Urban Agriculture Gets Funding Boost From UARP

Jul 15, 2021

The United States Botanic Garden (USBG) and the American Public Gardens Association (APGA) formed an alliance to support public gardens and their partners engaging in urban agriculture. This partnership, dubbed the Urban Agriculture Resilience Program (UARP), aims to strengthen collaborations, promote resilience and gather best practices from across the United States.

The USBG and APGA recently awarded $403,450 to 21 public garden partnerships in 16 states and Washington, D.C. The garden partnerships foster public engagement and education in growing food and building capacity in urban agriculture. They also address food security challenges worsened by COVID-19.

Urban Gardening Initiatives

Alabama is among the 16 states that received an award. The partnership, established between the Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Alabama A&M University (AAMU) and Community Kitchens, received a $10,000 award. The award will support the Bruno Vegetable Garden located on the grounds of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

The Bruno Vegetable Garden is a 5,000 square foot food relief garden designated to growing vegetables. Annually, the garden donates more than 3,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to Community Kitchens and other organizations. The garden grows vegetables such as leafy greens, radishes, tomatoes, squash, green beans and bell peppers. Community Kitchens is a non-profit organization that offers free lunch to those in need, including people impacted by COVID-19.

“We are grateful to the United States Botanic Garden and American Public Gardens Association for supporting our ongoing work to share what we grow and harvest here at the Gardens with people in our community who otherwise have limited to no access to fresh, locally grown produce,” says Tom Underwood, Executive Director of the Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens. “These funds will also help us continue our efforts to promote wellness and nutrition by educating the public about growing and consuming fruits and vegetables.”

“Urban agricultural production is on the rise in Jefferson County and in many other counties across Alabama,” said Tyler Mason, an Alabama Extension at AAMU regional agent. “Producers and homeowners need resources they can depend on for reliable information. That’s what the Alabama Extension and Birmingham Botanical Gardens partnership delivers. The partnership also serves the community by providing delicious produce for the food insecure through initiatives like the Bruno Vegetable Garden.”

Urban Agriculture Resilience Program

The UARP was established in 2020 to sustain urban gardens that encountered challenges because of COVID-19. According to Feeding America, an estimated 42 million people, including 13 million children, will experience food insecurity this year alone. While many people experienced food insecurity prior to the pandemic, COVID-19 only increased hardship for many individuals and families. Programs like UARP help to sustain community food gardens that are vital to reducing food insecurity in America.

Specifically, the UARP enhances the strength of public gardens that work with community partners. These partners include entities such as schools, urban farms, food pantries, community gardens and public and private organizations. Also, according to a recent press release the UARP “will provide insight into successful approaches and future opportunities for public gardens and their partners to creatively utilize their unique assets to advance food and agriculture education in urban communities.”

Source : aces.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”