Springer Sowing Seeds in the City: Ecosystem and Municipal Services

Urban agriculture has the potential to change our food systems, enhance habitat in our cities, and to morph urban areas into regions that maximize rather than disrupt ecosystem services. The potential impacts of urban agriculture on a range of ecosystem services including soil and water conservation, waste recycling, climate change mitigation, habitat, and food production is only beginning to be recognized. Those impacts are the focus of this book. Growing food in cities can range from a tomato plant on a terrace to a commercial farm on an abandoned industrial site. Understanding the benefits of these activities across scales will help this movement flourish. Food can be grown in community gardens, on roofs, in abandoned industrial sites and next to sidewalks. The volume includes sections on where to grow food and how to integrate agriculture into municipal zoning and legal frameworks. About the Author Sally L Brown is a Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Forest and Environmental Science.  She is a Fellow in the Soil Science Society of America, was a two- term member of the National Academy of Science Standing Committee on Soil Science and a member on the National Academy of Science Committee on the Bioavailability of Contaminants in Soils and Sediments.  She has won multiple awards for her work on residuals use in soils.  Dr. Brown writes a monthly column for Biocycle Magazine, a journal that focuses on sustainable management of organics.  She has a BA in Political Science from Williams College (1980) and a MS (1993) and PhD (1996) from the University of Maryland.  Before returning to graduate school, she worked as a chef in New York City, New Orleans and Connecticut.  In 1986 she started a business delivering locally grown vegetables to stores and restaurants in New York City and Connecticut.  She currently grows greens, onions, potatoes and currants on two plots near her home with the assistance of her husband and Tagro, the biosolids based soil amendment from Tacoma, WA. Kristen McIvor is the director of Harvest Pierce County, a program of the Pierce Conservation District.  Their mission is to invest in people to foster and sustain an equitable and healthy community-based food system throughout Pierce County.  She is also an adjunct professor at Antioch University Seattle where she teaches classes on food systems.  Dr. McIvor got her MS at Antioch in Environment and Community and her PhD at the University of Washington.  Her academic work has focused on improving soils in urban areas to support the growing of food, and much of her time is spent working with community groups to do just that.  She lives in the drippy Pacific Northwest and loves its mild climate for year-round growing.  In her spare time, she gets her hands dirty as often as she can, and loves preparing and sharing the bounty of her garden with her family and friends. Elizabeth Hodges Snyder is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and the Master of Public Health Program Coordinator at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  She also serves as co-chair of the Alaska Food Policy Council (AFPC).  Dr. Snyder is trained in environmental health (MPH, Global Environmental Health, Emory University, 2004) and soil and water science (PhD, Soil and Water Science, University of Florida, 2009).  Her career began with a focus on environmental contaminant fate and transport, and human and ecological risk assessment, but her research program and teaching agenda has since evolved to address the fields of food security and health impact assessment.  She has co-authored several works on food security in Alaska; supervises graduate student projects addressing food access, availability, and utilization; and advocates for strengthened rural and urban food systems.  Originally from Florida, Dr. Snyder has adjusted well to the climate of Alaska – successfully raising backyard chickens, utilizing vertical drip irrigation