I think that part of the prejudice around like who's a farmer and who's not gets passed down to all of us, even us urban farmers.
And it can be easy to think like, oh, I'm not a farmer, I'm a gardener.
Or at what point do I qualify as a farmer and sort of limit yourself?
I absolutely think that urban agriculture is having a moment.
I hope it's having a moment.
That would be beneficial for all of us.
Welcome to the 348th installment of Ear to the Ground, the Land Stewardship Projects podcast on family farming, regenerative agriculture, community food systems and local democracy.
I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter.
Attendance at a farm field day or workshop can be a good gauge of just how much interest there is in a particular production technique or system.
For example, the buzz around soil health in recent years has resulted in workshops that are standing room only and field days where parking logistics resemble something you'd see at a county fair.
With that in mind, on a recent Monday evening in early September, I found myself standing next to a tiny farm tucked between railroad tracks and an empty lot in northeast Minneapolis.
I was there for a field day showcasing California Street Farm, an urban vegetable operation that raises vegetables on just a third of an acre.
The event was being put on by the Twin Cities Metro Growers Network, which is an initiative of the Sustainable Farming Association.
As the start time of the field day approached, dozens of people walked up to the registration table.
It was clear there was a lot of interest in how California Street's owner, Alisa Ile, was raising food on a commercial basis in the heart of a major metropolitan area.
Alisa is a graduate of the Land Stewardship Projects Farm Beginnings Program, a course taught by other farmers that provides training in holistic business planning, goal setting and innovative marketing.
In fact, it turns out she came to own California Street Farm through connections she made via Farm Beginnings.
During the field day, staffers with the University of Minnesota's Extension Service, as well as the local office of the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service and its Farm Service Agency,
were on hand to share information on resources available for farmers raising food in urban areas.
There was also a presentation on the U of M's 2023 initiative that tested soils on 100 small-scale vegetable operations, including California Street Farm.
Alisa provided a tour of the vegetable plots and two hoop houses she uses to raise 50 types of vegetables,
and fielded questions about soil health, fertility issues, government cost share funding that's available, and the economics of producing food in the city.
It was clear the field day participants were here to learn how to make a go of it in agriculture, even if the setting did not fit the Midwestern rural stereotype.
All in all, given the good attendance and the presence of government and land grant personnel, it was one more indication that urban agriculture is being taken seriously, or, as Alisa makes clear, it's having a moment.
After the field day, Alisa chatted with me about the opportunities and challenges of producing food on urban land.
By the way, it turns out paying attention to soil health is particularly important when one is farming intensively on small plots utilizing hoop houses.
Alisa also talked about why it's so important for urban agrarians to stand up and be counted.
So this here is California Street Farm, and California Street Farm was established back in 2012 by a couple of aspiring farmers, gardeners,
folks who I believe worked in the restaurant industry who are friends of the landowners.
They've gardened it for a couple of years, put up the fence, and then back in 2019, Chris Barth and Ashley Thorfenson started a production farm here.
And it's been California Street Farm the whole way, but just that was about six years ago that it transitioned into being a production farm.
They started selling at the Northeast Farmers Market, and they started the farm stand that's here at the farm every Monday.
Three years ago, or about two and a half years ago, the farm was transitioned to me from Ashley and Chris.
I met them through the Farm Beginnings course at the Lions Tourist Project.
And so I met them. They were looking for somebody to take over the farm.
They really believed they really wanted the land to stay urban ag.
It's difficult to access land to farm in the city, and they had worked really hard to get it back into farming rotation.
And so they wanted it to be continue as a farm.
And so I started running California Street Farm two and a half years ago.
So this is I'm just closing out my third season.
Just a little bit more background. So this farm is it's like a third of an acre that you've got here.
And just so for people to kind of picture it, it's next to a railroad track here.
We had a couple of trains go by during the field day.
And then we're across the street from the California Building, which is kind of a commercial building.
And it's the owners of that who own this, right? And you're renting that from them.
Is that kind of how it's set up?
Yeah, that's correct. So the owners of the California Building are folks who have been in the artist community for many, many years and are very excited about.
They own this land. And so we have a two year lease.
So I feel really secure here, which is nice. And they love having the farm here.
