Why Urban Agriculture?

What can green roofs do for us, you might ask?  How is it accomplished?  Great questions!  Let's watch a short video:

But what does gardening in general even have to do with the urban landscape?  Another excellent question, answered by video:

AND one more question: WHY SHOULD WE CARE??!?  One answer: Food Transparency.  It's important.  Where did that head of lettuce come from?  How was it grown?  What pesticides were used?  Why are those chicken breasts on such a wicked sale than the ones next to them, what's been done to them?  Why is this tomato healthy looking while this one already smells like moldy bread?  These are important things to ask!  I know, I said only one more question and then I rained a volley down.  But that's because this is IMPORTANT!  We should know about these things.  We don't let a child stick a penny down their throats and THEN ask if it was a smart decision.  Something in us knows that penny shouldn't be anywhere NEAR a kid.  Why are we so knowledgeable about the dangers of that penny, but not the dangers that could be in our egg yolks?

Reclaiming our food is important, and urban cities using urban agriculture are leading the way in that reclamation process.  Families are eating healthier at a fraction of the cost in cities that encourage sustainable and ethical food production.

The environment is something we are all TOLD we should care about, but particularly urban areas there is a distancing between direct nature to human contact, and that blunts the importance of the message that we are only as healthy as the environment that sustains us.  Urban youth growing up in smog-infested cities have no idea about clean air.  They don't know what a rooster acts like in real life.  They understand that it costs a few quarters to feed a goat in a zoo, if they're brave enough to get close enough to it's mouth.  Cornell University student Alexey Kudryavtsev explored the phenomenon of finding "place" for urban students in environmental stewardship as part of his dissertation in attaining a Ph.D. in Philosophy.  His essay explores how urban students are capable of understanding their environmental impact and how they can change the norm and promote sustainability when they are exposed to the education behind environmentalism.  They also understand the need to bring nature back to the cities and use it as a way of creating positive local ecosystems that in turn create jobs and promote economic and food security for themselves and their peers.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if adults were as enthusiastic about their ability to change the environment in which they live in positive ways?  Oh, wait.  One last video of the day: they ARE and they're waiting for YOU!