Building Your Sustainable Urban Farm

Building Your Sustainable Urban Farm Touch the Soil News #2041 (photo – Food Bank) (Courtesy of Morning Ag Clips draws our attention to a new resource for urban farmers and want to be urban farmers.  Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), part of the USDA, provides competitive grants to folks that advance the whole of…

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Tax Credits for Boosting Urban Farming

Touch the Soil News #2038 (photo – Urban Farm) (Courtesy of USDA, Public Domian) Journalist Wayne Pratt on the KBIA news portal brings an interesting story from Missouri.  The state is offering tax credits to encourage more urban farms throughout the state.  The tax credit aren’t targeted specifically to food-insecure areas, but anyone that wants…

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Hackney City Farm – A Place for City Folk, Educational Forums & Calming the Mind

Touch the Soil News #2035 (photo – Hackney City Farm) (Courtesy of Dr. Neil Clifton, CCA SA 2.0 Generic) Coming up with an urban farm idea in the midst of the greater London area has to have some attraction.  In addition, operating as a non-profit while everyone gets a paycheck which makes contributions to Social…

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When a Nation Thinks You Should Grow Your Own Food

Touch the Soil News #2027 (photo – Gardening next to Oxidation Ponds in Zimbabwe) (Sustainable Sanitation Alliane, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic) The small African nation of Zimbabwe has about 17 million people, but its agricultural sector has suffered declining productivity challenges to the point where the Government is calling on households to start growing their…

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The Nation of the Philippines Focusing on Urban Farming

Touch the Soil News #2026 (photo – Philippine Agriculture ) (Judgefloro, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International) From the USDA to thousands of local food advocates, urban agriculture interest is growing.  It is growing not just from knowing who your farmer is, but nutrition and transportation logistics as well.  Former Philippine Agriculture Secretary William Dar says…

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We Grow Microgreens, LLC – Highly Developed Urban Farm

Touch the Soil News #2013 (photo – We Grow Microgreens- (courtesy of We Grow Microgreens https://www.wegrowmicrogreens.com/ )    The company called We Grow Microgreens has established itself close to the famous Hyde Park outside Boston.  With assistance from a USDA grant, it is an interesting business model, leveraging sales from microgreens, tropical plants, leaves and…

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City Sprouts, Singapore – A Business Model for USA?

Touch the Soil News #2012 (photo – City Sprouts – (courtesy of City Sprouts, Singapore) Singapore, a small island nation in Southeast Asia of only 284 square miles.  That equates to a land area that is 10 miles wide and 28 miles long.  Singapore, a former British colony uses English as its main language.  This…

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Should Your City Have an Office of Urban Agriculture?

Touch the Soil News #2002 (photo – Baltimore Urban Agriculture – (Public Domain – USDA) News Portal Fast Company presents a story on why your city would want to create an Office of Urban Agriculture.  Some of the cities that have already created and hired a director of urban agriculture include Washington D.C., Atlanta, Philadelphia…

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Can a City Feed Itself?

Touch the Soil News #1973 (Photo – Tokyo, Worlds Largest City – 42 million people – CCA SA 3.0 Unported – Morio) An in depth article, Bloomberg News poses the question:  Can a City Feed Itself?   Exploring the efforts of a number of cities, this article brings to surface a new paradigm – the politics…

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