So you explain during the field day, I think you're raising something like 50 types of vegetables.
Fifty. And so and it's pretty intense.
And I'm I'm I got to tell you, I'm not just saying this to make you feel good.
This is a really impressive what you got here.
It's really thriving and everything looks really good.
One of the points that you made that I think is a really important point is that because it's such a small space, you're very intensive in the way you're doing this.
And I don't think a lot of people would think of this, but I think it was a super good point you made.
That means soil health is even more important for you.
And so health in an urban area can be difficult unto itself.
But in on such an intense basis, that can be hard.
Can you talk about some of the challenges of when you're doing something this intensive of trying to keep that soil so it is healthy and that it's it's productive in the long term and it's also maybe not an environmental threat, that type of thing.
Yeah, absolutely. So soil health is so important.
I think about it because basically because it's such a small I'm limited by space.
Most beds are turned over two to three times in a season, which I kind of imagine as being my soil.
Like the challenges that I'm experiencing with soil health are just quickened by that many times.
It's like I have three years packed into one year of accumulation of disease or stress or using up those nutrients.
So and also because everything is so tightly, so closely planted, disease transfer from plant to plant is very quick.
And so I definitely struggle with disease, especially, I would say, with brassicas.
There's so many brassicas. So many of the crops that I grow are brassicas.
And it can be difficult to get them far enough from each other so that they're not transferring fungal diseases from one to the next.
So trying to sort of get my head around this kind of like phosphorus problem that so many of us small farmers are having where we've used compost,
animal based compost for many, many years.
And now we have really high phosphorus and are trying to get away from that and figure out how to incorporate cover crops,
which is those are whole other crops that we have to incorporate into an intensive system.
And it can be difficult to figure out how they can fit.
And how do we prioritize soil health when I'm trying to make a living for myself and for my two employees off of a third of an acre?
You know, that's mostly it's all about the money, right? In the four, right?
It's like it's so much about how much I can produce and producing high value crops like to me heirloom tomatoes,
which really take a toll on the soil after a while.
So what I was going to ask about was some of the strategies you're using.
So it sounds like cover crops.
And we should also point out your kind of no till or as you said, low till.
Can you describe that, what that means for this this operation?
I learned about no and low till several years ago, specifically when thinking about heavy tillage in the soil and how that really weakens the soil and disrupts the fungal communities.
So on my farm, I call it low till because tillage is very varied.
There's many, you know, you can be pulling weeds and that's tilling your soil.
I don't necessarily think it's no till, but low till to me means that my only form of tillage is with a broad fork.
And so it's vertical tillage.
I'm never flipping the topsoil upside down in a way that sort of disrupts the natural layers of things.
So that's what I mean by no or low till here.
And I specifically when I'm pulling plants from the soil, I'm flipping a bed.
I'm usually mowing off the crop residue or clipping the plants off at the soil surface and trying to leave as many root systems to decompose in the soil on their own naturally as possible without yanking them out and disrupting the soil.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me a little bit.
I've been on crop farms, corn and soybean farms, who do something called strip till where you kind of have these these areas that are never these pathways that are never that they're the same.
And then the areas that are the grow, it kind of reminds me of that a little bit, the way you have this set up.
I don't know if that's something you've seen or you've heard about or but that's really what it reminds me of.
Yeah, I think that it's really fascinating to think about conventional growers and their no till and low till practices and how they're able to do them with these giant machines and like such precision.
And I sort of try to think about that and think about myself and how I can use my body and how I can like use the soil and sort of think about like just figuring out the problem of, OK, how do I plant into this into this crop residue right into it?
You know, and how do I make that easier on myself?
So, so yeah, you're you're trying to integrate cover crops more and kind of replace that manure based compost system.
Can you describe your cover cropping system?
You have a there's a real method to the madness.
You're using electric mower and you're using silage, black plastic silage.
What they use in silage systems for to help kind of terminate that cover crop.
But it described that that system, kind of what you might do in a typical year.
I know there's no typical year, but what you might what you generally would do with integrating those cover crops and following up with the plantings, that kind of thing.
Mostly for me, because of the intensive planting, I'm planting cover crops in the fall.
Some people will incorporate cover crops throughout their season or like early spring.
