Fields of gold

This is an image of the celebrated Not a Cornfield art and land project in Los Angeles:

 

And this is an image of the existing landscape of a housing estate in the town of Middlesbrough, North East England that was involved in an urban farming initiative I ran last year:

Yesterday, the price of wheat skyrocketed as Kazakhstan, one of the world's largest exporters of grain, said it would impose export tariffs to curb sales of wheat. The reason: to contain domestic inflation of nearly 20%.

Dear city mayors, planners and architects,

How about reviewing those renewal strategies based on physical, social and cultural build and write a Five Year Crop Plan?

Be inspired by the spatial planning of Not a Cornfield:

Or the first vision of architects Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn for the town of Middlesbrough as a productive urban landscape, in a project enabled by Dott07/Designs of the Time, One North East and The Design Council, England:

Viljoen and Bohn's plan connected tissues of land that might be cultivated, from existing parkland, open green spaces and allotment sites across town to places that local people chose to grow food  as part of the initiative and would like to see urban agriculture happening in the future (red dots above/green dots below):

Not a Cornfield is described as a sculpture. Viljoen's plan for Middlesbrough: an edible town.

It remains to be seen whether spikes in commodity prices, peak oil, the dearth of productive arable land and the changing metabolism of compact cities will make all of this financially viable.

But you've got to admit that the vision of an urban design for cities as an unfenced Glastonbury Festival or embargoed Havana is compelling - even if Fidel Castro has stepped down and you don't like hippies.

Urban farming images courtesy of Dott07 Urban Farming. The project was enabled by Dott07/Designs of the Time Ltd., One North East and The Design Council. All rights reserved. Urban Farming Project Site map, copyright of Middlesbrough Council.

Comments

[Tessy]

What a lovely vision you paint for us all David! Thank you.

[Ryan]

I love the idea of the edible landscape...but beyond the fascination with the idea who is going to take care of all that land; nobody said farming was easy :) Check out sproutdc.com if you get the chance for some similar fascinations

[David Barrie]

Who is going to take care of all that land? How about farmers displaced by speculators in agricultural land, combined with growing band of 'silver seed-growers' and gardeners attached to schools and other public facilities who see value in highly localised food supply. Market could be supported by restaurants serving local food. With an eye to the margins that supermarkets can make on local fresh food, I wonder whether managers of local big chain supermarkets could be seconded as mentors, alongside green-fingered folks who work in local government.

[jeremy rosenberg]

david,

on behalf of the team who worked on not a cornfield, many thanks for mentioning lauren bon's art action...

please forgive me if this is unwanted and self-serving message, but thought perhaps your readers might be interested in a couple of our group's related URLs:

http://notacornfield.com/ecoecon/

(a downloadable white paper that at least in part would seem to fit with your reply to ryan, above); and:

www.farmlab.org

(the current artwork by lauren, with the support of various members of the team who previously worked with her on NAC.)

unrelated: next time you're planning a trip to l.a., please feel free to let us know...farmlab runs a weekly free-of-charge speaker series; perhaps you'd like to participate some time in '08 or '09? here's url to a list of past and a few upcoming speakers:
http://farmlab.org/2007/01/2007-farmlab-salon-schedule-every.html

either way, best, thanks again to you and to everyone who visited the nac website yesterday due to your link.

feel free to write us back to info [at] farmlab [dot] org

-- jeremy rosenberg [ farmlab / under spring / not a cornfield]