The Current: Eckerd builds community of urban agriculture advocates

My first story reporting on the St. Pete Center

Hey everyone! Below is my first article for The Current! As always, visit the Current’s website for exclusive photos. If you like this article, please consider subscribing below so you never miss a post!

(Photo Credit: Quinn Vogel)

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On Saturday, Feb. 11, students and community members gathered in Fox Hall to discuss the strategies for developing urban agriculture in the Tampa Bay area. The event was organized by the new St. Pete Center for Civic Engagement and Social Impact and run by Professor of Environmental Studies David Himmelfarb, a faculty fellow for the organization. 

There were over 100 attendees from various backgrounds including farmers, gardeners, marketing executives, and community organizers to discuss sustainability and food security issues in the Tampa Bay area. The roundtable event allowed these community members of various backgrounds to mingle, debate, and network. 

Also present were students from Himmelfarb’s Food Movements class. In the class, students discuss the complex supply chains that get food to communities. They interviewed the community members to get a real-world perspective on the issues faced by our society’s food systems in an ever-changing world. 

Most students are familiar with the Eckerd Community Farm, of which Professor Himmelfarb is the faculty director. The Farm is an experimental agricultural project aiming to grow produce using methods that mimic natural ecosystems. This is directly contrary to how most modern agriculture works with its heavy use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which may have been why so many farmers were interested in visiting the Farm.

One farmer explained that agriculture isn’t as established in Florida as it is up north because of the recent invention of air conditioning that allowed for larger settlements.  This means that not only is the food supply chain less established and the farmers less experienced, but most importantly says Travis “No one down here has ever been to a farmer’s market because the first one in St. Petersburg was only 18 years ago!”

[Hey everyone, this is future Mikkel with some commentary on the above paragraph. My editors requested I remove that section from the print version because as they pointed out, agriculture is not a niche industry in Florida as the above quote implies. In fact, agriculture is one of Florida’s largest businesses and is worth about 7.8 billion in 2019. This farmer (who was speaking with me off the record and I want to respect that) may have instead been speaking about small-scale farming. This farmer also spoke with me about how he personally tried to organize a farmer’s market in St. Petersburg that failed because residents were unfamiliar with the concept. So keeping the fact check in mind, I still think the quote gives valuable insight into how many Floridan farmers feel as though their work has not been appreciated by the wider population]

Hydroponics: What is it?

Another hot topic during the night: hydroponics. Hydroponics is a newer form of horticulture that grows crops in a controlled environment, eliminating the need for soil and reducing the amount of water needed. Alicia Geigel, Marketing Director represents the St. Petersburg-based Brick Street Farms which does hydroponics out of reused shipping containers. This kind of agriculture is uniquely suited for the urban setting. 

However many traditional farmers were skeptical or even antagonistic against hydroponics. 

Geigal conceded that hydroponics can hardly be called organic but does that even matter? Even Eckerd’s farm cannot be considered organic because of the compost used. 

“You don’t have that land [for a big farm] in the middle of a big city, right?” said Geigal. “I can say we produce 60 acres [of produce] on ⅓ of an acre. So it’s very efficient. We don’t have any runoff. No pesticides. No E. coli.”

“Hydroponics is still just kind of avoiding the natural system, right?” said one farmer who derisively referred to hydroponics as “IV-tube farming.” 

“You have to pay for electricity with hydroponics, you know what you don’t have to pay for? Sunlight,” Jungle Jay, another farmer, said.

Solving food deserts in St. Pete

There was more consensus around the issue of food security. According to the University of Florida, over 3 million Floridians do not have constant access to good quality food. Many community leaders spoke of how many families who lack adequate transportation can only purchase the food that they can carry. This is commonly referred to as a “food desert” or when a community lacks access to affordable food. Another common but not much better situation is “food swamps” or a community where the immediate access to affordable food is through fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.

Others described how these parents had to avoid choosing fresh fruits and vegetables, fearing they would spoil on the long hot bus ride home. That is a problem Marques Clark or “Chef Omaka” of YES CHEF Village seeks to address here in St. Petersburg. 

For over a decade, Chef Omaka has held community dinners where he prepares fresh home-cooked meals for low-income families. He attended the event to further build connections with others who share his vision. 

“It's not a long-term solution,” Omaka said. “Making people dependent upon your efforts, your time, your money. What is sustainable is a collective co-op of people building local resources that makes it accessible to them.” 

He encouraged Eckerd students to look at the families dealing with food discrepancies.  

“Look at the numbers and you find that these concentrations are a majority in low-income communities of color as well as other marginalized communities,” Omaka said.

What is the future of urban agriculture?

Though the response to the event was mostly positive, not every attendee was optimistic about the future of agriculture. One farmer in attendance said that he privately believes that no form of agriculture could sustain the world’s current population. This philosophy echoes the Malthusian theory that theorized that population growth would outpace increases in food production.

Professor Himmelfarb has a different perspective. “It’s not necessarily an either/or large scale farming versus small scale urban agriculture. But as the world’s population becomes more urban and we think about what that means for our communities … ensuring that local communities have a stake in where their food comes from,” Himmelfarb said.

 Due to the success of the event, Himmelfarb hopes to hold more of these events to further develop the relationships and connections made regarding urban agriculture in the area and food systems overall.

As conversations and connections were made showing the full diversity of this community, from environmental studies students to farmers who have worked in Florida for decades, urban agriculture was no longer a subject to be discussed in classrooms but a vibrant active on-the-ground community capable of addressing the most pressing food security issues facing our cities.

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