Sustainable agriculture in cities - 1

The Full Circle Farm (http://fullcirclesunnyvale.org/wp_fcf/index.php) is an oddity in the heart of the Silicon Valley. A few years ago when a High School was downgraded to a Middle School in Sunnyvale, eleven acres of land suddenly became available. Community residents were loathe to see the land disappear under Condo concrete. Some of them hastily wrote out a plan for an urban farm and then scrambled to find people who could actually farm when the School Board voted for the plan. Thus was born the 70,000,000 dollar farm. I did not get the zeros wrong, that truly is the estimated cost of this parcel of land. Here's food for thought for all those who believe in urban sustainable farming. There is no agribusiness model that can recover a capital investment of 70 million dollars from 11 acres. Unless the society at large finds some way of sharing the burden of capital costs farmers will not be able to practice sustainable agriculture in urban areas. The second biggest challenge as we shall see below is regulatory. Full Circle is thus a courageous flag planted in the middle of what was once the Valley of Heart's Delight, the American Indian name for what is now the Silicon Valley.

The farm plans to use a combination of capital subsidy (mainly by the Santa Clara School District), grants (the $40,000 tractor has been financed by Kaiser Permanente), volunteer labor (your blogger spent a day picking veggies at the farm last fall), future fees from educational programs, and revenue from produce to achieve financial viability in four years. The key concept is Community Supported Agriculture or CSA. Thirty-two community members pitch in $300 every quarter or $100 a month for a share of the produce. The mutual benefits are obvious: as there are no middlemen 100% of the revenue returns to the farmer and the consumer gets nearly 20% off his purchase while bonding with the land on which their food is grown. Some farms allow CSA participants to pick and package their food; Full Circle follows a different method. The produce is sorted into separate packets in a packing shed for CSA members to pick up. Casual buyers are welcome too to buy produce twice a week from the farm stand (Wed and Fri 3-7 pm). Last summer sales topped several hundred dollars a day. And a half-acre educational garden produces something that cannot be counted in dollars and cents. Sixth graders from the nearby school come once a week to learn about food and farming. There are plans for more; a donor will soon fund on job-training for 10-12 youth who will provide much needed voluntary labor. In that sense Full Circle will follow the tradition set by the Bay Area's Hidden Villa (www.hiddenvilla.org) farm, a pioneer in environmental education for both children and adults.

The CSA model looks neat but the challenges are deep even if you discount the struggle with the fickle character of both funders and volunteer labor. For example, city laws prevent roosters and dairy animals from being kept in urban zones. I for one can't figure out why a rooster's cry is more bothersome than a dog's bark or a leaf blower's drone. And no cows imply no decent manure. Let's remember that two things that really make a farm sustainable are in-house composting and production of plant material. Without animals you are forced to depend on yard waste or manure bought from outside. Food preferences are another challenge. Full Circle farmers are frustrated by the reluctance of school canteens to buy their produce. Reasons vary from lack of staff to 'process' fresh food (it is far easier to dump a can into a pan) and urban children's confused state when they behold melons with seeds! My personal favorite grouse: you cannot use a tractor outside of 10 am-4pm. Don't count therefore on making your vegie beds bright and early in the morning and trooping off to your class thereafter.

However, any believer in sustainable agriculture will take heart when (s)he beholds the hundred young fruit trees at the farm. Orchards used to be a feature of the Valley of Heart's Delight. Full Circle shows that sustainable agriculture can be practiced against all odds in the city.

And did you notice who else just dug a bit of urban land with some kids for a vegetable garden?

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