace. Thus, experienced urban armers are delighted to nd areas o cities that have not been touched bythese processes. Such areas are ew and ar between.

31 A browneld is dened by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a property, the expansion,redevelopment, or reuse o which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence o a hazardoussubstance, pollutant, or contaminant. Denition accessed at http://www.epa.gov/brownelds/basic_ino.htm on6/15/2012.

BrownFIeLds AndcontAMInAted soILs


20/5220

i manuacturing occurred on the property, can help the producerunderstand what risks the soil may hold. Residential uses can alsoleave lasting impacts, particularly i remnants o building materialsthat used harmul substances remain. For cities, makng th hstory oa st asly avalabl to rban ood rodcrs is a good practice.

Farmers and gardeners nd to tst th sol to dtrmn rtlty ndsand th rsnc o havy mtals. Universities and nonprots can begood partners in this step, as many university extension services oersoil testing services (mostly or a ee). (To access these services, itsbest to contact a local extension oce and to speak with the personresponsible or the Master Gardener Program or agriculture and

natural resources.) Some land-grant universities are involved in soil remediation strategies.Kansas State Universitys Center or Hazardous Substance Research, or example, includes aresearch and extension project on childrens health issues in urban gardening and brownelds(http://www.engg.ksu.edu/chsr/).

Once the history o the site is known and the soil has been tested and the results interpreted,urban armers and gardeners can gure out how best to manage the risks associated with aparticular site. Because testing or heavy metals or trace minerals can be expensive, gardenersand organizations oten assume soil is contaminated, building raised beds with topsoil and

compost.32 But because some plants have especially deep roots that can penetrate beyond theraised bed, it is advisable to seek expert advice on which crops are best suited to productionin a particular site. Understanding the history o the site can help direct which metals to testor, and risks o contamination can be managed in a variety o ways, including construction ophysical controls, use o soil amendments, soil remediation, crop selection, raised beds, anduse o cover crops.

In Cleveland, the cty works wth Oho Stat unvrsty to provide soil tests beore any urbanplot is armed. Every state has university extension services, and most have a local extensionsta that can advise gardeners and armers on the best strategy. The city o Burlington,Vt., is examining brownelds as potential sites or greenhouses, which generally do not useground production. The Environmental Protection Agency also published a resource on urban

agriculture and brownelds (discussed below). Because costs o testing and remediation coulddiscourage needed urban agriculture, cts may consdr sbsdzng som costs.

BeST ReSOuRCeS

In 2011 the Environmental Protection Agency released interim guidelines or sae gardeningpractices in brownelds. The report suggests potential best management practices that cansignicantly reduce risks rom producing ood in brownelds. The guidelines and recordedwebinars discussing the science and policy o using brownelds or urban agriculture areavailable at http://epa.gov/brownfelds/urbanag/.

Slightly less extensive is a practical guide to understanding soil contamination publishedin 2006 by Resource Centers on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF). It contains

contamination limits applicable or Canada, discusses potential remediation strategies orcontaminated soil, and provides cost estimates or these strategies. The primer is called SoilContamination and Urban Agriculture: A Practical Guide to Soil Contamination Issues orIndividuals and Groups and is available on the RUAF website at http://rua.org/.

32 For instance, this is the preerred strategy o Gateway Greening, a community gardening organization located inSt. Louis and working primarily in St. Louis City. See more inormation at http://gatewaygreening.org/.

Making an inventory o appropriateland available or potential urbanagriculture plots can assist urbanproducers in accessing land.Additionally, a history o use o thatproperty that is easily accessible

could help urban armers avoid soilcontamination issues.


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Food policy councils have existed in North America or almost 30 years, some o the oldest

o which are those in Knoxville, Tenn., and Toronto. Food policy councils provide a place todiscuss and plan or a citys or regions ood system, which is generally not the jurisdiction oa single agency or department at many dierent levels o government. The North AmericanFood Policy Council web page, hosted by the Community Food Security Coalition, states thatood policy councils exist to bring together stakeholders rom diverse ood-related sectors toexamine how the ood system is operating and to develop recommendations on how to improveit.33 The organization notes that because no U.S. government entity has a Department oFood, ood issues are oten parceled out to various agencies or let to the private sector,which limits the potential or coordination and or government to address broad goals such asimproving access to healthy oods.