I typically get my cash crops in the ground as soon as possible.
And so mostly I'm cover cropping in the fall with the intensive system.
I usually depend on cover crops that are going to die in the winter just to make it easier on myself.
But when I am using winter rye to hold the soil through the spring, I will let it grow to, you know, almost let it grow a few feet tall.
The seed let the seed heads develop and then I'll actually run it over with my electric lawn mower.
And usually I have to set the deck up on the lawn mower pretty high to get it down the first time.
I should really just get a side that probably would make it a lot easier.
It's definitely hard on the machine, but I hit it with the lawn mower.
And then you also can I've just crimped it with a T-post in previous years.
You can tie a couple pieces of rope on either end of a T-post and get two people and kind of stomp it down.
And then I pull a black silage tarp over the top of it and just bake it in the sun.
I guess called solarization for a few weeks.
The rye is really rigorous and I think it really does need a few weeks to a month in order to decompose.
And then usually I peel it back and I can transplant right into it.
So I keep it on the bed as a mulch and I'll transplant maybe a long season crop like something like a cauliflower or broccoli or something that can just like get planted right into that mulch.
I did this last year I planted basil right into it and it did fairly well.
Yeah, I mean it looks like it's really helped with this weed control.
I mean it looks I know you've pulled weeds too.
That's not you're not getting away with that, but why it looks really good.
Yeah, it definitely helps a lot with weed control.
It's amazing.
We really struggle here in this urban environment.
I don't know if this happens a lot in rural spaces too, but we struggle with bind weed.
And it is just grows rampant on our farm.
So the between the tarps and the cover crops, it helps a lot to kind of like stale bed the beds.
We're sitting right next to one of your hoop houses.
You have two hoop houses.
Here's something I learned today.
It was a real surprise to me.
So you're part of a you've been part of a U of M study called I think 100 farms where one of the things they're looking at is soil health in hoop houses.
Hoop houses have gotten very popular and they're really help help with season extension, especially with crops like tomatoes.
And there's funding now available through natural resources conservation service for it.
So they've really become popular.
But what I was really struck by really surprised was there's some soil health issues with hoop houses.
I didn't know anything about this.
Can you describe what you learned kind of in I guess in general what this study learned, but also you specifically some issues you on this particular farm.
Yeah, so I would say just from my own observation, I started managing this farm maybe two years after the hoop house, the original hoop house was erected.
And I noticed pretty severe drop off in production after I would say year three that the hoop house was in production.
And it was hard for me to tell because I only have one hoop house.
So it had been in tomato production for all of that time.
So I wasn't sure if it was just an issue with not rotating, but definitely noticed not as good germination, like the plants just not producing nearly as much.
And actually started to notice sort of like a white crust on the top of the soil.
So it was salt accumulation.
Exactly.
And so I didn't it was hard to know what was going on if it was just that there wasn't rain, but I was really excited to hear about the 100 farm soil project.
And I wanted to get my soil tested so I could better understand what was going on, especially because I was considering putting up another hoop house to kind of mitigate my crop rotation issues.
So I could flip tomatoes from one to the next.
But I wanted to know what those issues might be so that I could help mitigate them.
Yeah. So that must have been kind of a at least you learned what what was going on that you wasn't just you were doing you were a bad farmer.
But there was some real issues with the hoop house system that that it's got its advantages, but it's got its disadvantages, too, it sounds like.
What have you have you been able to adjust what you do as a result of that research to kind of adjust to those problems?
Yeah, I would say that adjustments are always slow.
You know, we have our tried and true systems that we stick to that they it works for our system and nothing is ever going to work if it doesn't if it doesn't work for us and our bodies and us as farmers and working into our system.
So it's a slow process.
I've been working on trying to put together a plan for how do I feed my soil, a soil health plan for how do I feed my soil without using animal based compost.
And because that was sort of like accentuating the issues in the hoop house, it was just like making them happen faster because they were just adding more salts.
And I'm working on like more crop rotation and really thinking about taking the plastic off my hoop house every few years when I have to replace it and just leaving the hoop house open for the winter and only using maybe one hoop house for overwintering spinach instead of both.
That way, hopefully I can utilize the natural systems a little bit better to get the soil back to what it should be.
