Sowing Seeds in the City

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Ecosystem Services from Urban Agriculture in the City of the Future

   • Corinne Cooley, Isaac Emery

   Pages 1-22

3. Soil and Water Resources

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

      PDF

   2. Soil Formation and Nutrient Cycling

      • Craig Cogger, Sally Brown

      Pages 25-52

   3. A Guide to Types of Non Potable Water and the Potential for Reuse in Urban Systems

      • Sally Brown

      Pages 53-67

   4. Graywater Reuse for Irrigation: Benefits and Potential Hazards

      • Ian Pepper

      Pages 69-77

   5. Planting Abundance: Alternative Water Sources for Urban Farms

      • Brad Lancaster

      Pages 79-90

4. Ecosystem Services – Waste Treatment

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 91-91

      PDF

   2. The Role of Organic Residuals in Urban Agriculture

      • Sally Brown, Nora Goldstein

      Pages 93-106

   3. Municipal Food Waste Management Options: Climate and Economic Impacts

      • David Parry

      Pages 107-123

   4. Food Waste Composting in Seattle: The Political Perspective

      • Alexis Schulman

      Pages 125-130

   5. Cedar Grove Compost: Developing a Combined Food-Yard Waste Centralized Composting Program

      • Denise Bartlett

      Pages 131-142

5. Ecosystem Services – Climate Regulation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 143-143

      PDF

   2. Soils and Climate Change

      • Sally Brown

      Pages 145-152

   3. Soil Carbon Sequestration and Organic Wastes

      • Andrew Trlica

      Pages 153-159

   4. Lettuce to Reduce Greenhouse Gases: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Community Agriculture

      • Isaac Emery, Sally Brown

      Pages 161-169

6. Ecosystem Services – Habitat

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 171-171

      PDF

   2. Basics of Microbial Ecology and Function in Urban Agriculture

      • Karl A. Wyant

      Pages 173-190

   3. Urban Microbiomes and Urban Agriculture: What Are the Connections and Why Should We Care?

      • Gary M. King

      Pages 191-205

   4. Wild Bees in Cultivated City Gardens

      • J. Scott MacIvor

      Pages 207-227

Urban agriculture has the potential to change our food systems, enhance habitat in our cities, and to morph urban areas into regions that maximize rather than disrupt ecosystem services. The potential impacts of urban agriculture on a range of ecosystem services including soil and water conservation, waste recycling, climate change mitigation, habitat, and food production is only beginning to be recognized. Those impacts are the focus of this book. Growing food in cities can range from a tomato plant on a terrace to a commercial farm on an abandoned industrial site. Understanding the benefits of these activities across scales will help this movement flourish. Food can be grown in community gardens, on roofs, in abandoned industrial sites and next to sidewalks. The volume includes sections on where to grow food and how to integrate agriculture into municipal zoning and legal frameworks.

• ecosystem education
• public health
• renewable resources
• urban agriculture
• Food Production
• waste treatment
• Wildlife Habitat
• Sustainable communities

• School of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

  Sally Brown

• Harvest Pierce County, Pierce Conservation District, Puyallup, USA

  Kristen McIvor

• Department of Health Sciences, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, USA

  Elizabeth Hodges Snyder

Sally L Brown is a Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Forest and Environmental Science.  She is a Fellow in the Soil Science Society of America, was a two- term member of the National Academy of Science Standing Committee on Soil Science and a member on the National Academy of Science Committee on the Bioavailability of Contaminants in Soils and Sediments.  She has won multiple awards for her work on residuals use in soils.  Dr. Brown writes a monthly column for Biocycle Magazine, a journal that focuses on sustainable management of organics.  She has a BA in Political Science from Williams College (1980) and a MS (1993) and PhD (1996) from the University of Maryland.  Before returning to graduate school, she worked as a chef in New York City, New Orleans and Connecticut.  In 1986 she started a business delivering locally grown vegetables to stores and restaurants in New York City and Connecticut.  She currently grows greens, onions, potatoes and currants on two plots near her home with the assistance of her husband and Tagro, the biosolids based soil amendment from Tacoma, WA.Kristen McIvor is the director of Harvest Pierce County, a program of the Pierce Conservation District.  Their mission is to invest in people to foster and sustain an equitable and healthy community-based food system throughout Pierce County.  She is also an adjunct professor at Antioch University Seattle where she teaches classes on food systems.  Dr. McIvor got her MS at Antioch in Environment and Community and her PhD at the University of Washington.  Her academic work has focused on improving soils in urban areas to support the growing of food, and much of her time is spent working with community groups to do just that.  She lives in the drippy Pacific Northwest and loves its mild climate for year-round growing.  In her spare time, she gets her hands dirty as often as she can, and lovespreparing and sharing the bounty of her garden with her family and friends.Elizabeth Hodges Snyder is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and the Master of Public Health Program Coordinator at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  She also serves as co-chair of the Alaska Food Policy Council (AFPC).  Dr. Snyder is trained in environmental health (MPH, Global Environmental Health, Emory University, 2004) and soil and water science (PhD, Soil and Water Science, University of Florida, 2009).  Her career began with a focus on environmental contaminant fate and transport, and human and ecological risk assessment, but her research program and teaching agenda has since evolved to address the fields of food security and health impact assessment.  She has co-authored several works on food security in Alaska; supervises graduate student projects addressing food access, availability, and utilization; and advocates for strengthened rural and urban food systems.  Originally from Florida, Dr. Snyder has adjusted well to the climate of Alaska – successfully raising backyard chickens, utilizing vertical drip irrigation to produce greenhouse tomatoes, growing beautiful peonies, chasing moose out of her raised beds, and instilling in her children a love for Alaska Grown carrots made sugar-sweet in the cold soil.

Policies and ethics