Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution

Jennifer Cockrall-King is a Canadian food journalist. In this book she critiques the current state of our food and describes the current urban food agriculture as a response to that crisis. She gives an overview of the movement as a whole and then provides specific case studies of the movement in Paris, London, Southern California, Vancouver, Toronto, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, and Cuba. She writes well with passion, resulting in an interesting, easy to read book.

A very timely book for the issues that no one is thinking about--a finite supply of oil, how our industrial food is produced (with staggering quantities of oil), and how urban agriculture can help prepare for the impending end of industrial food. An uplifting and energetic book despite its pessimistic first chapters. A true wake-up call for those who have never thought about where their food comes from, and why it is so unhealthy in terms of its ecological effects, its limited genetic diversity, and its effect on consumers, but how simple the solutions are--grow your own food!

Good data and research. A little dated now, but still gives good well-focused arguments and presents grand ideas for a better food system.

What Cockrall-King accomplishes in her short book is astounding. Aside from her entertaining and engaging prose, the subversive inspiration and practical takeaways (for urban or would-be urban farmers) is great. This is a book I will be purchasing as gifts to the people I want to influence towards a more sustainable approach to agriculture.

Ordered it for my class and it's fun. Interesting information. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know about food and where it comes from in our society.

Interesting book, got it in kindle format since daughter was in a hurry to do a homework

Food and the City discusses urban agriculture in Europe and North America. These include rooftop gardens, cultivating vacant lots, growing food inside large buildings and more. The author contends these are needed to remove a dependency on importing food from overseas, improving nutrition in food deserts (regions with no grocery stores) and providing superior quality food to what's found in grocery stores.Some of the ideas presented here are most impressive. The amount of food produced in these gardens per year is small compared to what a city requires for even one day, but if scaled up could provide a fair portion of a city's fruit and vegetable needs. Most of the ideas in the book are also low cost, requiring little in the way of upfront cash and investments over time.That said, I feel there are some flaws in the book. Many of the urban farms produced herbs and salad greens for high end restaurants. This produces the most profit per square foot, but does nothing to help the poor and underserved residents of these cities, instead serving those who need it the least. Many of the urban agriculture projects make heavy use of land that is either free or has a greatly reduced rent. In some cases the land was effectively fallow or wasteland, so a low rent is understandable, but it does show a reliance on state support to operate. In other cases the farms operate only because they receive private funding to keep the doors open. There is also a small section on guerrilla gardening, going onto someone else's property and establishing a garden. Generally this is using land that is in a terrible state, but it's still trespassing on someone else's property and making changes they didn't ask for or want. This is breaking the law, and risks tainting an otherwise noble goal.I know that's an awful lot of complaining, but in my opinion it's only enough to drop the book one star. There are interesting ideas that should be explored.

General Content:The book “Food in the City” by Jennifer Cockrall-King gives the reader a great summary and brings a unique perspective to how the world plans on feeding its people. Jennifer Cockrall-King takes the reader through 9 cities around the industrial world, giving the reader a history of previous urban agriculture efforts they have had and her own experience during her time in these cities. The book pays great respect to the sensitivity and difficulties faced in attempts to feed the world while understanding that the world cannot be fed off of just one idea, but from a collection of ideas. The author points out the various issues and the mismanagement that has lead the world to the circumstances it is currently. She highlights the fact that we have groceries stores filled with highly processed foods, where our food selection has been greatly diminished, and where we are ultimately facing greater pressures of feeding our population. “Food in the City” portrays the world that has made unbelievable leaps and bounds to achieve a population of 7 billion people. Jennifer Cockrall-King does an excellent job of showing the reader how exactly different cultures contributed to the support of our growth through urban agriculture. She gives us personal stories and her experiences of visiting these areas of interest. Throughout the book, readers will understand the many factors that go into how urban agriculture became as successful in cities around the world, such as Paris where the government has supported numerous ideas from vineyards to bee hives. Readers will also learn about the importance of support from the community of Vancouver as the members of the community all contribute to urban farming. And hopefully the end result reflects that of Cuba where the use of urban agriculture resulted in a city that is self sustainable.Strengths and weaknesses:The book also does a great job in being able to quantify every point the author had. She provided values on how much land was being used in South California, gave values on how much London earns from urban gardens, and overall how many people are being fed via urban agricultures. These values and statistics go beyond the typical blog writer or activist and they help the reader really contextualize all impacts that urban agriculture brings.A weakness of this book is that the history of each city and culture is a little bit drawn out. The author spends a good majority of the first part of the book giving us in great detail of history and the origin of our current issues, whereas the strengths of the book come from reading about her own personal experiences through these cities.Summary:The book is a great read for those that have an interest in understanding where foods currently comes from, but aren’t yet fully aware of the current global stance on the food crisis that we currently face. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that is interested in urban agriculture or is feeling pessimistic about the future of our planet. This book gives hope and assurance on the prospect of feeding the population. Overall my opinion on this book is positive and has taught me that the human population has been and will hopefully always be resourceful and filled with critical thinkers.

Great Product and Great service

Riveting overview of urban agriculture initiatives around the world.

The idea of micro production of food needs to take in to account processing, storage/distribution, abnd retailing. It also has to address energy inputs to energy ooutputs. The ideas here are romntic but not realistic. for example I live in Saskatchewan with a 90 day frost free clinmate and 4 inches of topsoil and semi arid. Examples of Cuba were used to give ideas on what can be done.To me it also discussed trying to work in a capitalist market economy. This will not feed the increasing poor.Good to see what urban thinking is though as disconnected as it seems to be.