Developing local ood systems, which is an important eort that

many USDN members are undertaking, generally consists o anumber o dierent eorts in the public and private sectors at thesame time. These can be divided into local ood systm rojcts,artnrshs and olcy orts. Every city has nonprot organizationsthat have operated local ood systm rojcts or a number o years.For example, community gardening organizations are widespread andocus on using communal plots o land to benet the communityor neighborhood. According to Mark Winne, an expert on oodpolicy councils, local ood system projects are the programs,activities, businesses, and services that make up local ood systems.34 In St. Louis, GatewayGreening, a community-gardening organization, operates an urban arm that provides jobtraining to homeless men (Figure 5). This is an important project with multiple benets or

the city, including beautiying a neglected piece o property, providing organic ood, attractingpollinators in the city, and using volunteers who come in contact with diverse populations.However, this project depends upon a number o artnrshs with other groups, such as theSt. Patricks Center, the Missouri Department o Transportation, the City o St. Louis, andnumerous volunteers rom private and public groups across the city. Partnerships are importantbecause they help accomplish things or the local ood system that no single entity can doalone. However, or Winne, it is the olcy aspect o local ood systems that needs attention. Hedenes polices as the action and in-actions o government at levels that infuence the supply,quality, price, production, distribution, purchase, and consumption o ood. In this latter case,ood policy councils can take the lead in helping to assess, discuss and plan how policies canbe created, changed or removed to help grow local ood systems in a sustainable manner.

Food policy councils can be organized in several dierent ways, according to Winne, who wasone o the ounders o the Hartord Food Policy Council. They can be established by statute,as occurred in Hartord, Conn., and Knoxville, Tenn., or by executive order o a city or stateexecutive, as occurred at the state level in New York, Iowa and Michigan. They can also besel-organized in a coalition orm, which is emerging as a popular alternative. Winne estimatesabout 100 ood policy councils have organized over the last 15 years. Some councils stay

Food PoLIcy councILs

33 Community Food Security Coalitions North American Food Policy Council web page at http://oodsecurity.org/FPC/. Accessed on May 15, 2012.

34 Mark Winne. 2009. Building Just and Sustainable Local Food Systems. Keynote presentation at the St. LouisFood Policy Summit. March.

Local ood systems need projects,partnerships and policy to succeedMark Winne asserts that the rst twohave been extremely signicantin developing local ood systems,but the policy aspect needs to baddressed.


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active and become enduring institutions, which has happened in Toronto, where the ood policycouncil operates by statute and is overseen by the Board o Health.35

In our survey o USDN members, 16 respondents (55%) said that their cities had ood policycouncils. Ten survey respondents reported that their cities did not have ood policy councils,while respondents in three other cities did not know. When asked what top ood policy issuesurban agriculture could address in their cities, the vast majority o respondents said health(100%), ood security (93%) and aordability (72%), while another th (21%) said energyand a tenth (10%) said climate change (Figure 6).

One task that ood policy councils oten take on is developing a ood system assessment orthe city, or other inormation-gathering tasks that can help stakeholders better understand howthe areas ood system operates. Chicago, Vancouver and Calgary are all involved with oodsystem assessments and development o integrated ood system strategies or action plans.Lawrence, Kan., is actively working with its ood policy council to review zoning and codes that

are prohibitive to urban agriculture activities. Many cities are waiting until these assessmentsare nished beore pursuing changes in policies or practices to support local ood systemdevelopment. In Kansas City, the Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition was heavily involvedin helping to develop and advocate zoning that addressed issues in urban agriculture.

35 The Toronto Food Policy Council maintains a website that provides inormation on upcoming meetings, includestheir ood strategy or the city, and provides a history o accomplishments. See http://www.toronto.ca/health/tpc/index.htm or more inormation.

Figure 5. Gateway Greenings City Seeds Urban Farm makes use o Missouri Department o Transportation land alongInterstate 64.


23/5223

BeST ReSOuRCeS

Any city interested in ood policy councils should check out the North American Food Policy

Council web page athttp://oodsecurity.org/FPC/

. I applicable, the city should considerjoining the Food Policy Council Listserv, which acilitates discussion and resource sharingbetween local and statewide council coordinators and members rom around North America.To subscribe to the listserv or or more inormation, contact Mark Winne at [email protected] 505-983-3047.

Figure 6. Top issues that ood policy councils can address.

