Green from a Brownfield?

A new trend is emerging out of the so-called "Green Movement" for home-raised fruits and vegetables.

Besides a nationwide outcry to eat better, lose weight, and get in shape, having more control over one's food is becoming a top priority. And why not? It seems every month something else has to be pulled from the pantry and dumped in mass quantities because it's under recall.

And then you have Michelle Obama and her crew making it look downright fashionable to don gardening gloves and til the soil at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So here in Buffalo, several people have made recent headlines for trying to farm old vacant lots and brownfields in the sorely decimated neighborhoods of downtown. From raising chickens to growing a vegetable patch, seems every attempt at urban farming has not been without opposition, and a generally sympathetic news media sharing the urban farmers' plight.

Donn Esmonde, a veteran columnist for The Buffalo News, often does "slice of life" columns in which he makes a case about a specific segment of Buffalo's population. Friday's column by him was particularly thought provoking.

In his piece, Esmonde described the latest family to make headlines, Mark and Janice Stevens. This city-dwelling couple faces numerous obstacles with city planners/regluators regarding their intention to plant a vegetable garden on a vacant lot near their home. Esmonde basically makes the case that Buffalo's inner city is not exactly prime real estate, and that as urban life moved into the suburbs, outlying farmland was developed. This is another chapter in the evolution of urban sprawl.

Personally, I don't know what to think about urban farming. I suppose so long as you don't disturb the peace then you should be free to do what you want on your land, whether it be raise fowl or fruit.

The one thing I would seriously question is this, however: these urban browfields, are they really safe for growing produce on? Has the soil quality been tested? Years of urban pollution, decaying structures, and absetos may all be contained in that soil. What might be buried on some of these brownfields? Old gasoline tanks? Chemical drums? Let's not forget, Buffalo in her glory days was an industrial town. One only need to look at Love Canal to see what manmade waste can do to an area's soil and livability.

Assuming vacant city lots will even bear fruit, will it be safe for human consumption? Things absorbed from the soil could be worse than the known pesticide residues that have marketers pushing "organic".

I love good homegrown produce, and I don't know what to think about this new trend in urban farming. I think there's probably still a lot of issues to be considered, issues that go beyond whether the powers at city hall think growing a tomato garden is within a vacant lot's zoning provisions. As "sustainable" and "green" and "organic" ever encroach our food vocabulary, it will be interesting to see where the urban farming trend leads...