San Francisco Passes Laws to Jump-Start Urban Farming

“[San Franciscans] are thought of as food­ies, and envi­ron­men­tal­ists,” said Laura Tam, a pol­icy direc­tor at the non­profit San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR), which helped push the new rules for­ward. “This is a mar­ry­ing of our sus­tain­abil­ity objec­tives with the rep­u­ta­tion that we have in the world.”

The leg­is­la­tion [PDF] fol­lows zon­ing changes last year that made it eas­ier to oper­ate small farms and legal to sell food grown in San Francisco. This new set of laws will take it fur­ther by remov­ing addi­tional bureau­cratic bar­ri­ers for hope­ful gar­den­ers and actively search­ing for land they can use while pro­vid­ing them with seeds, tools, and advice.

A major focus of the bill is com­mu­nity gar­den­ing — neigh­bors com­ing together to orga­nize, till, and cul­ti­vate plots of land in mini-farms that are man­aged cooperatively.

Aided by $120,000 in city fund­ing in its first year, the Urban Agriculture Program will hire a city offi­cial or non­profit orga­ni­za­tion to over­see all com­mu­nity gar­den­ing within San Francisco. The city’s util­ity agency will also pro­vide addi­tional funds to sup­port two farms on land that it owns.

The pro­gram will audit city-owned land and rooftops in a quest to dig up poten­tial new pub­lic gar­den­ing sites. It will also develop incen­tives for own­ers of vacant lots to allow their land to be used for com­mu­nity farming.

Passage of the bill fol­lows a rise in pop­u­lar­ity of urban farm­ing nation­ally, which has been fueled by the loca­vore and organic food move­ments, and by the reces­sion, which has left lots vacant and fam­i­lies hungry.

A hand­ful of urban food gar­dens have popped up in recent years through­out San Francisco. Some are on pub­lic land and oth­ers are on pri­vate lots in high-density neigh­bor­hoods that are slated to be devel­oped after the econ­omy improves.

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