In Missouri, the Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition exists as a grassrootscoalition o armers, distributors, school ood services, hospitals, healthcareproviders, city planners, university extension services, grocers, nonprots,emergency ood providers, ood assistance program coordinators, consumersand advocates or urban agriculture, local oods and healthy kids. The coalitionsmission is to advocate or the Greater Kansas City ood system and promoteood policies that positively impact the nutritional, economic, social, andenvironmental health o Greater Kansas City. The coalition works closely with theMid-America Regional Planning Council, which exists to coordinate activities othe regions municipal and county governments. Find more inormation about thecoalition at http://kcoodpolicy.org/.

Elsewhere in Missouri, planning eorts or ood policy councils are under way inSpringeld, Columbia and St. Louis. In each o these cities, it is primarily grassrootscoalitions that are orming, but oten with involvement rom city or countygovernments.


24/5224

The term ood desert has lately been used

to indicate areas o cities where residents havediculty accessing aordable, healthy oods.Usually this reers to the lack o a nearby oraccessible supermarket that carries a wide arrayo oods necessary or a healthy diet (Figure 7).In 2009 the U.S. Department o Agriculturepublished a report summarizing the extent andcharacteristics o ood deserts.36 From thisreport they developed a ood desert locator,which is an interactive web tool located athttp://ers.usda.gov/data/ooddesert/index.htm.

However, cities should understand that theterm ood desert has been criticized onseveral ronts.37 First, developing geographicmeasures that can quantiy access or neighborhood residents is dicult because themeasurement must be able to account or many dierent things, including:

The availability o ood products to local residents(Is healthy ood actually in a particular place like a store?)

The accessibility o those products to residents(Can a resident walk, bike, ride a bus to that place?)

The aordability o those products or residents(I that ood is available and residents can get to it, can they aord it?)

This measurement will vary based on a number o actors, including household demographicsand the variability o private enterprises that serve particular neighborhoods. Thus, residents insome places that are designated ood deserts may actually have greater access to healthy oodthan it rst appears.

Second, many low-income communities have protested that the term promotes a view o theirneighborhoods as wastelands devoid o people, hope or wealth38 and makes them susceptibleto large-scale projects that may or may not solve ood access issues. Such neighborhoods mayhave community gardens or armers markets that help with ood access. Residents in thesecommunities may also ear that cities will adopt strategies that work solely to attract grocerystores (oten with public nancing) without considering other options that may make thecommunity more ood secure, including incubating ood businesses to promote community

economic development or redeveloping empty lots as green spaces or recreation as well ashealthy ood production.

Figure 7. Bobs Quality Supermarket in St. Louiseatures very little produce.

HeALtHy Food Access

36 Ver Ploeg, Michele, et al. 2009. Access to Aordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding FoodDeserts and their Consequences. Report to Congress by the Economic Research Service, US Department oAgriculture. Available at http://ers.usda.gov/Publications/AP/AP036/AP036m.pd.

37 Bornstein, David. 2012. Time to revisit ood deserts. New York Times. Accessed at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/time-to-revisit-ood-deserts/ on June 15, 2012.

38 Wang, Yi, Eric Holt-Gimnez, and Annie Shattuck. 2011. Grabbing the Food Deserts: Large scale LandAcquisitions and the Expansion o Retail Monopolies. Oakland, Cali.: Food First. Accessed at http://www.oodrst.org/en/Grabbing+ood+deserts.


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Third, ood desert is a simple and elegant concept that is likely to mask other issues. Forinstance, studies on access to healthy oods and its long-term eect on diet-related diseasesoten do not agree. As Bornstein rames it, Is [lack o] access to healthy ood a primary barrierto healthy eating? And, i so, will increasing access lead to better health outcomes?39 Froma research point o view, the jury is still out. Greater access to a wider variety o ruits andvegetables and other healthy oods actually may not change behaviors that are deeply rootedin social, cultural and economic conditions. Still, the popularity o the concept o ood deserts the related idea ood swamps where the landscape is littered with availability o ast ood

or otherwise unhealthy ood tells us that there are real issues here that need to be betterunderstood.

To that end, we highlight some places where urban agriculture and local ood systems arebeing used to address basic ood security questions. In Kansas City, Missouri, urban agricultureadvocates worked with the city council, the mayor, and the City Planning Department in 2010to crat and adapt ordinances or urban agriculture, including changing codes that allowed oron-site sales, enabled local growers to have apprentices and interns, and allowed gardening asa principal or accessory use o a property. Advocates promoted changes in the ordinances inpart based on the idea that urban growers could improve ood access or many residents in thecity.

