Talk:Urban agriculture

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[edit] Unreferenced article

A group of graduate students from The Newschool University are working on updating the references and balancing the article. We will take down the reference tag once done, The neutrality seems to stem from the "forced labor" and sustained labor force of urban agriculture? Not sure if it is still relevant? We will move the NPOV to this section and to the end of the article. --(talk) 18:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Labor force or forced labor?

In the section Finding a labor force, the second paragraph proposes a policy without referencing an author. The wiki would benefit if the text named supporters, too. Because two SF organizations carry on a program involving inmates that doesn't mean they author or sponsor similar programs on a city-wide scale.

Also, a non-profit program where inmates voluntarily engage in an occupacional/restaurative/reintegration project is one thing. Stablishing a urban agriculture program that would rely on the work force of inmates (or former ones) is a whole different discussion, and the risk of forced labor would certainly be a factor to weigh in.

Another aspect is the risk of stygmatization. Wouldn't relying mainly on former inmate labor for a city-wide agriculture program create the myth that working in urban agriculture is for ex-cons? The current text could raise questions like this, and it looks as though the wiki itself promotes the idea.

--71.139.198.203 22:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)gardengopher

[edit] Remove it perhaps?

I think that this entire section should just be removed. I don't see other industries discussing their labor force, so why should the concept of urban agriculture devote such a large section to this topic? I don't understand its relevance. The concept of urban agriculture will necessarily vary depending on the locale. For some cities (such as NYC), many urban agriculturalists are taking on projects independently and actually making money off the endeavor. Other examples of urban agriculture include community gardens that are run by volunteers. In my mind this section is irrelevant, and if the prison projects are that important or interesting, they should be included under either examples or in the external links. Blueelectricstorm (talk) 18:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed entire section

I took the liberty of removing this entire section. But to be fair, I am posting it below:

[edit] Finding a labor force

Cities that are serious about introducing urban agriculture face the problem that there is no ready labor force to produce food. Programs such as Welfare-to-Work offer a source of labor for the urban agriculture movement. This would cause the positive externality of lowering the unemployed and welfare-dependent population in large cities and suburban areas.

Another proposal is to train prison inmates how to produce food. The San Francisco County Jail, in conjunction with Tree Corps and Garden Project, provide inmates with an agricultural education and individual plots to grow their own food. Jails use horticulture to teach inmates how to work cooperatively with other inmates and also how to be responsible for their own nutrition and health. Agriculture and gardening provide a fresh air environment for inmates in which they can learn skills that will help them assimilate into society. The San Francisco County Jail’s recidivism rate dropped from 55% to 24% within two years of implementing the Garden Project.[1] Therefore prisons could begin to implement the Garden Project and transform the institutions into rehabilitation and agriculture education facilities. Ex-convicts could then fill the labor gap for urban agriculture projects.

[edit] Sustaining a labor force

Schools have begun to implement agricultural curricula into traditional school environments. The Waldorf School campuses use school-wide community gardening to teach nutrition to the students. Such organization exposes students in urban environments to rural agricultural practices that they would not have been exposed to otherwise. Students are taught to appreciate agriculture as an integral part of their urban education; this education in turn provides an avenue for a future career in urban agriculture. Introducing nutrition through agriculture in urban and peri-urban school thus increases the likelihood that an urban agricultural labor force will be sustained in future generations.

[edit] What?!?!

Where does the 95%/95% statistic come from under 'Energy Efficiency'? There is no reference, and that scenario is not even theoretically possible if we wish to maintain our low food prices. While it is true that it costs less to transport food produced near the consumption center, those costs are most often passed back to the producer, not to the consumer. Please either provide clear and scientifically valid references or do not include this information. ScottK 18:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

IN RESPONSE: I'm not totally sure that the stat is correct. I think if it is true though, I think they mean imported/exported from state to state; the US international trade is part of the 95% but not the whole of it. For instance most oranges eaten in Colorado have travelled over 1500 miles from either CA or FL, and most of the oranges grown in FL and CA are exported to different states/regions of the nations. So I think it means 95% of food is not from the vicinity in which it is being eaten/where it was grown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.69.2.20 (talk) 23:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

based on the above, I have removed the statement from the article.DGG (talk) 01:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recommended Reading and External Links

I reverted out the wholesale removal of the recommended reading and external links sections. As I indicated in the edit summary I do not think the removal was vandalism per se but perhaps just poor judgment. If there is "not much of interest" in these references let's work together to improve them, not just delete them outright. - Mark Dixon 12:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Please just add them to the talk page here and discuss their validity. This is an SEO attempt by a publisher who has been nicely asked a number of times to first discuss the additions and interlinking on the articles' talk pages, and as such should be discouraged. You might also want to discuss why these ones should be on the page over other possibilities, and what use it is of readers of the article to have such a large external links section--you may decide it is appropriate, but please don't do so in the vacuum of just the links provided by a spammer who has been politely asked not to do this already.
Here they are:
KP Botany 17:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with KP here and I am supporting her removal of the entire section. For clarity, I've commented them out instead of deleted them, so they can be available more easily for editing: some of them are referred to in the text, and they should be properly referenced there. But that needs to be thought out too--the use of these specific examples given seems intrinsically spammy, and over emphasis on particular projects. DGG (talk) 04:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] l;inks vs refs

Uncle g, the two links you have just added arent external links. They are references and should be used to support the article somewhere appropriate. DGG (talk) 06:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Keep the links

I think the links should remain in the article for a number of reasons. First, for students or activists who may want to start an organic farm, it is nice to go to Wikipedia and have the links referenced there. It saves hours of searching for this information (that somebody has already graciously done for the purposes of providing more information - isn't that the purpose of wikipedia?). Second, the links page is not that long and if somebody wants to skip that section, all they need to do is click the pertinent sections they are interested in from the Contents box. Third, if these links are deleted, it feels like certain wiki editors are trying to squelch the very idea of urban agriculture. This is a growing movement around the globe, and rather than suppress this information, we need to provide examples of where it is happening. Those are my reasons why I believe that all of the links now included under in hidden comments should revert back to the External links section. Blueelectricstorm (talk) 18:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)