Author Archive

Back in early June, work took me back to Brazil.  Rio and Sao Paulo had great restaurants, but Curitiba took the prize when it came to the market – particularly the abundance of fresh, local food! Super Mercado Municipal (website here, in Portuguese), is a huge market that traces its history back to the 1820s and the market houses that lined a street named Saldanha Marinho.  The first official Municipal Market building was constructed in 1860.  The market as it currently stands was completed in the 1940s and 1950s, and the revilatization was completed in 1998.  It is currently undergoing restoration again, which I noticed on my visit. The interesting thing to me was an inclusion of an entire organic wing of the market.  I thought it was great that you could shop in that section and be sure that everything there was grown organically. In addition to the fresh produce,

Grown in the City reader Mike Szilagyi from Ontario, Canada, shared the following photo of his balcony garden, illustrating that you really can garden in even the most limited of spaces, using pretty much anything you have on hand! As Mike noted:  I tried my hand at container gardening this year and one of the things I did (which is pictured) was take an old pair of shoes, take out the insoles, drill a few holes in the bottom and fill the pair with soil and some plants. The purplish plant is Bugleweed and the other is Spotted Dead Nettle. The picture was taken after a month on my balcony and they both seem be doing well. I think it’s a fun way to reuse some old shoes (of which we’ve all got plenty) and people seem to enjoy them! Very cool idea, Mike!

I found this oddly entertaining – a tree growing out of the side of a waste management truck on 14th street in DC.  Well, it may not be Brooklyn, but now I know where Betty Smith got the inspiration for her book title.  Didn’t anyone think to just pull it out when it was smaller?  Or is the garbage man lovingly nurturing it?  The world may never know.

It’s almost Friday.  Hang in there!  Just a reminder that you can search Grown in the City’s job board, or search below to find food system jobs through indeed.com.  Still not sure what to do with your life?  Check out interviews with leading figures in the food system world to help you hone your passion and find your place in the food system world! Search for a job job title or keywords city, state, or zip   Jobs by Indeed If you have a job to post, please enter it on the job board. If you’re looking for a job, check out the Grown in the City job board listings.

The following post was reprinted with permission of Off the Wire, the personal blog of a financial writer living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and commenting on sustainability issues across the Americas. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear somebody hollering about how human beings face an imminent shortage of food. The screeching headlines about this issue generally ignore what this FAO-commissioned study thankfully reminds us – a third of the world’s food goes to waste. People flock to the Malthusian tales of human beings heading toward starvation as the population cruises toward a staggering 9 billion people. It’s usually the key underpinning of arguments for things like genetically modified crops and factory farming, and is the basis of furious insistence we need to greatly increase our production of food. It probably shouldn’t be too surprising that developed nations waste as much food as all of Sub-Saharan Africa

Back in April, I interviewed Anaiis Sales, the founder and Executive Director of Green Sanctuary Earth Institute of Pennsylvania.  Anaiis is running what she describes as “a scaled-up-CSA for the social service sector.”  To learn more about the model, check out the interview. She recently provided an update on the endeavor, which I’m happy to share with you all.  I think Anaiis’ project shows the type of innovation that’s needed in this sector, without ignoring the real hurdles in legislation, policy, permitting, and finance that need to happen to make a project a success.  We wish you continued success in your endeavor! Things progress apace here in Philadelphia. Our social service agency CSA pilot project is a success! Our clients are happy, we’ve had our first harvest, are about to plant hot weather crops, and plan our first feast in the field. I’ve been approved as a PA Dept of

Last year I did a lot of travel – I think I was out of town for almost every weekend that fall.  All those hours on airplanes gave me plenty of time to think…and plenty of opportunities to read the inflight magazine!  I noticed that US Airways reviews blogs in their monthly magazine, and so I figured I’d shoot off a quick email from some airport or another, asking them to check out this blog. Imagine my surprise this morning when I flipped through the inflight magazine during my trip to Chicago and saw this: I had completely forgot I even emailed them!  You can check out the web version of the editor’s letter, “In Brief,” here. It’s always nice to see your name in print!