If You Want Fresh
Foods, Just Look Up
By: Tomoko
Do
you know that there are many rooftop farms sprouting up all over New York
City and surrounding boroughs?
Brooklyn Grange, one of the forerunners, had its first rooftop farm in Long Island City in Queens. Now, has a second farm in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The grange covers a total 2.5 acres on two buildings, and they grow more than 50,000 pounds of organic food annually. In addition, they also have chicken coops and more than 30 beehives on their rooftops. Brooklyn Grange developed its first farm in 2010 with a $200K start up of (personal loans, equity investments, fundraising, and Kickstarter.com), lo and behold, they profited that same year.
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While Brooklyn Grange operates during the summer time.
There is another rooftop farm called Gotham Green in Green Point, Brooklyn.
They have hydroponic greenhouse, making them productive 365 days, and they grow
bok choy, basil and oak leaf lettuce, and sell to retailers like Whole Foods
and FreshDirect. Many quality conscious restaurants and health/environmentally
conscious supermarkets choose to buy their products because of availability of
fresh products throughout the year, and also their ability to deliver the
products no matter what – since they are in NYC!. When the East Coast was hit
by the last hurricane, those city farmers were the only ones who could deliver
the goods to the restaurants as soon as the weather cleared. If you look at
where your fresh foods come from (avocado from California, grapes from Chile,
garlics from China, etc), you wonder how much of the food cost is actually the
transportation cost. But for the city farmers, including those 2 farms
mentioned above, all they had to do is to cross the bridge by bicycle. Talking
about fuel efficiency and environmental friendliness, this is the future of the
city farming. And they are financially sound for they are expanding rapidly.
Gotham
Green in Green Point, Brooklyn
Not only does the rooftop agriculture benefit the local
food scene, it provides education and employment opportunities, it also benefits
their landlord. By putting soil on top of the building and having greens grown
on the rooftop, it reduces the temperature of the building significantly in
the summertime, and reduces the AC bills drastically. Plus, the landlord also
makes money from renting out the rooftop, often time 5-10 year lease, from
which they never thought they would make money off of decades ago.
A city-owned food distribution hub in Hunt’s Point, Bronx
is also being planned to develop its 200,000-square-foot rooftop. When the
project is complete, the location will become the largest rooftop farm, not
only in the United States, but in the world. Not only Queens and Brooklyn, the
Bronx has many box type buildings and rooftop farm candidates. As of 2012, the
Bronx already had 13 rooftop farms and there are many being developed as we
speak.
So
when you need a respite in some green in the city, if you lift your eyes up,
you may not be so far from one of those city oasis and some fresh tomatoes.
