The NY dairy farmer's conundrum

From NBC:

Dairy farms in New York are relying on workers in the country without documentation. Pablo Gutierrez reports on the issue.

This is a very interesting report. On the one hand, the farmers say no Americans are willing to do this work. To some extent that's probably true, but would they offer a wage that would be fair to an American? Probably not. They want to keep the cost of milking down, so they exploit undocumented labor by paying them poorly and forcing them to work extended hours. Yet they claim they want see a change in the Visa program which allows the workers to stay legally. If that happens, the workers will have to at least be paid minimum wage, if not a living wage as courts have ordered in the past. And then the cost of producing milk goes up and farms go under. We've created quite a mess in this country.

Rooftop farms are the latest thing

From AM-NY:

The seeds of New York’s rooftop farming industry, planted over the past decade, have yielded a harvest in recent years.

It has grown from a niche industry to a large-scale phenomenon, according to experts, thanks to a change in city regulations and a subsequent spur of investment.

And there’s potential for expansion in the years ahead, especially in Brooklyn and Queens.

“These large-scale greenhouses are advanced and expensive, but more and more consumers and businesses are supporting them,” said Nicole Baum, spokeswoman for Gotham Greens, a rooftop farm operator in Brooklyn.

The city changed its zoning laws in 2012 to allow rooftop greenhouses certain exemptions from limits on height and floor size on commercial and industrial properties. As a consequence, landlords have come to view them as a potential amenity and opportunity for profit.

The city offers plenty of ready-made locations to allow for the industry’s further expansion, according to the Columbia University analysis.
It concluded that there were more than 5,701 private and public roofs in 2013 that, combined, were capable of holding 3,000 acres of rooftop farms. That’s nearly three and a half times the size of Central Park. Neighborhoods with the most rooftop space were Maspeth, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Sunset Park, according to the report.

Another one bites the dust

The historic Bloom farmhouse at 90-11 56th Avenue in Elmhurst is coming down:

FULL DEMOLITION ENTIRE HOUSE OF A TWO STORY FRAME BUILDING DUE TO FIRE DAMAGE, REQUESTING REVIEW PRIORITY.

An old farm in Bayside

Bayside, Long Island 1928. On Bell Blvd Existed The Home And Farm Of Charles G Meyer. (Bayside began its course of development from an agricultural community to a suburb when the North Shore Railroad was extended in 1866. During the following several decades, the Bayside Land Association purchased farms for development. Bay Terrace, originally included within the bounds of Bayside, remained composed of farms and large estates until the 1950s, when Cord and Charles Meyer sold their 225-acre (0.91 km2) farm for development.

In 1952, residential development of Bay Terrace Sections began and continued into the mid-1960s. Commercial development also began in the 1950s, in the form of "The Bay Terrace at Bayside Shopping Center".

Bones may have come from 1800s family cemetery

From the Daily News:

The past doesn’t stay buried for long in Queens.

The human bones unearthed Tuesday by a construction crew on a routine dig in Richmond Hill may have come from an old cemetery near the farm of a prominent Queens family, a borough expert said.

Historian Carl Ballenas believes the 108th St. property near Jamaica Ave., where five skeletal fragments were found, used to be part of the Napier farm, run by patriarch John B. Napier in the 1800s.

“I know from research over time that there was indeed a family cemetery in that area,” the member of the Richmond Hill Historical Society said.

The farm was located just north of the strip of land bounded roughly by what are now Jamaica Ave., Atlantic Ave., 108th and 110th Sts., Ballenas said.

An analysis of archival maps appeared to confirm the location of the Napier farm in the area.

Still, authorities are remaining mum on the origin of the dusty fragments.

The city medical examiner’s office is investigating, a spokeswoman said.

Urban farmers?

From the NY Post:

More than 1,500 city residents are getting federal farm subsidies, 374 on the Upper East Side alone.

The recipients include some “farmers” who already have their own well-cultivated money trees, among them Mark F. Rockefeller.

“That should really make people wonder what on earth has happened to the farm program,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at the Environmental Working Group, which maintains a national database of farm-subsidy recipients.

“Payments are going to people in Manhattan who simply have invested in farmland and are about as far away from farmers as one could imagine.”

Rockefeller, a fourth-generation member of the family and the younger son of late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, has gotten $342,634 in taxpayer handouts from 2001 through 2011 for thousands of acres of unused farmland he owns in Bonneville County, Idaho. The payments are made so that he does not farm, to allow the land to return to its natural state.

His subsidy is for conservation purposes. Other subsidies come in the form of disaster payments, which allow farmers to recoup losses from drought, frost, hurricanes or tornadoes, or commodity payments, to regulate the prices for crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat.

An authentic old crapper

From Scouting NY:

Last week, I was out scouting a semi-abandoned farmhouse in the outer boroughs dating to the early 1900s. After touring the main house, we came to this barn/shed in the back…

At the time, I assumed the seats had been nailed down, but looking at my photograph, it appears they’re on hinges. Could the last outhouse in NYC still be functioning? Looks like I’m going to have to make another trip to find out…

Everything old is new again

From the Daily News:

The bucolic farms of middle America are getting some stiff competition from the rooftops of New York City.

