April | 2012 | The Urban Agriculture Law Project

Apr 30 2012

Value-added products and food safety laws.

It’s difficult for small farms and gardens to be profitable, especially in their first few years.

A few reasons why small farms tend to generate less income, proportionately, than large farms include:

Limited purchasing power: small farms purchase materials in small quantities and therefore don’t receive as much of a discount from retailers as large farms.

Low volumes of product = less efficient.

Small fields: on urban farms, a “field” might be no bigger than a narrow city lot.

Limited farm knowledge and experience: many urban farmers and gardeners are relatively new to agriculture and therefore haven’t yet learned how to maximize income from their farm.

Ag 101: Introduction to Small Scale Farming, p4.

At this weekend’s Real Food Farm workshop, I attended another interesting session called “Fully Utilizing a Small Plot.” Aliza Ess of Baltimore’s Boone Street Garden shared a few ideas for value-added products, which her farm/garden is selling this year in order to generate more income:

Houseplants, packaged in attractive containers.
Baked goods.
Prepared foods, such as pickles, jams, spice mixes, and sauces.

So, legally, here’s where things get tricky. Continue reading →

Apr 28 2012

Chicken Keeping in the City.

Chicken Regs: UPDATED: 5/3.

This morning, I attended a workshop at Real Food Farm called ”Who Wants to Be an Urban Farmer?” Even for a novice gardener like myself, it was an interesting morning.

The first session I attended was Small Scale Livestock Farming, led by Homer Walden of Sunnyside Farm. He showed us a portable chicken coop that he designed to be large enough to hold 50 hens, yet easy to move by one person.

Many cities forbid backyard chicken raising in their zoning ordinances. However, there is a growing interest in urban small-scale chicken-keeping in the US (as “an emblem of extreme foodie street cred”?), so some cities have updated their zoning ordinances to allow them. In other cities, citizens have clamored to enforce the zoning bans on their chicken-raising neighbors.

Baltimore City passed a chicken ordinance in 2007, which allows chickens, within a few parameters.

Chicken owners must (1) obtain a permit from the Bureau of Animal Control and (2) register with the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Domestic Poultry and Exotic Bird Registration Division.
No more than 4 chickens (over the age of 1 month).
Pens must provide more than 2 square feet per hen, be more than 25 feet from any residence, and be kept clean and moved frequently. Hens must be confined to the pen at all times.
The hens must have shade in hot weather, shelter in “inclement weather,” and access to water, food, and veterinary care.
No roosters, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl, emus, rheas, or ostriches.

I would assume that having the chickens live in your house or apartment with you as pets is against the Baltimore zoning law. Probably because it violates the 25-foot rule.

A few other US city chicken ordinances:

Some Chicagoans tried to ban urban chickens in 2007 and failed. You can raise chickens and roosters in Chicago, and you don’t have to register them. There are chicken consultants, if you need chicken raising support.
In New York City, chickens count as pets. Unlimited hens allowed; no roosters.
In Los Angeles, you can keep unlimited chickens, as long as they’re 20 feet from the owner’s house and 35 feet from any other dwelling.
In Boston, chickenkeeping is generally outlawed; however, residents may apply for a permit to raise chickens, but it’s a bit of a long and complicated process.

In contrast to Baltimore City, Baltimore County prohibits the housing of any fowl (or small or large livestock) in a residential area unless the homeowner owns at least one full acre of land (Code § 13-7-311).

Apr 27 2012

Shrinking Cities and Urban Agriculture.

Baltimore is a shrinking city.

In 1950, Baltimore City boasted a population of almost one million people. By 2010, the number had dropped 35% to 620,000.

Baltimore is not alone. Shrinking cities vary in circumstance, but many American cities in the Midwest and Northeast suffer from long-term significant population decline as a partial result of the loss of industries that previously caused the cities to grow. Shrinking cities face serious challenges, including smaller property tax bases and public safety concerns caused by vacant land and buildings.

Some, however, have chosen to view shrinking cities as starting points for cultural innovation.

Whether in music, art, or architecture, in literature, photography, or film – a wide variety of new developments in popular and high culture emerge from these urban crisis sites. These are often part of novel cultures of everyday life based equally on the potentials and the difficulties of these sites. They often thereby make an essential contribution to redefining identities and mental milieus and thus offer important approaches for conceiving models of action. shrinkingcities.com

In addition to music, art, and architecture, another way in which residents of a shrinking city can redefine their community is to reclaim vacant space for urban agriculture projects: family or community gardens and urban farms.

Though urban gardens and farms would seem to be beneficial for both city governments and city residents, in practice, land use ordinances can get in the way. One primary goal of land use law has historically been to manage urban growth. Shrinking cities, however, need, not managed growth, but ungrowth: “not surrender, but a phase of urban evolution.”

How can cities find a way to use land use ordinances in a new way: to promote urban agriculture and other less intensive uses of urban space?

More to come soon!

The Urban Agriculture Law Project

Monthly Archives: April 2012

Value-added products and food safety laws.

Chicken Keeping in the City.

Shrinking Cities and Urban Agriculture.

Follow “The Urban Agriculture Law Project”