Becoming a little bit of a farmer?

CASFS University Farm in Santa Cruz/California

Northamerica has its first school dedicated to teach you how to start becoming an urban farmer! It is newly opened this year, called Richmond Farm School (in Richmond/Canada) and part of Kwantlen Polytech University, who co-authored this project together with the municipality of Richmond. It is a half-year programme, consisting of various practicals and theory. The graduates have the option to lease 1-5 acres of municipal land (so-called incubator plots) to start off an urban farming enterprise, with ongoing support from the programme. All in the name of rebuilding local food systems, reducing food miles and adapting to growing urban demand of food. You can read a good portrait (including programme outline, prices, time frame) on City Farmer News.

The whole thing reminded me of the beautiful farm at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) at the University of Santa Cruz/California which I visited two years ago. They have a similar programme in place where apprentices spend half a year (literally day and night, if they opt to stay in the on-farm apprentice housing) on the 22-acre farm, also having practical as well as theoretical lessons in sustainable farming and connected issues. Graduates not only become farmers but often disperse into the worlds of working within (local) food networks, academics, writing, politics, ... you name it. To me, mainly because of the immersion into it, this (more than 40 years old) programme seems to be a bit more in-depth, also because it offers about 1000 hours of teaching, as compared to 350 (formal) hours with the Richmond Farm School (both costs around 5000$). But to be fair: the latter just started up and might (and hopefully will) grow considerably in size.

Let's hope projects like these will keep sprouting, budding and spreading, yielding people and farms that are able to feed us better than our current food systems can!