Michael Ableman, the cofounder and director of Sole Food Street Farms, is one of the early visionaries of the urban agriculture movement. He has created high-profile urban farms in Watts, California; Goleta, California; and Vancouver, British Columbia. Ableman has also worked on and advised dozens of similar projects throughout North America and the Caribbean, and he is the founder of the nonprofit Center for Urban Agriculture. He is the subject of the award-winning PBS film Beyond Organic narrated by Meryl Streep. His previous books include From the Good Earth, On Good Land, and Fields of Plenty. Ableman lives and farms at the 120-acre Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.
Choice- "This work is an engaging personal narrative about the
creation of Sole Food Street Farms, a small-scale urban farm with
several locations in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, British
Columbia—one of the poorest urban areas in North America. This book
discusses urban blight, human misery, and, in an astonishing
juxtaposition, organic farming. It describes the challenges and
rewards of farming in a place where poverty, drug addiction, and
crime are prevalent; it also describes a location where concrete
and asphalt cover the ground, and the soil underneath is polluted
by a century of industrial and other urban use. The book is filled
with colorful photographs of people and farms. The popularity of
this 'hot topic' alone will make this work attractive to a wide
array of academic libraries serving undergraduate populations. It
is strongly recommended for academic and public libraries in
British Columbia and for all public libraries that service either
rural or urban populations. Summing Up: Highly recommended.
Lower-division undergraduates and general readers.”
“Most of the world’s people live in cities, and Street
Farm is a story of how to bring cities back to life, literally
and emotionally. The cold, forbidding landscapes of urban life
bring our hearts to a standstill. When streets, medians, abandoned
land, parks, and byways are transformed by soil, bugs, microbes,
pollinators, and seeds, lives bloom. Connectedness flourishes, and
people become denizens once again. “Local food is not a mere
talisman or gesture. We localize food webs near our homes for
identity, nourishment, and taste. Taste is a sense, but it is also
a common sense. Local food not only addresses quality of life,
economy, and food security, it changes our hearts. Michael Ableman
has a finely honed sensibility. Read how he gardens society, grows
well-being, weeds out despair, and sows hope in this wonderfully
written testament to life.”--Paul Hawken, author of Blessed
Unrest
“Whenever Michael Ableman sees a barrier, he runs over and kicks it
in. Lucky for us, this strikingly focused anarchist writes about it
too, sharing the deeply moving story of reclaiming land and
building real community in the most unlikely places, from the
ground up. Read this book and be amazed.”--Dan Barber,
chef/co-owner, Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns; author of
The Third Plate
“Michael Ableman is an innovator extraordinaire whose projects have
a track record of benchmarking new models of best practice. He is
one of the handful of inspiring visionaries on the planet who are
redefining our future food systems.”--Patrick Holden, founding
director, Sustainable Food Trust
“In this inspiring book, Michael Ableman documents that generating
paradise by growing vegetables amidst the urban jungle also
rehabilitates lost souls, builds community, and creates genuine
economic value. Street Farm is a great antidote to pessimism,
illustrating how even seemingly broken people can contribute to
themselves, to society, and to our shared ecology.”--Gabor Maté,
MD, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
“Street Farm tells it like it is on a gritty urban farm,
introducing us to rough but real people who learn to live again
through growing food and nurturing the soil. Michael Ableman shows
us that we can amend distressed soils and distressed communities
alike.”--Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City
“Michael Ableman recognises that urban growing is not just about
producing lovely, healthy, local food. It’s about creating
meaningful work that pays a decent living and showing that the
cities where most of us now live can play a vital role in building
a better, more resilient food system. In Street Farm, Ableman
writes about many of the issues that we also grapple with as we
strive to build a better food system in London. Sole Food Street
Farms is an uplifting demonstration of how communities really can
change the world: inspiration for all those who feel they might be
too small or powerless to make a difference.”--Julie Brown,
