Farmigo Brings Community-Based Farmers’ Markets Online | Gadget Lab | Wired.com Farmigo wants to bring locally grown produce to the places you already go — work, schools and community centers — and provide something approaching the convenience of home delivery without the cost. The company launched its local food communities on Tuesday, an effort to deliver a personalized, online farmers’ market experience to entire communities. The idea is to make it super simple to order vegetables online and pick them up at a convenient location, like your office. Farmigo isn’t catering to individuals, and in fact won’t deliver veggies to anyone’s home. It’s all about going where the people are, whether it’s at work, school, church, whatever. And you’ll need to sign up as a community in order to access the service. “Home delivery is very expensive,” founder and CEO Benzi Ronen told Wired. “The idea is that you come to work every day. You pick up your kids at their school everyday. You go to a community center if you’re working out there every day. We turn those into food communities, so it’s not an extra place you need to go to. The nice thing about it is that we are automatically going into an existing community of people.”

Farmigo Brings Community-Based Farmers’ Markets Online | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Farmigo wants to bring locally grown produce to the places you already go — work, schools and community centers — and provide something approaching the convenience of home delivery without the cost.

The company launched its local food communities on Tuesday, an effort to deliver a personalized, online farmers’ market experience to entire communities. The idea is to make it super simple to order vegetables online and pick them up at a convenient location, like your office. Farmigo isn’t catering to individuals, and in fact won’t deliver veggies to anyone’s home. It’s all about going where the people are, whether it’s at work, school, church, whatever. And you’ll need to sign up as a community in order to access the service.

“Home delivery is very expensive,” founder and CEO Benzi Ronen told Wired. “The idea is that you come to work every day. You pick up your kids at their school everyday. You go to a community center if you’re working out there every day. We turn those into food communities, so it’s not an extra place you need to go to. The nice thing about it is that we are automatically going into an existing community of people.”

(via smarterplanet)

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“Many city governments around the world are encouraging agriculture in urban areas—so long as it stays small scale and doesn’t challenge the status quo. Mike Duff argues that cities must learn to embrace ‘urban ag’ social movements as a way to engage citizens in shaping their own cities, and encourage these movements to scale up to reduce the power of ‘big food’ businesses to subvert planning processes. The key challenge will be regulation—cities should create a new land use designation entitled ‘urban agricultural use’ to accommodate a healthy balance between urban lifestyles and urban farming.”

How cities can embrace urban agriculture and weaken the grip of ‘big food’ | The Global Urbanist

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Welcome To Urban Farming! The Urban Farming™ mission is to create an abundance of food for people in need by planting, supporting and encouraging the establishment of gardens on unused land and space while increasing diversity, raising awareness for health and wellness, inspiring and educating youth, adults and seniors to create an economically sustainable system to uplift communities around the globe.Urban Farming™… More Than A Gardening Organization™!

Welcome To Urban Farming!

The Urban Farming™ mission is to create an abundance of food for people in need by planting, supporting and encouraging the establishment of gardens on unused land and space while increasing diversity, raising awareness for health and wellness, inspiring and educating youth, adults and seniors to create an economically sustainable system to uplift communities around the globe.

Urban Farming™… More Than A Gardening Organization™!

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The Job Creating Potential of Local Food Systems | Sustainable Cities Collective Jobs, jobs, jobs.  Although the recession is technically over, the (nonfarm) unemployment rate is holding constant at 9.1% and the American public are understandably nervous about their ability to find well-paying middle class jobs.  On the federal front, both the President and a new crop of potential replacements are pitching their plans to get America working again.  On the food front, Good Food advocates are shifting their focus to promote the job-creating potential of the local food movement.  On the surface, this makes a lot of sense.  Local food jobs cannot be outsourced, they are Green, the multiplier effect ensures that more money circulates in the region, and you don’t need to have years of formal schooling to land one (although sometimes it doesn’t hurt).  However, often these jobs are low-paying, seasonal, and physically demanding.  What follows are a few highlights of the local food system job boon, as well as a reminder that the slogan “will work for food” can be both a rallying cry and a disheartening sign of the times.Researchers and Job Searchers Agree from the Union of Concerned Scientists In recent months, several key reports have come out that highlight the prospects of a national strategy focused on food-related job creation.  A summary report recently released by the Union of Concerned Scientists cites numerous studies to make the case that farmers markets create wealth in a number of ways. Regional studies such as the those conducted for Northeast Ohio or by Ken Meter at the Crossroads Research Center use input-output models to demonstrate where money in the food system is leaking out of the region.  These analyses are helpful for policymakers to determine what areas of the food system need shoring up in order to ensure that food system jobs and money stay in the region.

