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Bumper crop of urban farming can be found in Ohio
A Columbus father and son work together starting seedlings. Urban agriculture is as much about people, as it is about food production, according to Michael Hogan, extension educator and associate professor of agriculture and natural resources at The Ohio State University.
(Photo: OSU Extension office)
The Ohio State University Extension has embraced developing food safety training specifically for urban farmers, since they have some unique issues to deal with.
By Linda Martz
Mansfield News Journal
January 28, 2015
Excerpt:
Cleveland, which has spent as much as $750,000 mowing vacant foreclosed properties during the summer, managed to reduce that bill by turning over unused parcels to land banks, sometimes for urban farming.
Ohio City Farm in Cleveland, at 6.7 acres and located on the banks of a river that famously caught fire in the 1960s, was probably until recently the biggest urban farm in the U.S., he said.
Policy-makers in both Cleveland and Columbus have modified local zoning regulations to become more friendly to urban farmers — for instance allowing families to keep some chickens to produce eggs, he said.
Cuyahoga County even experimented with a “sheep farmer’s grant” to help manage unmowed grass, he said.
Urban agriculture can be especially important in “food deserts” — neighborhoods where access to fresh fruits and vegetables and other unprocessed foods is scarce, Hogan said.
Read the complete article here.
Source: http://www.cityfarmer.info/2015/02/08/bumper-crop-of-urban-farming-can-be-found-in-ohio/
