This story was just so amazing we had to share it!

BBC News: Pea plant grows inside man's lung
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10945050

This is a cool new social networking site devoted to gardeners, co-developed by some friends of ours. Tour other gardens or post your own! Check out our ‘garden’ - more coming soon:

http://www.yourgardenshow.com/users/cityscapefarms/cityscape-farms

Just a quick shout out to Photosynthesis, the basis for all life on this planet. If you don’t know the equation above, you should. We’re not saying you have to tattoo it on your back, but it is a good way to remember it! Next week: respiration...

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re really into food miles. And we get really excited when we see supermarkets starting to display the distance food has traveled to get there. What better way to empower the consumer? Check out what one local grocer has done to showcase this info (on nearly all their produce, no less!):

Mike Yohay, Cityscape Farms’ founder, was recently featured in FastCompany. The piece highlighted 10 entrepreneurs and visionaries in the sustainable food world.

“Yohay’s Cityscape Farms continues to work to produce great-tasting fresh food for local buyers with its hydroponic greenhouses. ‘Hydroponic farming is incredibly innovative and resource economical compared to conventional farming. It's well-suited for cities because you can do it anywhere,’ says Yohay.”

Full article here.

By the end of July 2009, California was well into its third dry year in a row. On average, the state’s reservoirs were running low. In particular, the San Luis reservoir had reached only 18 percent of its capacity by July 28, said the Drought Operations Center for the State of California. The San Luis Reservoir stores water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta to be distributed through the southern Central Valley. As water levels at the reservoir and elsewhere dropped, many water districts faced restrictions. The impact of those water restrictions on farms in the Westlands and Tulare Lake Districts is illustrated in this vegetation anomaly image. Continues here.

We are excited to enter the new decade; one we expect to be pivotal in our transition towards a more sustainable agriculture. Urban farms and organic gardens continue to pop up everywhere, and the general public's desire to know where their food comes from shows no signs of waning.

The challenge is to remind consumers that buying local, sustainably produced food is more important than ever. We need to support small, independent farmers and producers especially in a down economy.

As we continue to evaluate prospective farm sites in the Bay Area we are constantly reminded how savvy Californians are about their food. Though everyone we know has been affected by the recession, we still see heavily attended local farmer's markets, fervor over new sustainable-food-sourcing restaurants like Gather, and promising startups like Lonjevitea and Fearless Chocolate bucking the trend.

So despite being invited to launch Cityscape Farms in other cities as far away as the Cayman Islands, we remain committed to maintaining our presence in the locavore mecca that is the Bay Area.

Looks like we have a long way to go before consumers trust the source of their food:

We'd like to take a moment to highlight a powerful force in the Bay Area that has been a great champion of sustainable and local food: Bay Localize. We are proud to be part of their Vital Links community and sincerely support their many initiatives. Please check them out if you haven't already.

Their Mission: to catalyze the emergence of a regional, self-reliant economy that strengthens all Bay Area communities.

Why local? Why now?
"Our growing dependence on declining fossil fuels coupled with mounting climate instability are converging to a crisis stage that imperils the long-term viability of the Bay Area's economy, infrastructure, and natural environment. In response, we believe that vibrant local economies and healthy communities are the answer. They are the best guard against global insecurity, an essential part of achieving social equity, and a vital way to enrich our day-to-day lives."

Cityscape Farms has been invited to join the World Cafe conversation at the Four Points Sheraton this Thursday, October 1st. Click below to learn more:

http://www.cagwin.com/fvul/schedule.html

"What if change meant a sustainable world in harmony for all beings to succeed both locally and globally? Can rethinking and changing the design, implementation and use urban landscapes contribute to a harmonious and sustainable world valued by current and future generations?"

Our friend Bryant Terry is a vegan food guru and advocate of urban agriculture. He recently remarked that although there is a lot of current focus on urban farming as a modern concept, its origins date back to pre-WWII shtetls of Central and Eastern Europe. The Cityscape Farms story is all about history - tracing the roots of our modern world back through the ages.

And Bryant knows his history. His amazing cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen, is replete with historical and cultural references to ingredients and derivations of his neo-soul food.

Alice Waters wrote: “Bryant Terry knows that good food should be an everyday right and not a privilege. This book is full of easy, tasty, seasonal recipes that also happen to be vegan and affordable!”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Mayor Newsom’s recently announced regional food policy has been getting a lot of attention. We at Cityscape Farms are thrilled to see such support for urban agriculture come from city government:

“Food production... will be encouraged within the City and, to the extent feasible, on City owned land, through urban agriculture including community, backyard, rooftop, and school gardens; edible landscaping, and agricultural incubator projects.”

You can read the Executive Directive here.

We’re proud to announce the first article to cover Cityscape Farms, appearing in the sustainable business publication Triple Pundit. Click here to check it out.

“Organically Grown and Genetically Engineered: The Food of the Future” at The Long Now Foundation (7/28/09). It’s encouraging to see so much emphasis on food with this org. - especially since their focus is long-term thinking. It’s going to take a long time to reshape our agricultural model, which is why we must start NOW.

I went to Michael Pollan’s “Deep Agriculture” talk at the Long Now Foundation back in May. Here’s a link to a summary of the talk, and you can download the MP3 recording by clicking here. Highly recommended! -MIKE

As part of my trip back to the East Coast, I visited a few commercial hydroponic greenhouses. One standout was Eli Zabar’s Vinegar Factory on East 91st Street - a bona fide rooftop urban farm. Eli grows delicious “Rooftop Tomatoes,” which his workers pick ripe and then bring downstairs to sell at his gourmet market. Brilliant. -MIKE



Here is an article about Eli and the history of Zabar’s epicurean empire.

Tags: Greenhouse, Hydroponics, Rooftop

I took this photo of my cousin, Morgan, who works at Blue Hill Farm in Tarrytown, New York. The farm belongs to the remarkable Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, and it was once part of the Rockefeller estate. Hooray for the new generation of farmers! -MIKE

“Whether there would be a White House garden had become more than a matter of landscaping. The question had taken on political and environmental symbolism, with the Obamas lobbied for months by advocates who believe that growing more food locally, and organically, can lead to more healthful eating and reduce reliance on huge industrial farms that use more oil for transportation and chemicals for fertilizer.” More here.


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