Detroit: Farming Paradise?

I am quite suspicious of any movement that decrees itself as the answer to a region's entire set of problems, and as a food activist, I am on record as being uneasy with terms like "urban ag" as I believe in regional ag which includes existing farmers and includes our hinterlands and waterways which also need to supply food for our beloved cities!
However, I love these quotes from the article linked below about Detroit's agricultural movement:

“The food riots erupting around the world challenge us to rethink our whole approach to food,” she said, but as communities, not as bodies politic. “Today’s hunger crisis is rooted in the industrialized food system which destroys local food production and forces nations like Kenya, which only twenty-five years ago was food self-sufficient, to import 80 percent of its food because its productive land is being used by global corporations to grow flowers and luxury foods for export.” The same thing happened to Detroit, she says, which was once before a food self-sufficient community.

I asked her whether the city government would support large-scale urban agriculture. “City government is irrelevant,” she answered. “Positive change, leaps forward in the evolution of humankind do not start with governments. They start right here in our living rooms and kitchens. We are the leaders we are looking for.”




Detroit: Farming Paradise?