In St. Louis, the Healthy Corner Store Project is a partnership between the City o St. Louis,

University o Missouri Extension, and the St. Louis Development Corporation. Corner storesthat agree to regularly stock a number o healthy oods and beverages, accept SupplementalNutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benets, use promotional displays or healthy oods,and keep displays resh and clean gain access to business development resources, a retailmentor, and publicity and promotion.40 Healthy in a Hurry Corner Stores in Louisville, Ky., hasa similar program. Food access concerns across the nation led to the creation o the HealthyCorner Store Network,41 which supports eorts to increase the availability and sales o healthy,aordable oods through small-scale stores in underserved communities.

In Kansas City, Beans and Greens (www.beansangreens.org) doubles the value oSNAP benets at participating armers markets. Several o these markets have a number ovendors who are urban growers. Doubling the value o SNAP benets provides new markets or

local growers and improves access to healthy oods or consumers. Cities across the country,particularly in the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast, have similar programs. The WholesomeWave Foundation has been an important impetus behind this movement and provides partnerlocator inormation on their interactive map, available at http://wholesomewave.org/map/. (Note that Beans and Greens received technical assistance rom Wholesome Wave toimplement their project, but it is not identied as a partner on the map.)

BeST pRACTiCeS

Many cities are changing ordinances to allow urban agriculture to fourish. Oten this meansallowing urban agriculture to take place on many dierent types o property, enabling on-sitesales or urban agriculture operations, or adding gardening or ood production to the list o

primary uses o urban land. Such steps can improve healthy ood access in neighborhoodsthat are underserved as urban growers are oten able to locate their operations in those veryneighborhoods.

39 Bornstein. 2012.

40 For more inormation see http://extension.missouri.edu/stlouis/healthycornerstore.aspx.

41 Good resources are available at http://www.healthycornerstores.org/


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BeST ReSOuRCeS

The Healthy Corner Stores Network provides resources and tool kits to increase theavailability o healthy and aordable oods through small-scale stores in underservedcommunities. Check out tools like Green or Greens: Finding Public Financing or Healthy FoodRetail, the Access to Healthy Foods Toolkits, and The Supplier-Retailer Gap: Connecting CornerStores with Local Foodson their website at www.healthycornerstores.org.

The Healthy Corner Store Project in St. Louis and the Healthy in a Hurry Corner Stores projectin Louisville provide assistance (nancial and technical) and mentors to help small stores stockhealthy oods. See http://extension.missouri.edu/stlouis/healthycornerstore.aspx and http://www.ymcalouisville.org/social-responsibility/social-services/healthy-in-a-hurry-corner-stores.htmlor more inormation.


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Respondents to our survey were extremely interested in larger issues involved in relocalizing

the ood system, or creating local/regional ood systems. As shown in Tabl 1 (.13), the mostrequently cited goal (mode = 7) or a citys comprehensive plan was to create sustainableood systems. In addition, respondents are looking or answers to questions about supportinglocal oods (e.g., How can we make institutional purchasing o local oods easible or both thecity and local growers? How can we cultivate ood hubs?).

Survey respondents seemed very interested in basic ood system issues that are barriersto urban agriculture, which also pose dicult questions o community development andsustainable economies. For example, some cities are struggling with the high cost o tryingto implement local ood purchasing, while others are dealing with infuxes o labor and newimmigrants who are interested in urban arming. Some are also interested in trying to protectagricultural lands rom development sprawl. According to the USDA Economic Research

Service, in 2009 U.S. residents spent more than $600 billion on ood prepared at homeand more than $526 billion on ood purchased outside the home.42 From this statistic itwould appear that promoting urban agriculture in a city would present a signicant economicopportunity or regional ood systems.

