Discussing the future of urban agriculture in KC
First,
a disclosure, my wife and I are one of the four community supported
agriculture (CSA) members at Bad Seed Farm. As such, we have a vested
interest in seeing Bad Seed succeed.
Jonathan Bender wrote this post on Fat City earlier today. Since it updates Carolyn Szczepanski’s post from earlier this week, we’re cross posting.
Urban farmers, community leaders and city officials gathered before a crowd of close to 100 people at Bad Seed Farm’s downtown market space on Tuesday night to discuss the process for potentially changing the development code in Kansas City.
“We
need to look at urban agriculture as a potential solution to problems
in the city, whether it’s the use of vacant lots, the greening effort,
or health issues,” said Daniel Heryer, who runs Bad Seed Farm with his
wife, Brooke Salvaggio.
Katherine Kelly, the director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture,
acted as moderator at the community meeting, which was designed to seek
input and find community advocates willing to serve on an urban
agriculture steering committee tasked with drafting an amendment to the
current ordinance that governs zoning and development.
“Ideally
we’ll come up with templates that will serve as a model for other
municipalities,” said Kelly of the committee, which will have a
separate subcommittee on raising livestock in an urban or suburban
setting.
City officials candidly discussed the reasons why Bad Seed Farm was
issued citations for violating the current development code, while also
recognizing that this issue requires the code to be updated.
