Comments on: Will Detroit Get World’s Largest Urban Farm?

By: Ashlyine Brooke

Ashlyine Brooke — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:18:00 +0000

asdasd

By: Tammy

Tammy — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:31:35 +0000

Being born and raised in the Detroit suburbs I can tell you that this chunk of land won’t be doing much to beautify the city of Detroit. Sure, the people who live across the street from it are ecstatic over the disappearance of derelict buildings and overgrown brushy areas where an assailant could be lurking. You would be too if you lived in this neighborhood. The city is huge and has been an ever-growing expanse of ugly and hopelessness since the riots in the 1960s. The withdrawal of the auto manufacturers is just the last straw, really.

What Hantz is doing has nothing to do with urban agriculture. They have purchased ground to install a ‘private forest’. In common English, this is a tree farm planted for the sole purpose of growing straight oak lumber that will command high prices on the market as furniture board foot 20 years from now. Planted closely together there will eventually be very few lower branches as the trunks mature. This produces knot free boards – premo furniture building wood.

This fantasy land that the FreePress graphics shows will cost much more than what Hantz has said they are poised to invest. Constructing it will mean they will grab huge chunks of land at a fraction of the fair market value. Additionally, the food grown in such an operation will be priced far above the means of those who live in Detroit where it isn’t so much a question of locally available fresh food but a dilemma of locally available food of any sort beyond party stores and fast food restaurants.

Detroit is like a ghost town. All major retailers have long since left. Small markets can’t hope to compete with big buying groups. Food in any form is expensive in the City of Detroit unless you count McDonalds and Kentucky Fried as ‘food’.

MSU has programs alright, but all of them are funded by huge corporations. Neither the university or Hantz is a savior to this down trodden city. No. Here the answer is to truly allow the phoenix to rise from the ashes. It will take a total dissolution of all current government offices for new life to truly spring forth. A crooked lot they are, and have been for decades.

Let it die completely. Its the only hope for bringing true prosperity back to residents of Detroit. That isn’t what Hantz has in mind. Its just one more corporate profiteering game at the moment. Fast, cheap and easy spoils.

By: S. Carter

S. Carter — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:47:35 +0000

Great article, thanks. I’d like to see more on the MSU-funded programs, and hear more about the results of the trainee programs.

By: Rick S

Rick S — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:18:22 +0000

Kate has a point — you must test city soil for contaminants before attempting to grow food on it.

But, if you have contaminated soil, all is not lost. Some solutions:

1) Replace the soil;

2) Block the contaminated soil with a barrier, and put clean soil on top (essentially capping the contaminated soil as if it were landfill) — depending on topography, you could do this for the whole site or just use deep (> 12 inches) raised beds;

3) Grow sunflowers or other similar plants that take up the contaminants, essentially cleansing the soil in which they grow, for several seasons. Unfortunately, the sunflowers have to be disposed of at the end of the season — since they end up containing the contaminants, it would be pointless to try composting them.

Urban farmers, especially in Detroit are very familiar with the problem and usually follow the barrier and raised bed solution.

By: Linda Hales

Linda Hales — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 03:53:13 +0000

This is an important story, not only for Detroit, but for all residents of under-farmed cities. Urban Gardens deserves credit for pursuing answers to difficult questions.

By: Marie Altman

Marie Altman — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 05:41:03 +0000

Is the bottom pic of green onions a promotion photo for Hantz? It is misleading. Green vegetables are not what they will be growing, and that’s not evident by this photograph. In fact, something else entirely is being conveyed by the farmer’s hands.

By: Catherine W

Catherine W — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 05:27:28 +0000

All very good points. I think it’s fine to have this land go to whoever wants to buy it. That said, planting “high value trees” that won’t pay off for a generation seems like a terrible business idea. I have to agree, it sounds fishy.

By: Maria Kasstan

Maria Kasstan — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 04:33:53 +0000

While I love the idea of greening the city and producing an abundance of local food, I find the emphasis on “straight rows of evenly spaced trees” to be kind of depressingly regimented and I really wonder why this would be considered preferable to a more natural setting. And, because trees live in communities with other living things: native plants, fungi, moss, soil bacteria, insects and various other creatures, creating a “lawn” beneath them might also not be the best choice. Perhaps this focus is designed to appeal to city politicians or the real estate business, and the rigid ideas will disipate once the urban aesthestic has embraced Nature with an open heart.

By: Kate

Kate — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 16:51:18 +0000

I’d be interested to hear what they’re doing to protect plants from urban soil contaminants. Lead in soil = toxic produce. In New London where we’ve had programs to improve food security with urban gardens, many abandoned sites are useless for this reason.

By: Klay

Klay — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:30:52 +0000

Look into Geoff Lawton growing food forest around the world. Now that is a world wide growing solution to the earth’s problems.

You can solve all of the world’s problems in a garden. – Geoff Lawton

A lot of videos on youtube and look up Regreening the Desert.