Local ood system development relies on creating, strengthening and enhancing right-sizedood inrastructure. Currently, transportation and distribution systems are oriented to larger,higher volume product fows, which inadvertently shut out many small growers (especially urbanarmers) and smaller retailers. For instance, grocery rms like Wal-Mart or Kroger operate theirown national supply chains and distribution systems. The largest ood service distributors,like Sysco and US Foods, also operate large national distribution systems, although some areorganized on regional levels and do regional purchasing. US Foods, or instance, installed anew computer inventory system that allows it to track products that are grown or purchased

within 300 miles o its St. Louis distribution center.43

To ameliorate ood access problems, cities may need to help re-create critical inrastructurethat can help ood systems unction eciently. Inrastructure can mean a variety o things,rom accessible storage and warehousing or distribution o locally or regionally produced oodproducts, to processing acilities where crop harvests can be turned into value-added oodproducts like jam, milled grain or rozen vegetables. For instance, every city that has a terminalproduce market44 will have a number o distributors that specialize in produce or produce co-packing. Building relationships between this kind o existing inrastructure and smaller growersor healthy corner stores can be especially ruitul.

LocAL FoodsysteM InFrAstructure

42 Hodgson, K., M. C. Campbell, and M. Bailkey. 2011. Urban agriculture: Growing healthy, sustainable places.Chicago, Ill: American Planning Association. Pg. 84

43 Personal conversation with US Foods recruiter, all recruitment air 2010 or the College o Agriculture, Food andNatural Resources at the University o Missouri, Columbia, Mo.

44 Cities that report prices rom their terminal produce markets to the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service,include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Columbia (S.C.), Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York,Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle and St. Louis. See list at http://ams.usda.gov. Search orterminal markets.


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AggregAtion And distriBUtion

A critical issue or local ood systems is the diculty o aggregating and distributing oodproducts in ecient and economical ways or producers and their customers. Aggregatinglocally produced products rom many dierent growers in one place that can also unction as adistribution point to customers is extremely useul. For growers, aggregation allows them to

a. access markets or which they do not produce enough volume;

b. sort and grade products or dierent market outlets;c. collectively purchase grading, packing and washing machines, distribution boxes, labels

or other needed items;

d. ensure ood saety through the post-harvest handling process; and

e. brand their products cooperatively.

On the other hand, aggregation and distribution inrastructure allowsgrocery stores, institutional ood services, or restaurants a way tosource locally produced ood in large quantities, without having todeal with multiple vendors.

Ecient aggregation and distribution is crucial as well to movinglocally produced oods into areas with limited ood access becauseit can reduce distribution costs or armers and retailers alike,resulting in more aordable resh ruits and vegetables. Food policycouncils oten identiy distribution problems as a signicant barrier to

developing viable local ood systems. Food hub is the name oten given to the places where thisaggregation and distribution happens, particularly i it oers business incubation services andprocessing capacity. USDA denes a ood hub as a centrally located acility with a businessmanagement structure acilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/ormarketing o locally/regionally produced ood products.45 Food hubs can provide access to newmarkets or small and medium-sized producers, and increase access or consumers.

Cities can support the development o this critical inrastructure in several dierent ways.Inrastructure development should be seen as an economic development issue or whicheconomic development resources can be used. This could include identiying existinginrastructure and networking private businesses (urban armers and existing distributors, orexample). Providing tax credits or other incentives, or low-interest loans or construction couldhelp create new inrastructure or repurpose the old. Technical assistance in business planningand marketing and energy-ecient logistics are extremely valuable. Cities should be awarethat right-sizing inrastructure may mean developing several dierent levels o aggregationand distribution; that is, small corner stores and restaurants will need smaller, more requentdeliveries than ull-size supermarkets or institutional ood services. Because urban armers withlimited resources may also need aggregation points to be located close to their elds, zoningand ordinances may come into play.

There are also some ederal resources available or this inrastructure. USDA released amemo in October 201146 detailing its programs related to local oods. One that was specicallyhighlighted is the Wholsal, Farmrs, and Altrnatv Markt Dvlomnt program. According

45 Bragg, Errol, and James Barham. Undated. Regional Food Hubs: Linking producers to new markets. USDAKnow Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYF2) Regional Food Hub Subcommittee. Powerpoint presentation accessedat http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getle?dDocName=STELPRDC5088011&acct=wdmgenino on June 15,2012.

46 Merrigan, Kathleen. 2011. Memo on Urban Agriculture and Gardening Supporting arm viability, buildingaccess to nutritious, aordable ood and encouraging rural-urban linkages. October 14. Accessed on October31, 2011 at http://ky.blogs.usda.gov/les/2011/10/USDA_Urban_Ag_Memo-Final.pd.

Aggregation is the process ocollecting ood products generallyresh produce, but also meat and

dairy products in one placewhere they can be washed, sorted,graded and packed in standard-sizepackaging.