director, Growing Communities
“Michael Ableman examines the heart and soul of urban agriculture
through the eyes, hands, and hearts of people in need of a place of
civility and serenity. The passion and humility of the farmers who
work at Sole Food Street Farms in Vancouver shines through. They
are neighborhood folks, many with transgressions of addictions, who
find solace in farming. Ableman strongly believes that farming must
be grounded in an economy in which food has value and so do the
people who grow it. From Street Farm, we learn that urban
agriculture indeed takes a village of planners, politicians,
investors, and believers to envision such an economy, with urban
agriculture as the new economic engine providing jobs, feeding
families, and building communities.”--Karen Washington, urban farm
activist; co-founder of Black Urban Growers
“This is the most inspiring book I have read in years. I found
myself trembling at the monumental challenges that Michael Ableman
and his colleagues faced and overcame in creating a set of urban
farms in some of the most downtrodden neighborhoods on the
continent. This is a story of hope, disappointment, and hope
returning, detailing the mistakes and setbacks as well as the
victories and benefits of creating a large-scale food-growing
program in a big city. It shows us how far we have yet to go to
provide healthy food to any city’s underprivileged, but inspires us
with the progress that Ableman and others have made. Told in moving
vignettes and full of useful tips for those who want to try to heal
the urban food grid, this is an important book. It’s essential
reading for everyone in the urban food movement.”--Toby Hemenway,
author of The Permaculture City and Gaia’s Garden
“Sole Food Street Farms is living proof that creative social
enterprises, thoughtful land use, and green jobs can combine to
make cities more inclusive and resilient. Michael Ableman’s work
and passion helped make Vancouver a global leader in urban food
systems, with happier and healthier people.”--Gregor Robertson,
mayor, Vancouver, British Columbia
Sierra Magazine- “A compelling tale…filled with touching
characters, conflict, and ultimately, redemption.”
“In a publishing world where trivial passing thoughts are blogged
into barely passable books, it is a serious pleasure to come upon a
warts-and-all account of a deeply important enterprise.
In Street Farm, long-time farmer Michael Ableman reports on
the triumphs and failures of Vancouver’s Sole Food Street Farms.
The goal of this five-acre network of four farms—begun in the
poorest postal code in Canada—is to produce, from thousands of
boxes of planted dirt, not just delicious food but salvaged lives.
Candid about the difficulties of creating flourishing farms on hot
pavements and of making reliable farm workers of dispirited locals
who struggle not only with poverty but with assorted personal
demons, Ableman has written an important, inspiring, and bravely
honest book.”--Joan Gussow, author of Growing,
Older and This Organic Life
Publishers Weekly- "In this insightful, inspiring narrative,
Ableman explains that he had been a farmer for 40 years when he
decided to attend a meeting in an urban slum in Vancouver, British
Columbia, called Low Track. That meeting and several more resulted
in Sole Food Street Farms, which is currently operating four urban
farms in downtown Vancouver. Those interested in starting their own
neighborhood or urban garden will deeply appreciate his insight
into urban farming’s unique challenges and opportunities. Those
serious about embarking on a similar endeavor will find a mix of
inspiration and solid advice they’ll want to keep close at
hand.”
“From skid row to rows of food: Michael Ableman’s interwoven
growing skills and people empowerment are beautifully illustrated
here by ‘ground zero’ spaces transformed to market gardens. His
long experience of creating non-profit urban farms has borne fruit
in Vancouver, BC. Sole Food Street Farms produces twenty-five tons
of food every year, grown in unlikely places by drug-addicted
farmers, softened in the process like the soil they tend. Ableman
acknowledges it’s an imperfect endeavour, but these gardens offer
hope: ‘Food’s the next thing, man!’”--Charles Dowding, no-dig
organic market gardener; author of How to Create a New Vegetable
Garden
“I have known Michael Ableman for over twenty years. He is one of
the pioneers of small-scale urban farming, growing quality food for
urban communities. He has worked through the challenges inherent to
urban farming and is a premier trainer in the industry. Michael has
been and is an inspiration to myself and many urban agriculture
leaders around the country and the world.”--Will Allen, founder and
CEO, Growing Power
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