Category: Rooftop

A new homeless shelter in Atlanta is opening up positions for farming to it’s residents. They are growing on top of the shelter’s rooftop and raising crops like: “lettuce, collards, kale, chard and carrots”. Their whole idea behind the project was to grow enough to feed all of the residents “something green” daily.

“It is important to share and train residents in green technology that we are involved in because poor and homeless people are being left out of the green development that we see burgeoning in our community,” Anita Beaty, executive director of Metro Atlanta Task Force, told Atlanta Progressive News.

Read entire article at: “HuffingtonPost.com“

More than 50% of US land, is being used for agricultural purposes, but still land is a limited resource. Here’s two new innovative companies that are taking US farms to the rooftops.

“The founders of the New York, NY-based Gotham Greens – Viraj Puri, Eric Haley, and Jenn Nelkin Frymark – had a vision for a local, ecologically-driven, urban farm operation that could offer city dwellers the freshest and highest quality culinary ingredients, year-round, at competitive prices.”

“Founders of the Washington, DC-based Up Top Acres – Kristof Grina, Kathleen O’Keefe, and Jeffrey Prost-Greene – having grown up together, found a similar passion for creating a space in the city that benefited residents environmentally, socially and economically. Kristof was working on a small farm in Maryland, Kathleen was working in urban planning and Jeff was working on a start up. The idea of rooftop farming sprouted.”

Read more of the original article at: “Tech.Co”

Urban farming on city rooftops is gaining popularity, and for many reasons. Everyone wants to consume food that is produced closer to home.

Space limitations in a city such as Hong Kong make rooftop farming an attractive option for growers. Farming on the rooftop has numerous social, economic and environmental benefits. A HKU paper examining green roofs concluded that:

“Apart from enhancing the city landscape and environment, mitigating the urban heat island effect and improving air quality, green roofs can improve the micro-climate and increase the life span of waterproof and insulation facilities on the roof. Consequently, roof greening with a sufficiently large scale is conducive to energy conservation and life cycle cost saving for the urban city.

Green roofs can help reduce three of the four top problems facing society in the next 50 years: energy, water, and environment. In this way, the green roof technology has a potential to improve the quality of population health and welfare in urban areas with dramatically reduced vegetation.”

Read the entire article at: “HongKongfp.com“

Next time you’re at a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, wander over to the Third Base side of the EMC Level for a peek at their 5,000 square foot urban farm. Positioned on top of their Front Office, they’re growing an estimated 4,000 lbs. of broccoli, kale, sweet potatoes and more!  If you’re hungry, sit down at the Fenway Park’s EMC Club restaurant to sample some of the organic vegetables grown right there on the rooftop.

Original post can be found at: “GreenCityGrowers.com“