So just to be clear, the hoop houses, the problem that they bring bring to the soil and that accumulation of phosphorus and the salt issue, is it is it just because you're not able to rotate as much and it's not getting opened up as much or what what is kind of specifically going on there?
Yeah, as far as I understand the change, the pressure on the soil, the accumulation of salt comes from no real rainfall or snowfall hitting that soil.
So the hoop house keeps that rainfall and snowfall from sort of like washing away those salts.
So there's more accumulation and the water that we irrigate with that we get from wells or from the city, that water comes from, Natalie was talking about, that water comes from, mostly comes from the same place where the rock is like salty.
So the water that we're watering with is actually sort of salty water.
And so that is part of the issue as well, because we're only relying on water that we pump in, which is salty water, and we're not getting rainfall to wash that salt away.
One of the things we talked about, and again, I think it could be surprising for people who don't, who maybe they're familiar with agriculture in general and are familiar with farm conservation programs that go to the big crop farmers or folks who are doing conventional systems out in outstate Minnesota.
But there's actually getting to be a fair amount of resources available through agencies like the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U of M Extension, and extension in other states for urban agriculture.
I think that would surprise a lot of people. And you've used some of these programs. Can you describe some of the programs you've used through this?
Yeah, there's definitely been a movement to expand existing programs to urban farmers and actually make, give urban farmers priority in some cases.
So I've been, I utilize the Equip Cost Share Program through NRCS to build my second hoop house.
And because I built a fairly small hoop house, the funding that I got was able to cover the entirety of the hoop house, which is really, really great for me.
How big is the hoop house?
The hoop house is 50 feet long and 16 feet wide. And it is, there's five beds just under three feet wide.
I received funding for through other programs, through other nonprofits, like the National Young Farmers Coalition.
I received a grant from them this year, as well as a grant through the Minnesota Department or the Minnesota Demonstration Grant, the MDA.
So that grant, I partnered with a professor at the U of M to trial growing cut flowers on my farm.
So I do think there's more awareness of urban farming being a real version of farming.
And the fact that those farmers have been forgotten in a lot of cases, folks are being becoming more aware of that, both on a government level, like government funding level, as well as like in the nonprofit world.
And so I feel like there's more folks looking out for us and also prioritizing us in some cases. And that feels really good.
Yeah, that was another really important message, which was get your farm registered with the USDA, not only so that you can qualify for some of these programs, but also on a bigger picture level.
So that the USDA and some of these agencies and land grant institutions are aware that there's urban agriculture out there.
They're aware, like through the census of ag, oh, this is a constituency we need to be serving kind of thing.
I thought that was a really important point that, you know, because there was the majority of people held up their hands and said they are either interested in farming or already are starting a farm.
They may not all be registered. And I think that's an important message to get across to them that you need to count out there so that there is more of these programs that are that are fine tuned and channeled your way as far as urban agriculture.
Absolutely. I would agree with that entirely. I think that part of the prejudice around like who's a farmer and who's not gets passed down to all of us, even us urban farmers.
And it can be easy to think like, oh, I'm I'm not a farmer. I'm a gardener or, you know, like at what point do I qualify as a farmer and sort of limit yourself?
But I think that if you're growing food and you're growing food for other people and you're curious, you should get into contact with a connector, somebody who can register your farm.
You can get a farm number and then you can start understanding what kind of funding opportunities might be out there for you.
Yeah, because you're a real farm. I mean, you say thirty seven CSA shares and then you have the farm stand and then are you mark is any other marketing that you're doing?
Yeah. So we have thirty seven CSA shares this year. In addition, we have a farm stand every Monday evening and we sell at the Northeast Farmers Market every Saturday.
I mean, do you feel like this is a full time income? That's always the bad question. Ask a farmer. I know.
But I don't know how you want to answer that. But yeah, how is that? How is it working for you financially?
But I don't know how you want to answer that. Yeah, that's a great.
I love I love it when people ask this question because it's like what people actually need to hear is does this farm make you money to live your life?
And and it does like this is my full time. This is my income for the whole year.
The income is all made mostly in the summertime, now a little bit in the winter because of the CSA.