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to the memo, this program conducts research and providestechnical assistance to State agencies, municipalities and non-protorganizations on direct arm marketing, ood supply chain practices,and market acility design and inrastructure. It also analyzes thepotential o innovative delivery systems to help small and mid-sized producers gain access to new market channels, enhance armprotability, and expand the availability o resh ood supplies in retailand oodservice channels. Many states have used Farm Bill programs

such as the Specialty Crop Block Grant to develop marketinginrastructure, while the Federal State Marketing ImprovementProgram and the Farmers Market Promotion Program have been usedto develop marketing alternatives.

Creating this kind o inrastructure is oten reerred to as scalingup local ood systems. Scaling up is the process o making locallyproduced oods available in more places to more people moreoten. While armers markets and other direct marketing relationships provide good ood andcommunity connections, they also require a great deal o marketing time rom the armerwithout guaranteed sales, and are oten held at times or in places that are inconvenient to largenumbers o consumers. Scaling up local ood systems can maintain the values and connections

that both consumers and armers appreciate in local ood systems while moving largerquantities o local ood through ecient systems that are rewarding and convenient or armers,consumers, ches and others.

Essentially, scaling up is about creating new ood value chains. A value chain diers romtraditional concepts o a supply chain in that members o the chain share risks and benets intrue partnership across the chain (s Fgr 8). USDAs Know Your Farmer, Know Your Foodprogram highlights a number o dierent projects that are creating the inrastructure or localood systems at their Compass website, http://www.usda.gov/kycompass.

University extension services can be useul partners or cities interested in scaling up theirlocal ood systems. For example, extension services in each o the 12 states that make up theNorth Central Region o USDAs Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program have

a statewide team specically trained in scaling up local ood systems.47

The Northeast RegionalCenter or Rural Development is coordinating a regionwide project that provides researchand extension inormation about community, local and regional ood systems.48 Additionally,members o the National Good Food Network (http://ngn.org/) maintain proessional proleson their website, which can help cities who are seeking out expert advice.49

Cities may nd the FinancingHealthy Food Options ResourceBank, a site maintained by the USDepartment o Treasurys CommuniDevelopment Financial InstitutionsFund a useul resource. The site

provides overviews o dierent partso the agricultural and ood sectorrom a business and investmentperspective, training curriculum antraining webinars. Resources areavailable at www.cdfund.gov.

47 The 12 states o the region are Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas,Nebraska, and North and South Dakota. A reader can view resources and presentations rom a regionwide trainingsession at http://www.northcentralsare.org/About-Us/Regional-Initiatives/Scaling-Up-Local-Food.

48 More inormation about Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast with Regional Food Systems can be ound athttp://nercrd.psu.edu/esne.html.

49 As dened by the Kellogg Foundations Food and Community Program, good ood is grown in ecologicallysound ways (green), is healthy or people and communities, provides air returns or armers and workers, and isaordable or all members o the community.


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Concentrated eorts to scale up local ood systems exist across the country. Through theKnow Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass program http://www.usda.gov/kycompass,USDA has produced a number o reports that highlight local ood inrastructure needs, analysisand solutions. Particularly valuable are the Moving Food Along the Value Chain: Innovationsin Regional Food Distribution50 and the Regional Food Hub Resource Guide.51 The rst reportanalyzes eight ood value chains across the country to see how they operate, the challengesthey ace, and how best to acilitate emerging opportunities in local and regional ood chains.

The second describes the concepts behind ood hubs, maps where they exist, explores theirimpact, and examines their economic viability.

The National Good Food Network (http://ngn.org/) connects people working on thegood ood system by maintaining a proessionals database, hosting and archiving monthlywebinars and serving as a resource center.

50 Diamond, Adam, and James Barham. 2012. Moving Food Along the Value Chain: Innovations in Regional FoodDistribution. USDA Agriculture Marketing Service. Accessed at http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getle?dDocName=stelprdc5097504 on 3/31/2012.

51 Barham, James, Debra Tropp, Kathleen Enterline, Je Farbman, John Fisk, and Stacia Kiraly. 2012. RegionalFood Hub Resource Guide. U.S. Department o Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service. Washington, D.C. April

Figure 8. Reproduced rom Moving Food along the Value Chain: Innovations in Regional Food Distributionpublished by USDA in March 2012.


