Imagine having fresh produce on the rooftop of your apartment, or a greenhouse down the street from your neighborhood, or a community garden, or having a nice garden instead of a deserted parking lot. Imagine bringing urban farming to your community. Urban farming is the act of growing plants or raising animals in or around your community. There can be different types of urban farming such as backyard gardens, indoor gardens, greenhouses, vertical gardens, animal farms, community gardens, and repurposed spaces. Having these green spaces will allow the community to grow socially and environmentally as well as build healthier communities and provide educational programs. Having these urban farms can help local and small businesses grow and can also advocate for community building. Communities can use this opportunity to teach others the importance of staying healthy and how to do so. This can be done by creating programs, activities, or community events to promote healthy communities. With an increase in greenery, carbon emissions would go down and oxygen levels would go up, creating a healthier environment. Now imagine what a healthy community looks like.
Urban farming rebuilds neighborhoods. This type of farming allows for the opportunity to recreate empty lots or unused spaces into something that will benefit the community. Creating these green spaces can improve the ecosystem and make healthy food accessible to the community. Although there are many reasons as to why having urban farming in local neighborhoods is necessary there are also a couple of factors that might go against this idea. As a result of urban farming there is a lot of healthy produce that can be expensive to get a hold of making it only accessible to those who are privileged thus only benefitting the elite. Therefore, in order to avoid situations in regards to lack of accessibility, we need to create programs that allow urban farming to come to our communities and provide funds that allow low income people to attain healthy produce at an affordable price.
“Urban Farming.” Freight Farms, www.freightfarms.com/urban-farming.