urban agriculture legislation
The soil conservation segment of the bill creates an
infrastructure for soil-quality education and testing programs
within the parameters of an individual state’s resources. Simply
put, federal funding will help fund soil conservation efforts
for urban farmers, but they will have to look to locally run
laboratories at universities for procedural implementations.
The final sections of the title push the boundaries of the
traditional Farm Bill in decidedly progressive fashions by
including urban environmental conservation plans, community-
based composting programs, and dietary education programs.
These elements of the bill probably present the most notable
government recognition of conservation and education efforts
that have traditionally been denoted as grassroots.
TITLE IV: Research, Innovation, and Technology
The final section of the Urban Agriculture Act sets to embrace
the technology surrounding urban farming through government
studies, funding, and implementation. The USDA will test
various forms of indoor gardening technology—from hydro-
ponics to lighting—and decipher which are the most efficient
on both environmental and financial levels. Along this line of
thought, it is not unreasonable to assume that those hydroponic
companies whose equipment outperforms that of its competitors
could be contracted by the government for large-scale produc-
tion. This notion presents a business opportunity never dreamed
of by indoor gardening companies in decades past.
CRITICAL APPRAISALS:
BIG BUSINESS TAKE OVER?
Due to the grassroots, community-based history of urban
farming, the intervention of government programs on the
movement is not without its critics. The more conspiratorially
minded critics of the Urban Agriculture Act fear that
government subsidies will create economic rifts between the
new wave of industrial urban farms and the traditional, small-
scale operations that the movement originally started with.
Much like how the true financial beneficiaries of Farm Bill, a
program originally conceived as a welfare program for family
farms, seem to be large-scale megafarms.
Government funding under the traditional Farm Bill is
an absolute boon for megafarms because highly lucrative
industrial agriculture operations can easily fund their own
operations while converting all government subsidies directly
into higher profit margins. For example, when the USDA
amended the Farm Bill in the mid-90s to create subsidies
for farmers purchasing livestock feed, the industrial poultry
farming giant Tyson Chicken saved $300 million in 1996
alone. Critics of the Urban Agriculture Bill feel that this sort of
government funding in the urban farming sector will empower
industrial farms to the point that they can easily put family and
community farms out of business.
Transitions and evolutions in crop production reflect the techno-
logical, cultural, and economic systems and structures of certain
eras. That being said, the Urban Agriculture Act has the poten-
tial to stimulate a new era of farming in the United States—one
that empowers people in urban centers with long-lost agrarian
knowledge and capabilities. This process will occur successfully
with a harmonious balance of government intervention, indoor
gardening technology, and grassroots sensibilities. The sort
of economic and cultural collaboration proposed in the Urban
Agriculture Act could serve as a signpost of progress concerning
diversification in government project management. Interestingly
enough, this progress will only be possible if both government
and big business operations honor the standards of environ-
mentalism, sustainability, and equality set forth by the urban
farming movement’s forward-thinking originators.
90
grow cycle
“Due to the grassroots,
community-based history of
urban farming, the intervention
of government programs on the
movement is not without its critics.”