Welcome to POP Farming!

banana organoponico in Cuba

I’m excited to announce the new blog for the Portland Organoponico Project (POP).  You can come here to find out about the exciting new movement of urban farming.  We are inspired by the Organoponico farms in Cuba that popped up around the time of the Soviet collapse.  Cuba called this time the “Special Period”.  I guess it was special if you consider a sudden lack of resources including, most importantly, fuel and food to be special.

The media continues to ramp up their attention to urban farming and it’s importance in the new green economy.  It seems like a movement that makes so much sense would have gotten more attention in years past.  We’ll take the opportunity and space in this blog to keep you informed about how the local food and urban farming movements are gathering steam to become a growing force.  I expect that president-elect Obama (I love saying that) and his interest in the green economy will drive interest even higher.

Let’s start out with an article from Reuters today.  It mimics so many articles that have been written over the past few months.  It touts the achievements of the Cubans overcominb their food crisis by implementing organic urban farms in every nook and cranny of their urban areas.  Every vacant lot, every patch of open space, every crumbling building has been turned into growing space.  In their food crisis they were forced to develop a truly sustainable and ultra-local food system.  It’s my thought that we can take the hard lessons learned by the Cubans and apply them to our own situation before we actually need to do it.  Take a look at this article to get a general overview of what I’m talking about.

–POP Farmer