[Scpg] Investors see farms as way to grow Detroit LA TIMES

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Investors see farms as way to grow Detroit
Acres of vacant land are eyed for urban 
agriculture under an ambitious plan that aims to 
turn the struggling Rust Belt city into a green 
mecca.
www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-detroit-farms27-2009dec27,0,7336715.story
By P.J. Huffstutter
December 27, 2009


Reporting from Detroit - On the city's east side, 
where auto workers once assembled cars by the 
millions, nature is taking back the land.

Cottonwood trees grow through the collapsed roofs 
of homes stripped clean for scrap metal. Wild 
grasses carpet the rusty shells of empty 
factories, now home to pheasants and wild turkeys.

This green veil is proof of how far this city has 
fallen from its industrial heyday and, to a small 
group of investors, a clear sign. Detroit, they 
say, needs to get back to what it was before 
Henry Ford moved to town: farmland.

"There's so much land available and it's begging 
to be used," said Michael Score, president of the 
Hantz Farms, which is buying up abandoned 
sections of the city's 139-square-mile landscape 
and plans to transform them into a large-scale 
commercial farm enterprise.

"Farming is how Detroit started," Score said, 
"and farming is how Detroit can be saved."

The urban agricultural movement has grown 
nationwide in recent years, as recession-fueled 
worries prompted people to raise fruits and 
vegetables to feed their families and perhaps 
sell at local farmers' markets.

Large gardens and small farms -- usually 10 acres 
or less -- have cropped up in thriving cities 
such as Berkeley, where land is tough to come by, 
and struggling Rust Belt communities such as 
Flint, Mich., which hopes to encourage green 
space development and residents to eat locally 
grown foods.

In Detroit, hundreds of backyard gardens and 
scores of community gardens have blossomed and 
helped feed students in at least 40 schools and 
hundreds of families.

It is the size and scope of Hantz Farms that 
makes the project unique. 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 was launched two years ago by 
Michigan native and financier John Hantz, who has 
invested an initial $30 million of his own money 
toward purchasing equipment and land.

It will start small. Next spring, the farm is 
expected to begin growing crops on about 30 acres 
of land, Score said.

Because it has been difficult for Hantz and his 
team to purchase large contiguous parcels, much 
of the acreage has been grouped into smaller 
"pods." Each will grow different crops, depending 
on the condition of the soil and what buildings 
remain on the land, Score said.

Hantz executives envision a city where green 
fields and apple orchards flourish next to houses 
and factories, and forests thrive alongside 
interstates and highways. The team is still 
figuring out what will grow where: Tree groves 
could be planted where the soil is too 
contaminated to grow food, and empty factory 
buildings may be converted to house hydroponic 
fields to raise specialty vegetables, fruit and 
cooking herbs.

"People look at these abandoned houses and think, 
'No one could live there. Let's tear it down,' " 
said Score, a former business development 
consultant for Michigan State University's 
agricultural extension program.

"I look at it and think, maybe we could grow mushrooms inside there."

The idea of turning this former American 
manufacturing capital into an agrarian paradise 
is not that far-fetched, at least not with 
history as a guide.

The city, one of the Midwest's oldest, began as 
an agricultural settlement in the early 1700s 
with "ribbon" farms -- long, narrow stretches of 
land -- carved out along the edge of local 
rivers. And until its industrial boom of the 
early 20th century, this swath of southeastern 
Michigan was covered in apple and peach orchards 
and miles of grapevines.

In 1910, about 80% of the 396,800 acres of Wayne 
County was being farmed, according to research 
collected by Michigan State. By 1925, as the auto 
industry boomed, that figure fell to 47%.

Today, fewer than 21,000 acres are being farmed.

Local leaders say they are encouraged by the idea 
of farm jobs coming to Detroit, which could help 
ease the region's grim economic situation: The 
Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn area had an unemployment 
rate of 17.7% in October, the highest in a region 
of 1 million residents or more, according to the 
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But local officials put the number far higher: 
Mayor Dave Bing recently said that nearly half of 
the city's 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.

And in a city where there are no major grocery 
store chains, and more than three-fourths of the 
residents buy their food at convenience stores or 
gas stations, the idea of having easy access to 
fresh produce is appealing.

"There is real potential for this to work, 
because land prices in Detroit are low and 
there's a demand for local food," said Bill 
Knudson, an agricultural economist at Michigan 
State.

"The million-dollar question is whether that 
local-food trend is permanent," Knudson said. "If 
it is, then this plan works because you have more 
than a million consumers in the city and nearby 
areas to sell to. If not, you're going to have a 
hard time getting enough acreage put together to 
make the costs of running a commercial operation 
feasible."

City officials also remain cautious about the 
project. They point out that commercial farming 
brings with it numerous hurdles that other 
commercial projects don't.

Their concerns include figuring out who would pay 
for cleaning pollutants out of the soil and 
removing utility infrastructure, such as gas and 
sewer lines; how to rewrite the city's zoning 
laws; and how to adjust property tax rates and 
property values to allow for commercial farming.

"Urban farming will be part of Detroit's 
long-term redevelopment plan," Bing said in a 
statement.

However, he added, "as a city built primarily for 
manufacturing and industrial production, 
preparing land for widespread agricultural 
purposes is a process that cannot occur 
overnight."

p.j.huffstutter at latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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