A growing number of commercial farms housed several stories high throughout the city are producing crops year-round — in many cases without even using dirt.

Several city farms are looking for more rooftop space to grow their local food businesses. And swaths of Queens and Brooklyn with large expanses of industrial rooftops are prime candidates for the urban agriculture expansion.

“In dense cities like New York, there isn’t an enormous amount of vacant land,” said New School Professor Nevin Cohen, who specializes in urban agriculture.

But “there are thousands of acres of rooftop space in New York City potentially suitable for agriculture — with more than 1,000 acres in Queens,” he said.

College Point pig heads for greener pastures

From the Daily News:

A friendly, 58-pound pig - plucked off a Queens street on Father's Day - is heading to greener pastures.

The stray swine, named Wilbur by the city's Animal Care & Control staff, was found wandering around 31st Ave. and College Point Blvd. in College Point.

Police easily corralled the porky pedestrian into a carrier and brought him to ACC's Manhattan shelter.

"The pig cooperated," said ACC spokesman Richard Gentles. "He was unharmed and uninjured, but he was dirty and smelled like grease and oil."

While uncommon, it's not unheard of for cops and animal control officers to wrangle sheep, cows, goats and other unusual critters off city streets. Some are escapees from livestock markets while others are pets.

Gentles said Wilbur won't find his way on to someone's dinner plate. Instead, he is going to live at a sanctuary outside the city.

Also, the Queens County Farm Museum has stopped selling pork.

At peace on a rooftop

From the Daily News:

African immigrants hoping to be granted U.S. asylum have discovered a taste of home on top of the city's largest rooftop farm.

The Refugee Immigrant Fund Asylum Help Center, a Queens nonprofit that aids those fleeing persecution and torture, has partnered with a 40,000 square-foot rooftop farm in Long Island City to give refugees a unique opportunity to work the soil in their new urban home.

"Having contact with the ground is very important for me, even if it's on a roof in a big city like New York." said Erick Kpakpo, 31, from Central Africa, who is waiting to be granted asylum.

Through the fund's Urban Farm Recovery Project, three interns from Africa work two days a week at the Brooklyn Grange farm. Organizers say the program can be healing for the participants and gives them a chance to meet New Yorkers and settle into their new lives in the city.

It hasn't been an easy road to the United States for the immigrants chosen for the project, say organizers noting they faced rape, violence, kidnapping and torture at home and now must deal with the stress of waiting for asylum.

The U.S grants asylum to people who have been persecuted or fear persecution on account of race, religion, nationality or politics.

Rooftop farm opens

From NY1:

The farm is run by the commercial farming business Brooklyn Grange and is located atop a building on Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens.

The group says the idea is to inspire New Yorkers to create their own rooftop gardens by informing them of all the perks.

Local officials praised Brooklyn Grange’s initiative.

"It makes sense on every level,” said Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer. “It's locally produced, locally farmed, that will be sold locally."

Farmers cultivate a wide variety of vegetables ranging from salad greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, squash and kale.

The farm sells its produce to city restaurants, at two markets at the building on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., and at Roberto's in Bushwick on Sunday afternoons. It also plans to sell at Vesta in Astoria on Saturdays.

For more information, go to BrooklynGrangeFarm.com.

Rooftop farm back in business

Stop-Work Order Lifted at Brooklyn Grange
By DIANE CARDWELL, NY Times

The Department of Buildings has lifted the stop-work order on the Brooklyn Grange farm in Queens, a department spokesman said. The installation of the venture’s rooftop farm on an industrial building in Long Island City had been halted Friday for not filing permits or plans. Representatives of the farm have now filed plans, including a “structural analysis showing how the weight of the farm will be supported,” which the department approved, said Tony Sclafani of the Buildings Department. That, plus a $5,537 fine the farmers paid for working without a permit, will allow installation to resume immediately. A stop-work order for some construction inside the building, unrelated to the farm, remains in effect.

Rooftop farm already shut down

From the NY Times:

It had been a week of furious dawn-to-dark activity building a farm high above an industrial stretch of Queens: directing traffic along Northern Boulevard, hoisting truckloads of growing mix up to the roof and raking it over drainage and protective material. Once the eight-inch layer of engineered soil stretched over the 40,000-square-foot space, the volunteers could begin planting the 9,000 seedlings awaiting their new home.

But all that came to a sudden halt on Friday afternoon, courtesy of the New York City Department of Buildings, which issued a stop-work order on the installation. According to department records, organizers of the project, an ambitious for-profit farm called Brooklyn Grange, had not secured permits and engineering plans showing the roof could handle nearly a million pounds of dirt, which will weigh even more when wet and rooted with vegetables.

“Our enthusiasm to get plants in for the season outpaced our paperwork, and we are doing everything we can with our architect and engineer to work this out,” Ben Flanner, the project’s farmer, said in a prepared statement. “In the meantime, we are complying fully with the stop-work order and anticipate filing the necessary paperwork on Tuesday morning. We are eagerly awaiting the go-ahead to resume installing.”

