When one thinks of Detroit, many images of the motor city may be conjured up, but agricultural production is probably not one of them. This may be about to change, as the vacant land areas in this Rust Belt city may be converted into an urban agricultural developments.As P.J Huffstutter reports for the Los Angeles Times, nature is already starting to take back some of the city’s abandoned areas as wild grasses and cottonwood trees are springing up in areas where automobiles used to be made. As Huffstutter reports, to a group of investors, this is a sign of what Detroit’s future should be—the city it was before Henry Ford showed up—a farm friendly city.
Michael Score is president of the Hantz Farms. Hantz Farms is currently purchasing abandoned sections “of the city’s 139-square-mile landscape and plans to transform them into a large-scale commercial farm enterprise.” As Score states in the LA Times article, ‘“Farming is how Detroit started . . . and farming is how Detroit can be saved.”
With the ongoing recession and the popularity of local farmers markets, many urbanites have started to grow their own vegetables as part of the increasing popular urban agricultural movement. Green space development in cities is also a way to help encourage residents to purchase more locally produced foods, thus directly affecting their local economy by their purchasing decisions. All of this would be good for a city that does not have a major supermarket chain for people to shop.
Huffstutter reports that currently in Detroit there are hundreds of community and backyard gardens, and some of these are providing food to schools and needy families. Hantz Farms, though, is thinking bigger than the community garden down the road.
“Although company officials declined to pinpoint how many acres they might use, they have been quoted as saying that they plan to farm up to 5,000 acres within the Motor City's limits in the coming years, raising organic lettuces, trees for biofuel and a variety of other things.”
The project started two years ago by John Hantz, who is a Michigander and a financier. Hantz is clearly serious about this effort as he invested “an initial $30 million of his own money toward purchasing equipment and land.”
Though Hantz Farms is thinking big, they will have to start small with initial crops growing on 30 acres. Naturally, it was difficult to purchase large parcels of land, so these smaller parcels will grow different crops depending on the conditions of the land, and the parcels are being called ‘“pods.”’
The vision Hantz sees is a city flourishing with green life/crop production next to homes and buildings, essentially integrating agriculture into the city’s everyday life and bustle. Right now Hantz Farms is determining what they can grow where depending on what the environmental conditions will allow as far as crop production.
Huffstutter writes that this idea is not too far-fetched as the city started as an agriculture community in the 1700s. In fact, the whole of southeastern Michigan was an apple and peach orchard and grapevine covered landscape until the industrial revolution of the 20th century came roaring in and changed the landscaped of Detroit and lower Michigan dramatically. Today there are fewer than 21,000 acres being farmed.
Now, with the automotive industry struggles and high unemployment in the current recession, Detroit is looking to its past to see how to model its future. Clearly some investors think agriculture can play a critical role in the city’s recovery.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing believes half of the cities workers are either unemployed or underemployed. “These officials support the effort to redevelop the estimated one-third of Detroit’s 376,000 parcels that are either vacant or abandoned.” That’s a lot of land that could be converted in to the type of agricultural pods Hantz Farms envisions.
To read the LA Times story click here.
Posted: 12/28/09