But that income lasts me for the whole year and I pay two part time employees.
So it can make money and margins are very tight.
And every single year we look into what kind of grant funding we can gain access to so that we can.
Invest in equipment or different sort of like changing our system in certain ways or invest in another part time employee, but it definitely works.
And my my costs are very low. I'm a single person without kids and I don't own a house.
I don't have a mortgage and I'm low income enough that I don't have to pay for my student loans.
So like it's sort of like what works for you.
You know, it's it does work for me. It does pay the bills.
And I have fairly low bills, you know, small bills, I would say.
Yes. How old are you? I'm wow. How old?
Thirty years old. Hardest question.
And did you come from a farming background? I did not.
So what I just got to ask you, what got you interested in agriculture farming?
Oh, that's a great question. I think originally what connected me to farming was food, was cooking and just having a growing relationship,
connectedness with my food and where it comes from.
And I also I studied international studies in college.
And I learned a lot about industrial farming and sort of like food trade and food traveling around the world and getting processed in so many different ways.
And I became very frustrated about what felt like an extremely inefficient system that was like very extractive.
And I started to become interested and I just started reading.
And I guess about seven years ago, I took my first job at a diversified vegetable farm in Cannon Falls.
So yes, at Sogan Valley Farm. So that was my first job.
And I think I knew pretty quickly into that job that not only did I love to grow food, I loved how varied farming is.
I loved how it really developed so many different types of skills.
There's been so many and it really helps me wrestle with some of these big questions of social issues around land access and like climate.
And I just think it is it puts me in a place where I get to think about some of those really big and tough questions while also just get in the dirt and working with my hands and putting my head down.
You know, it has kind of this both both and complex offering, I feel as a career.
I just got to ask you about farming or farm beginnings itself.
Was it I mean, what did you was that helpful?
And what did you get? So what did you get out of that?
So I originally took farm beginnings.
I signed up because I was moving back to Minnesota.
I had moved back to Minnesota from farming in Massachusetts for a couple of years.
And I really wanted to connect to folks here in this community, farmers here.
I didn't feel necessarily like I needed farming learning like I had farmed for years before I took the course.
But I knew I needed to learn things about money and business planning and marketing.
And I knew I wanted to get connected to other farmers in my area.
And it was so helpful in that regard.
I felt like I mean, I was connected to the folks that who sold me this farm.
So ultimately, it was essential for me starting my own farm business.
And it just helped me get connect to so many people who I consider peers as well as mentors and continues to be just like weaving this web for me,
which feels like it helps. That's all helps support me.
That's all part of my insurance. I think of it as a small diversified vegetable farmer.
All of these people are helping to hold me. So I'm very grateful for that experience.
Going to a field day like this, we had 40 people in northeast Minneapolis at this urban farm.
Do you feel like urban agriculture is kind of having a moment a little bit?
I don't know. I'm kind of hearing more and more about it and to see all these agency folks here and all the support that is available.
I absolutely think that urban agriculture is having a moment.
I hope it's having a moment. That would be beneficial for all of us.
You know, I think it's I think people are excited about how accessible urban agriculture is.
There are so many people eating and gardening in the city. It's so dense.
Right. And there's so many people who are interested in like, how do we make changes to positively impact the climate?
And farming is a huge it's a huge player in in in making those changes.
And people are interested for sure. And it feels approachable and small.
And I think folks are excited about learning.
I think they're excited to become more familiar with farming again.
You know, there's been this distancing for so long. It's way out there.
It's big scale. Nobody's like in the soil. And I think people are excited to see it happening.
And that happens. Urban farming is if it's anything, it's much more visible to the general population because it's right here where they're walking their dogs and they're walking their kid to school and they're driving to work.
You know, they see it. And that's surprising. And they're like, what's going on?
And they want to know more.
For more on the Land Stewardship Project's Farm Beginnings course and the numerous resources that are available to urban agrarians, see the podcast page for Ear to the Ground, episode three hundred and forty eight at LandStewardshipProject.org.
There you'll also find links to other podcast episodes we've done on urban farming.
If you have comments or suggestions about this podcast, contact Brian DeVore at bdevor at LandStewardshipProject.org or you can call 612-816-9342.
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Thanks for listening.