Baltimore claims its place as an urban farming mecca for local, healthy, organic food

Food security. Sustainable agriculture. Slow food. Healthy, locally-sourced food. Whatever it's called, Baltimore is quickly taking the lead nationwide in the movement towards local, sustainable food.

This May, city leaders appointed a new Food Czar, Holly Freishtat, to improve demand for and access to healthy foods throughout the city. For a few years now, the City Schools Director of Food and Nutrition Services, Tony Geraci, has been busy reshaping the entire food-delivery system of the BCPS. There are at least eleven farmer’s markets throughout the week in Baltimore, numerous CSA’s to choose from, and places like the Mill Valley General Store, which offers only Maryland-sourced food products, both fresh and small-batch prepared. The Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future promotes “Meatless Monday” on its website.

New job-creating and educational ventures have started up to focus on healthy, local food. For example, there’s the Hamilton Crop Circle, Real Food Farm in Clifton Park, and Great Kids Farm in Catonsville, to name just three. 

What’s going on here? As a long-time advocate of and participant in the green movement, this reporter has observed that food is an excellent entry-point for so many people. We all have to eat, right? On a personal level, as well as from a business standpoint, food is hot!

According to Cheryl Wade, co-owner of the Mill Valley General Store, the economic benefits of the Urban Farm Movement are many:

• home grown food reduces the weekly food bill, which means more disposable income; 
• small urban farms bring nutrient dense food to the City, at a lower cost;
• small urban farms create jobs for farm hands, delivery folks and others;
• urban farms are a profitable way to reuse vacant land;
• well tended urban farms/community gardens visually enhance neighborhoods, leading to an increase in property values; 
• increase in locally grown fruits & vegetables creates the need for supporting businesses, such as bee keepers, nurseries for start up plants, large scale vermi-composting and worm sales, builders for hoop houses, processing kitchens & classes in canning; and
• increase in the number of farmer's markets.

Ms. Wade reports that in just one year, the Hamilton Crop Circle has doubled in size. Located on the grounds of the Hamilton Elementary/Middle School, they not only provide fresh food to the school cafeteria, but also sell to local restaurants: Chameleon Cafe, Hamilton Tavern and Clementine. This year they added a new location: a green roof vegetable garden on the roof of the Hamilton Tavern!

As Hamilton Crop Circle (aka “The Circle”) delivers to area restaurant and retail establishments, they collect food waste, which in turn is used in vermi-composting. They then sell both the compost and compost tea, completing a closed loop system, just the way Mother Nature does it. Compost tea and vermi-composting kits (complete with worms from "The Circle") are sold at Mill Valley and at the Downtown Farmer's Market. All of the revenue generated goes back into the Hamilton Crop Circle, leading to the creation of a financially self-sufficient project, with potential to begin job creation in late 2010/2011.

Want to support the Hamilton Crop Circle? They are currently doing a fundraiser on Kickstarter.

Future articles will explore some of these ventures in more detail. Readers may also be interested in a new quarterly magazine on the subject: "Urban Farm." Let us know what you are seeing in the area of local, healthy, sustainable food, and what you would like to learn more about. In the meantime, stop by Mill Valley General Store or your local farmer’s market and – bon appétit!