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Healthy Food Systems: A Toolkit or Building Value Chains52 provides practitioners andcommunities with conceptual models o ood value chains and tools or building markets,increasing supply and providing processing, aggregation and distribution. It refects on thelessons learned by armers and consumers involved in the Appalachian Harvest network. Itdiers rom the USDA resources mentioned above by providing practical questionnaires aimedat dierent actors in the ood value chain and helping to identiy key needs o specic valuechain participants.

Processing

Another critical piece o inrastructure or metropolitan areas interested in developing vibrantlocal and regional ood systems is processing capacity or value-added oods (e.g., salsas, jams,jellies, rozen vegetables and ruits, baked products) as well as dairy or meat products. Farmersgain new markets with value-added oods, or, in the case o dairy and meat products, eliminatesignicant barriers to selling their products. Both outcomes help armers develop protablesmall businesses. Processing can preserve seasonal local ood products or sale year-round, andvalue-added activities can oer new jobs or less educated workers. Finally, processing capacitycan satisy consumers seeking to buy and eat local products year-round.

Dairy processing and meat slaughter require extremely specialized acilities and must complywith signicant ood saety regulations. Thus, while providing smaller scale and lower costacilities in this arena is useul or local ood systems, it is a airly technical arena that willnot be discussed urther in this report. However, by assisting in the development o sharedkitchen acilities or processing local oods, cities can help entrepreneurs experiment withand develop into seasoned local businesses. Shared acilities can include everything romkitchen incubators that provide commercial grade kitchens and storage acilities along withstandard business incubation services like technical assistance and shared oce space; toshared-use kitchens that are licensed kitchen acilities available or rent or use by small-scaleentrepreneurs; to community kitchens that provide communal space or storing or preservingood products. Farmers and ood entrepreneurs should also investigate co-packing acilities,which are larger scale, private companies that manuacture and package oods or other

companies to sell.

53

These companies can pack and label canned oods, sauces, condimentsand the like; produce rozen oods, including rozen ruit or vegetables, baked goods or rozendinners; and guide producers through labeling and marketing strategies.

A number o U.S. and Canadian cities have kitchen incubators, including long-standingones in places like Taos, N.M.; Denver, Colo.; Athens, Ohio; and Toronto, Ontario. In Missouri,both Kansas City and St. Louis have kitchen incubators that serve ood entrepreneurs as wellas smaller catering businesses. On the western side o the state, the Independence RegionalEnnovation Center54 provides business services along with its ully equipped kitchen acilities.This partnership between the Independence Council or Economic Development and theIndependence School District turned an old hospital into the largest kitchen incubator acilityin the Kansas City metro area dedicated to early-stage catering, retail and wholesale oodbusinesses. The acilitys ve kitchens and shared commercial equipment allow or ood

preparation, packaging and distribution o nished products in an environment that oersthe top level o ood saety. In St. Louis, the Midtown Enterprise Center houses a kitchenincubator that is supported by the St. Louis County Economic Council.55

52 Flaccavento, Anthony. 2009. Healthy Food Systems: A Toolkit or Building Value Chains. Prepared or the CentralAppalachian Network. Accessed at http://www.cannetwork.org/documents/Value%20Chain%20Toolkit%2007.22.09.pd on July 22, 2009.

53 Rushing, J.E. 1999. Choosing and using a copacker. Department o Food Science, North Carolina StateUniversity. Accessed at http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/oodsci/ext/pubs/copackers.html. on June 20, 2012.

54 See http://ennovationcenter.com/ or more inormation.

55 See http://www.slcec.com/midtown-business-incubator-space.html or more inormation.


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Appalachian Center or Economic Networks (ACEnet) in Athens, Ohio, has one o the oldestand most successul kitchen incubators in existence. ACEnet provides business incubationservices, a well-equipped commercial kitchen, marketing and distribution assistance, andaccess to nancing as well as acilitating regional marketing campaigns. For more inormationsee http://acenetworks.org/and check out their YouTube channel through the Northeast

Ohio Food Web (NEOFoodWeb).Cities might also consult Markley and Hilcheys Adding Value or Sustainability: A Guidebook

or Cooperative Extension Agents and Other Agricultural Proessionals, now available in e-bookorm.56

56 Hilchey, Duncan, and Kristen Markley. 2000. Adding Value or Sustainability: A Guidebook or CooperativeExtension Agents and Other Agricultural Proessionals. Pennsylvania Association or Sustainable Agriculture andCornell Universitys Farming Alternatives Program.


