Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has inspired many to eat more locally, which is great. Brooklyn resident Manny Howard, however, took the inspiration to an extreme, building a full (tiny) farm in the backyard of his Brooklyn home, complete with chickens, rabbits and ducks.
The idea of the garden was to test whether he could support his family on food grown and raised in his backyard for an entire month. The idea was interesting and the adventure was worth capturing, so he did...in an article for New York Magazine.
To summarize, Howard's experiment proved very difficult and during the process, he learned a lot of real life lessons that many of us eat-local advocates fail to grasp:
* The soil in his urban backyard was devoid of nutrients and contaminated with lead, a common problem in U.S. cities,
* The time commitment required to develop and run the "farm" left him working all day, full-time on the garden. This is not an option for most Americans, who are forced to work harder with fewer vacations for less money these days.
* Raising vegetables and animals takes some trial and error, as Howard found out when he tried to raise rabbits for food. Therefore, just jumping on the bandwagon and quitting supermarket food cold turkey is probably not practical for most.
In other words, sustenance farming in urban areas is not particularly practical, unless you are a member of a large urban garden. While Howard's article is interesting, hopeful and inspiring, it sheds the light on these negatives and brings me to the same conclusions that I had after reading Kingsolver's book:
* Support local farmers when possible,
* Small acts are better than none and they add up when everyone pitches in. Grow your own if you can but if you can't, see the above point,
* Changing America's buying and eating habits will take time. A long time.
Check out Howard's New York Magazine article here . Don't miss the brief video that was shot on his "farm".
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