When that go-ahead will come is, like the suspended farm, up in the air. The building, at 37-18 Northern Boulevard, already had a stop-work order for interior work; now the notice affixed to the front door applies to the roof, too. A small handwritten note beneath it reads: “Sorry — no farm work today. See you soon!”

Officials from the Buildings Department need to determine what permits were required, if any, and if the building’s structure can support the soil and plantings, said Tony Sclafani, a spokesman for the department. Engineers plan to visit as early as Monday.

Photo from the Brooklyn Grange

LIC rooftop becomes farm

From the NY Times:

The stretch of Northern Boulevard near 36th Street in Long Island City, Queens, is about as far from bucolic as it gets: Old industrial buildings loom, traffic whizzes by, car dealerships line the street. Off in the distance, Manhattan’s skyscrapers glitter, the trains rumble, and the closest thing to a meadow is a small patch of plants the Parks Department has named Triangle 37.

But six stories up, on the roof of one of those old buildings, an ambitious farm began to take shape on Thursday. Called Brooklyn Grange — the group behind it settled on the name before they settled on their borough — it will grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and leafy greens amid the air-conditioning units and water tower perched on the 40,000-square foot-roof.

Rooftop farms have been appearing recently across New York and the nation, but few have the scope of Brooklyn Grange, a for-profit venture started by Ben Flanner, a transplanted Wisconsinite, and the operators of Roberta’s, a popular restaurant that has become something of a farm-to-table clubhouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

The group plans to sell its vegetables — selected for their ability to thrive in the sunny, windy conditions of an open city roof — from a stand at the farm, and to a few restaurants.

Lamenting the loss of a part of our past

From the Riverdale Press:

A major highlight of my daily morning drive down West 254th Street toward the Hudson River used to be the old red barn on the left, located just before the hill slopes down.

A quintessential emblem of Americana was available for anyone’s viewing, right here in the Northwest Bronx. To the detriment of our landscape and those who have regard and respect for architectural and historic preservation, Riverdale’s very own (and privately-owned) red barn was torn down this past fall.

I give thanks to Community Board 8’s Traffic and Transportation Committee for vastly improving the congestion on this busy Riverdale street this year (and I trust that those who loved the barn didn’t add to the cause by rubbernecking while appreciating it), but we still have much work to do in our city with regard to landmarks preservation.

Farming popular at Bowne High School

From the Queens Chronicle:

Nestled on a four-acre site near Queens College and the bustling Long Island Expressway is a farm with 150 chickens, numerous rabbits, two goats, assorted peacocks and pheasants and even four alpacas.

The bucolic scene is part of John Bowne High School’s agriculture program that also includes a greenhouse, orchard and field crops. The popular program — the only agriculture department in the city school system — attracts 600 students, known as Aggies, with 80 percent of them going on to college and 50 percent majoring in agriculture, according to Steve Perry, assistant principal for agriculture.

Bowne’s chickens are kept in a warm building away from the roosters. “They are not stressed and lay about 100 eggs a day,” Perry said. “Students dispense feed for them and collect the eggs. There is quite a demand for them at the school store where they sell for $2 a dozen year-round.”

When school is in session, the store is open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and sells seasonal items such as vegetables in the warm weather and poinsettias, holiday wreaths and flower arrangements in the winter. During the summer, students set up a vegetable stand outside the school at 63-25 Main St. in Flushing.

The profits from all produce, eggs and products raised at Bowne go back into the agriculture program for feed, fertilizer and seed.

“We find that students gain a lot of confidence by working with the animals and for many it gives them a skill,” Perry said. “We become the center of the kids’ community. They are very active in pursuit of their careers.”

Aggies are expected to get 300 hours of work experience either at a pet shop, zoo, veterinarian’s office or through a summer placement program on an upstate farm.

Farmers being evicted from abandoned lot

From the Daily News:

The Jacksons began farming around the mission on Bainbridge St. in 2004, after seeing that much of the emergency food doled out to poor families was filling, but not healthy - canned and packed with sugar and salt.

Two years later, the couple adopted the lot on Decatur St., which had become a weed-clogged garbage dump and neighborhood eyesore. They turned it into a garden that produces 7,000 pounds of food a year, including zucchini, collard greens, tomatoes and broccoli.

A nonprofit housing developer, Neighborhood Partnership HDFC, had earlier bought the land from the city to renovate an old house into affordable units, but structural problems forced the developer to raze the building. The lot sat empty until the Jacksons started the farm.

HPD spokeswoman Catie Marshall said Neighborhood Partnership needs to recoup around $275,000 in costs.

The city generally sells these parcels for $1 to developers to build affordable housing. But when the developer doesn't build the housing, why do they get to keep it and sell it at market value? The city should buy it back for $1 and let these people stay. Except that would help feed less fortunate people and not developers' bank accounts.

Since the city is offering other parcels of city-owned land to the farmers, then they could also arrange for the developer to get that land instead and allow the farm to stay where it is.