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lands be used or ood production to address issues o ood security. in gnral, ths advocatsblv thr ar cty ofcals who sort rban agrcltr and ar asy to work wth, bt thywold lk mor awarnss o th otntal bnfts o rban agrcltr rom lctd ofcals.

However, these practitioners and advocates also see substantial barriers to urban agriculturein Missouri cities:

The need to clariy regulations, rework ordinances (especially zoning ordinances),and review policies in general (6 o 8 interviewees cited this as a barrier)

Lack o access to water, including reasonable costs or hook-ups and water use(5 o 8 interviewees)

The need or education and increasing involvement in urban agriculture(4 o 8 interviewees)

Access to land and security on that land or urban growers, especially with transerso vacant lots (3 o 8 interviewees)

Contamination o soil and lack o access to good soil (3 o 8 interviewees)

Our general sense rom the interviews is that communication between urban agricultureadvocates and practitioners and city ocials has been generally good but that both can do abetter job o increasing awareness o and education about city policies that allow or urbanagriculture activities. This is particularly important or the average citizens who want to start inurban agriculture in their cities. Missouri cities should address the need to provide less costlyaccess to water or urban agriculture (especially or community gardens), oer ways or urbanagriculturalists to secure land and protect their land tenure, and review their city codes andordinances that might impede the development and growth o urban agriculture (e.g., on-sitesales o arm and garden products).

Interviewees also identied a clear need to understand the extent o urban agriculture nowpracticed across Missouri. The Missouri Department o Agriculture has created a registry ogardens (including urban plots) that can provide one estimate o urban agriculture activity,59but there is little inormation about how many plots are devoted to urban agriculture, how muchthose plots produce, the economic activity generated by those plots, and the viability o urban

growers. This is a refection o a more general need or better long-term research and evaluationo urban agriculture impacts at the national level.

BeST pRACTiCeS

The city o Kansas City, Missouri, engaged with constituents in two dierent processes in 2010First, the city council reviewed and updated codes aecting urban agriculture activities. Thecode passed in June 2010 secures the right o homeowners to grow produce in their rontyard or consumption or o-site sales; allows or on-site sales rom urban arms; enables localgrowers to have apprentices and interns; and allows gardening as a principal or accessoryuse o a property. The city council also sponsored a Food Summit that brought togethercommunity leaders, advocates or local ood systems, city sta and resource people to think

about how to improve the ood system in Kansas City. Similar types o ood summits have beenheld in Columbia and St. Louis. Such summits allow or many dierent people involved in theood system to come together to meet and share ideas.

59 See AgriMissouris 10,000 gardens registry at http://agrimissouri.com/gardens/


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More inormation is provided below about barriers and potential remedies rom both the JointCommittee hearings and the interviews. See the blue box above or a discussion o the HouseBill 1660, which resulted rom the committee hearings.

Barrrs dntfd n jont commtt harngs St. Los Kansas Cty Colmba Srngfld

Access to ood is oten inadequate, especially in ooddeserts and among low-income communities

x x

Organic regulations are dicult to meet x x

Statewide policy can be impeded by local barriers

Brownelds need soil remediation x x

City residents need better access to water suitable oragriculture x x x

Land tenure and land security can impact growers abilityto plan and discourage improvements

x x x

Missouri has high obesity rates x x

Sales tax on ood can limit ood access x x

There is a disconnect between city residents and wheretheir ood comes rom

x

Mii 96h gal Ambl, 2012: H Bill 1660

This bill establishes Urban Agriculture Zones in municipalities in Missouri.Specically the bill Creates distinctions or Urban Agriculture Zones (UAZ) either Grower, Vendor, or

Processor. Provides or distinction and approval o an Urban Agriculture Zone at the

discretion o municipalities. Municipalities o 5,000 residents will be eligible,ensuring local control over UAZs.

Provides tax abatement or blighted properties that qualiy as UAZs (Chapter353 Mo. Revised Statutes), as 10 years pre-assessed value, and 15 years at 50%o the assessed value.

Provides a 50% discount to UAZs or hooking up to municipal water sources. Allows UAZs to be eligible or wholesale water costs. Species that sales taxes in vendor UAZs will be placed into a und overseen

Agricultura Urbana 15

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