The Job Creating Potential of Local Food Systems | Sustainable Cities Collective

Jobs, jobs, jobs.  Although the recession is technically over, the (nonfarm) unemployment rate is holding constant at 9.1% and the American public are understandably nervous about their ability to find well-paying middle class jobs.  On the federal front, both the President and a new crop of potential replacements are pitching their plans to get America working again.  On the food front, Good Food advocates are shifting their focus to promote the job-creating potential of the local food movement.  On the surface, this makes a lot of sense.  Local food jobs cannot be outsourced, they are Green, the multiplier effect ensures that more money circulates in the region, and you don’t need to have years of formal schooling to land one (although sometimes it doesn’t hurt).  However, often these jobs are low-paying, seasonal, and physically demanding.  What follows are a few highlights of the local food system job boon, as well as a reminder that the slogan “will work for food” can be both a rallying cry and a disheartening sign of the times.

Researchers and Job Searchers Agree

from the Union of
Concerned Scientists

In recent months, several key reports have come out that highlight the prospects of a national strategy focused on food-related job creation.  A summary report recently released by the Union of Concerned Scientists cites numerous studies to make the case that farmers markets create wealth in a number of ways. Regional studies such as the those conducted for Northeast Ohio or by Ken Meter at the Crossroads Research Center use input-output models to demonstrate where money in the food system is leaking out of the region.  These analyses are helpful for policymakers to determine what areas of the food system need shoring up in order to ensure that food system jobs and money stay in the region.

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Young shopper Seth Pinsky, NYCEDC President Darryl Strawberry Shopping for affordable, fresh foods Vegetables

Here are a few photos from the opening of Western Beef in the South Bronx, the first supermarket to open under the City’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program. For more photos, see our Flickr album; learn more about the innovative program to improve access to food in underserved neighborhoods at www.nyc.gov/fresh.

Photos courtesy of NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

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 Coming soon, to a city near you: open-source agriculture | Grist Most people attempting to build a viable urban agriculture business are acutely aware of the enormously challenging and time-consuming process of navigating zoning regulations. Having worked in this sector, I can personally testify that the process is tedious and time-sucking. Over the past couple of years, a number of cities such as New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago have begun enacting, or at the very least exploring, new regulations. One of the major challenges facing policymakers, however, is identifying effective policies and best practices. Which is why I got excited when I learned about Washington, D.C.-based John Reinhardt and the urban agriculture zoning and food sovereignty ordinance maps recently launched on his blog Grown in the City. Among other things covered, Reinhardt and his cousin Bob Wall are using technology to help people understand urban agriculture and food sovereignty policy approaches across the United States. Grown in The City’s new iTools column focuses on educating urban agriculturists of all kinds on how they can use open source technology to better communicate food policy and urban planning data, reviews tools, and highlights other resourceful websites. My interview with Reinhardt gives insight into the maps, why open-source data is crucial for optimizing policy decision-making, and the food and tech trends that he’s most excited about. John Reinhardt.Q. How did an urban planner get interested in food and tech?

 Coming soon, to a city near you: open-source agriculture | Grist

Most people attempting to build a viable urban agriculture business are acutely aware of the enormously challenging and time-consuming process of navigating zoning regulations. Having worked in this sector, I can personally testify that the process is tedious and time-sucking. Over the past couple of years, a number of cities such as New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago have begun enacting, or at the very least exploring, new regulations. One of the major challenges facing policymakers, however, is identifying effective policies and best practices.

Which is why I got excited when I learned about Washington, D.C.-based John Reinhardt and the urban agriculture zoning and food sovereignty ordinance maps recently launched on his blog Grown in the City. Among other things covered, Reinhardt and his cousin Bob Wall are using technology to help people understand urban agriculture and food sovereignty policy approaches across the United States. Grown in The City’s new iTools column focuses on educating urban agriculturists of all kinds on how they can use open source technology to better communicate food policy and urban planning data, reviews tools, and highlights other resourceful websites.

My interview with Reinhardt gives insight into the maps, why open-source data is crucial for optimizing policy decision-making, and the food and tech trends that he’s most excited about.

John Reinhardt.John Reinhardt.Q. How did an urban planner get interested in food and tech?

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