Sustainable food advocates serve up ideas

City representatives are swapping ideas with Milwaukee and London about farming inside city limits.

Food activists from across the country and around the world are gathering in Philadelphia to discuss urban agriculture. City representatives are swapping ideas with Milwaukee and London about farming inside city limits.
Caption: Urban farming in Chicago Credit: Linda N. from flickr.com

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[audio: 090521pcurban.mp3]

In their ramp-up to the Olympics, the city of London is bringing together people who have vacant lots with people who want to grow food. They aim to create 2,012 food-growing spaces by 20-12.

Philadelphia has a similar if less ambitious plan to unite vacant city-owned land with urban farmers.

Ann Karlen of the Fair Food project says meeting with organizers from other cities is a way to get ideas about promoting local food in Philadelphia.

Karlen: There are so many groups in the area pushing the envelope to make local food available in farmer’s markets, through retail outlets. At the same time there is a lot of food grown in our region that is not called local food, that isn’t making it into the local channels.

City officials have a goal of bringing 75 percent of city residents within a 10 minute walk of locally grown food.