Detroit: Ground zero for local food, food self-sufficiency, racial rapprochement

[ellenrr]

Journalist Mark Dowie: "Of all the cities in the world, Detroit may be best
positioned to become the world's first one hundred percent food self-
sufficient city."

Detroit has become ground zero for North America's local food
movement. Last year there were roughly 550 gardens in the city's urban
farming network. This year there are more than 850. Driving around the
city, you can see everything that will make up your dinner—chickens,
goats, mushrooms, plum trees, honeybee hives.... Here, a locavore
doesn't eat food that's travelled 100 kilometres. She eats food that's
travelled 10.

But in Detroit, it's about more than just food.

"We're not just into farming. We're into community self-
determination," says Malik Yakini, one of the leaders of Detroit's
nascent farming movement. The self-described "social architect" runs
an Afrocentric school and chairs the Detroit Black Community Food
Security Network. He talks about food justice—where the community
reaps both the nutritional and financial rewards of the food it buys.
This unique blend is bringing together African American community
activists with local food trends more often associated with upscale
whites, raising the prospect of not just environmentally and socially
sustainable development, but also perhaps a rapprochement of the
city's famed racial divide.

http://www.truth-out.org/detroit-new-american-frontier/1311694023

[Nihil]

1. Fascinating article ...

... worth reading all of it rather than just the extract above.

Thanks for posting!

:toast:

[ellenrr]

2. here's a picture

can't seem to post a pic here, but here is the link to a pic of a great-looking Detroit urban garden.

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/corey-hill-cultural-revolution-in.html

[noamnety]

3. The article didn't address lead contamination

From the old smelting plants. It's in much of the soil, the incidence of lead poisoning among detroit kids is easy higher than the national average. Personally I wouldn't eat anything grown in the city unless it was from my yard and I had the soil tested.

[ellenrr]

5. I agree and lead is something I talk a lot about to urban gardeners

But they do address it, it was in another article. They use phyto-remediation for the contaminated sites.

[phantom power]

4. An author I happen to know wrote some novels...

set in a sort of post-apocalyptic Michigan. He has long had a theory that the great lakes states, and MI in particular, are well-situated to thrive in a post-industrial world, being surrounded by a huge reservoir of fresh water, and far from the oceans.

http://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Heaven-Earth-Book/dp/0557540631/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311951853&sr=1-1

[ellenrr]

6. why is far from the oceans an advantage? n/t