According to the American Farmland Trust, fifty acres of prime agricultural land are paved over and developed every hour in North America. At the same time the number of farmers is declining while the human population is expected to eclipse eight billion in just over a decade. In order to feed ourselves in the future, many people are starting to consider urban agriculture as a piece of the puzzle of how future generations will continue to eat.
On this episode of Locus Focus, we talk with Michael Ableman—one of the early visionaries of the urban agriculture movement—about his urban agriculture project Sole Food Street Farms, a network of four urban farms on five acres of reclaimed land in downtown Vancouver. In his new book Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs and Hope on the Urban Frontier, he provides a glimpse into the promises of urban farming on a grand scale—both to grow fresh food sustainably and begin to reclaim damaged human lives.
- KBOO