Cultivating the land in the heart of the city is the principle ofurban farming (urban agriculture in French) which has experienced a growing craze for several years in many cities around the world. If some do it to better control their food, in other cities, such as Detroit, Michigan (United States), pioneers in this area, it is above all the hope of an economic renewal that is nourished.
Update: Crushed by $ 18.5 billion in debt, Detroit became, Thursday, July 18, the largest city in the United States to file for bankruptcy.
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Half a century of crises
Indeed, the city has not been spared in recent decades. It all started at the beginning of the 20th century, when three giants of the automotive industry landed there: Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. There followed a period of undeniable economic boom, which propelled Detroit to the rank of symbol of industrial America. But that’s without counting the crisis that began in the 1970s: globalization forced, the sector underwent deep restructuring which resulted in the closure of entire factories and the layoffs of tens of thousands of workers. The “Manufacturing Belt” around the Great Lakes becomes “Rust Belt”. Detroit dark in crisis.
But that’s not all: the city has also borne the brunt of particularly strong racial tensions between African-American workers who have come overwhelmingly from the south to work in the auto industry and the white population. Thus, in 1967, Detroit was plagued by very violent riots, following which a large majority of the white middle class fled to the suburbs. Capital follows, municipal services deteriorate, and the population continues to emigrate. Of the 1.8 million inhabitants in 1950, the city’s heyday, only 700,000 remain today. With this overwhelming result: abandoned housing, brownfields, record crime, unemployment rate more than twice the national rate (reaching up to 50% in some particularly battered neighborhoods)… The only maintenance cost for all this neglected housing is such that the municipality can not cover it – hence the desolate aspect of the urban landscape – and the decision, taken last March, to put the city under supervision to restore its finances.
Vegetable gardens, orchards and fish farming centers
On the other hand, with an area equivalent to the city of San Francisco, these wastelands are a godsend for developing urban agriculture. The initiative started a few years ago: in 1970, Mayor Coleman Young launched the program Farm-A-Lot, allowing residents to obtain a permit to cultivate a plot of land in their neighborhood. 40 years later, 16,000 people would invest in nearly 1,300 gardens. Several associations are also participating in the transformation of Detroit, like Urban Farming, founded in 2005 by singer Taja Sevelle. In particular, the association manages a community field of 3 hectares, on which tomatoes, cucumbers and other spinach are grown. Vegetable gardens therefore, but also orchards, thanks to the microclimate enjoyed by the Great Lakes region, beehives, henhouses, and since spring 2013, fish farming … Above all, it is for the inhabitants of Detroit to diversify crops in order to ensure production all year round.
But how can you be sure that the city’s soil, which has not been spared by decades of industrialization, is healthy enough to be cultivable? To extract pollutants, especially heavy metals, several phytoremediation methods have been adopted: sunflowers for some, poplars and willows for others. Techniques that are still in the testing phase.
Healthy, accessible and free food?
Besides a transformed, more attractive and less dangerous urban landscape, what benefits can Detroit hope to derive from this new form of agriculture? First, to feed the population of an agglomeration that some qualify as a “food desert”, since access to fresh food is limited there. Few large supermarkets, but many liquor stores which sell, we understand, alcohol but also canned food, and very little fruit and vegetables. For those who do not have a car (20% of the population anyway), proximity often takes precedence over the quality of food. Urban agriculture therefore makes it possible to offer healthier food to inhabitants, in particular toEastern Market, a large covered market which sells products « Grown in Detroit », or via the truck Peaches and Greens which travels through neighborhoods to distribute locally produced fruit and vegetables. In 2010, Michelle Obama in person visited the famous truck during her nationwide obesity tour.
However, locally produced food is unfortunately too expensive for a large majority of the population. It is for this reason that many of the associations behind the gardens have taken this incredible decision: not to close them, so that everyone can help themselves for free, at any time, without any questions being asked. Taja Sevelle, founder of Urban Farming, makes it a point of honor, because too many people suffer from hunger in Detroit. However, this desire seems difficult to reconcile with the goal defended by others: that of encouraging people to take an active part in the production process, either by cultivating their gardens themselves, or by volunteering or employed in a community garden. Question: In this perspective, does not providing free food run the risk of perpetuating a long-standing vicious circle in the city, where a large part of the population survives on dozens of soup kitchens?
Priority to jobs
Above all, the mere free distribution of cultivated products would not make urban agriculture profitable. And if some say that it is above all a means of recreating social ties, for example through the harvest festival organized each year by the D-Town farm, for others, more down-to-earth, the urgency is first of all to generate jobs, in particular to curb the emigration of the inhabitants (still at the level of tens of thousands of people per year). To this end, many associations offer various and varied courses to train entrepreneurs and future employees. But this job creation, which often requires several years, remains for the moment limited in number. Another issue raised: some worry that these potential jobs will not benefit the current residents of Detroit, but people who have just settled in town.
But large-scale projects are worrying …
What about the popularity of these projects among the population? While small community gardens are often greeted with pleasure and gratitude, if only because they offer a more pleasant living environment, other projects are more difficult to accept. This is particularly the case with that of John Hantz, the son of a car worker, who wants to acquire nearly 1,500 plots to plant 50,000 trees. Many voices were raised against this project, denouncing the very advantageous price at which the land is acquired. Opponents fear that some businessmen will indulge in speculation. In addition, other concerns about the use that would be made of these surfaces were expressed: fear of excessive use of pesticides, GMO plantations, etc. As a result, the project has stagnated for several years and is only start. From small personal vegetable gardens to large urban farms that could produce a significant portion of the population’s fruit and vegetable consumption, there is still a long way to go.
Detroit is not the only city that has bet on urban agriculture to get out of the economic slump: in Rosario, Argentina, a similar phenomenon has been observed since the crisis of 2001. The UN program for the Habitat also recognized, in 2004, the Rosario plan as one of the ten best practices in the world for combating poverty while respecting the environment.
For more information on urban agriculture, we invite you to consult this report of the Round Tables of the ENSAT of December 4, 2012 “Urban agriculture, between common ground and fields of tension”
Sources
- Urban activities, actors and challenges, Brownfields in Detroit, November 10, 2007
- Old echoes, Detroit: urban agriculture, an antidote to deindustrialization?, May 15, 2013
- L’Express, How Detroit is turning to agriculture, August 20, 2010
- Release, Under the paving stones the earth, June 9, 2009
- Urban Farming
- HuffPost Detroit, Peck Produce are taking their Detroit urban farm to the next level, 9 avril 2013
- Greening of Detroit
- HuffPost Detroit, Soil Remediation : Detroit Experiments Explore Urban Farming’s Next Frontier, July 26, 2012
- CBSNews, Bringing Fresh Food to Areas that Get None, September 3, 2009
- Michigan Live, Hantz Woodlands, billed as “world’s largest urban farm”, starts to take shape on Detroit’s east side, June 26, 2013
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