Bucky does backyard farming

BK Farmyards' FarmShare project is one of six finalists aiming to 'solve humanity's most pressing problems' as part of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

Mon, May 03 2010 at 11:21 AM

Related Topics:

Farming & Agriculture, Research & Innovation

Images: Buckminster Fuller Institute

I’m happy to spread the word that BK Farmyards’ Stacey Murphy, one of the distinguished young cultivators featured in MNN’s 40 Farmers Under 40: Readers’ Choice, has advanced as a finalist in the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge with her A Call to Farm: FarmShare project.

I frequently blog about gardening/farming ventures in New York City — hydroponic window gardens, veggie-producing rooftops, mini-farms in the back of pick-up trucks, and more — so it’s awesome to see a company helping to reclaim and veggie-fy 10,000 acres of unused land around NYC in the running for an esteemed prize that celebrates the legacy of visionary eco-pioneer/author/dude responsible for the geodesic dome, Buckminster Fuller. The six finalists in the challenge, narrowed down from 30 semi-finalists, each provide “a workable solution to one of the world’s most significant challenges such as water scarcity, food supply, and energy consumption.” The winner will be announced on June 2nd at the National Press Club and awarded $10,000.

For A Call to Farm: FarmShare concept, Murphy extends her enthusiasm for urban agrarianism further online — Tweetpeople, check out the BK Farmyards Twitter feed — with a web-based platform that "allows users to share all resources of urban farming: from donated seedlings grown on a windowsill to a borrowed wheelbarrow for hauling soil."

Here's a bit more about the specifics:

FarmShare reconnects farmers and consumers as co-producers of the foodscape. The strategy uses social media to pool all the resources of Brooklyn into a crowd-sourced decentralized farm. Voting for local food with their forks already, Brooklyn food activists will pool their time and their waste in A Call to Farm.

Although I'm a Brooklynite sans backyard farm, if I was I'd totally be into the idea of FarmShare. After all, every good urban farmer needs to take a break, head indoors, and log onto Facebook to "view each others farms, volunteer for a day, or donate ten pounds of coffee grounds for compost," right? For more on how a decentralized urban farming network works, check out the BK Farmyards homepage and to learn more about FarmShare, head on over to the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge finalists profile.

[Via Fast Company]

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