Fields Heritage Radio Network

On this week's episode of Fields, Melissa (Wythe was away on jury duty) speaks with the multi-talented Annie Novak.

Annie is the co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, the director of Growing Chefs, a nonprofit that provides food education in schools and the community, the manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, and the author of The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a Vegetable Garden or Farm. Annie began her journey into growing with commodity chain analysis (where does food come from, and where does it go?), by working at greenmarkets, and by learning from farmers in Upstate New York. She still stresses a regional perspective, emphasizing the importance of rural farms. Of course, she still loves botanical gardens and urban farms for their social impacts and educational offerings. Today, much of Annie’s work focuses on education. At the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, she offers children and adults first-hand experiences with plants and fungi in a vegetable garden and a greenhouse.

Melissa and Annie dive into how trees communicate, the metaphors we use to talk about plants and fungi, how they relate to each other and to us, and the need for “tenderness toward nonhuman things.” The two discuss creating biodiverse farm ecosystems and revisit the idea of seeds as time travelers. Annie offers a profound appreciation for the nonhuman living world. It’s a deep conversation, and one you won’t want to miss!

Photo courtesy of Naima Green.

Wythe and Melissa are delighted to chat with not one but two experts on urban agriculture from two different parts of the United States Department of Agriculture: Nina Bhattacharyya, Urban Agriculture Specialist at the USDA Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (UAIP), and Blake Glover, State Conservationist at the New York State Office of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

Nina and Blake clarify how the USDA supports urban growers around the country, with a focus on the People’s Garden program, founded in 2009 and renewed in 2022, which includes sites in Washington D.C. and New York City (Garden of Happiness, Taqwa Community Farm, and the Urban Soils Institute on Governors Island). In fact, gardens across the country can participate in the People’s Garden program by registering online at usda.gov/peoples-garden/registration-form.

We talk with Nina and Blake about urban agriculture policy across levels, local conservation practices, composting, how people in cities come to engage in agriculture, and how that interest empowers communities and transforms food systems. We also discuss the hurdles that many community gardens face, including zoning and permitting, access to water, and funding. One key point is that the People’s Garden program can provide funds to upgrade urban garden and farm infrastructure. And NRCS supports via funds and knowledge regarding high tunnels and other technologies that not only conserve soil but help local gardeners and farmers grow food for more of the year, and thus help communities become more food-secure.

And in recent news, the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) has provided additional resources and networking opportunities for the 1300+ registered gardens network. These resources include a webinar series and a subgroup on the Extension Foundation Connect site to help gardens network with each other. This is also a way for USDA to share funding opportunities with the garden network. Finally, OUAIP is highlighting gardens from across the country through our People’s Garden website, the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production newsletter, and USDA social media.

Melissa and Wythe catch up with their friend Jonas Günther, co-founder of the Brooklyn-based food startup, We Are the New Farmers (WATNF). The New Farmers don’t grow lettuce and tomatoes, however: they grow a fresh superfood called Spirulina—a fast-growing microalgae (clump of tiny water-living plants) that looks like a beautiful dark green foam, has no taste, and can be used to add nutrients to almost any dish.

Jonas walks us through the history of his company, starting at NYU, where he first met Wythe and Melissa, and moving into the fraught world of ag tech startups and packaged goods, where you have to find a way to very quickly tell the story of your food product’s health benefits and sustainable production cycle. We learn a little about microalgae and a lot about “farming” in steel bioreactor-tanks in a major city.

Tune in for some weird science, and consider trying some fresh Spirulina in your next smoothie or bowl of noodles!

For the first time in Fields history, Wythe and Melissa interview four urban growers at once! We speak to the principles of H3irloom Food Group—Linda and Floyd Taliaferro, and David and Tonya Thomas—about their simultaneously innovative and tradition-inspired approach to cooking and growing, as well as their educational initiatives using agriculture.

Longtime collaborators with local farmers, the H3irloom Food Group is currently developing their own 68-acre farm, Gabriel Fields, just outside of Baltimore (in Baltimore County). Through growing and cooking, they’re connecting their culinary work to a tradition of land stewardship in the Mid-Atlantic that goes back to the arrival of enslaved Africans on Turtle Island/North America.

H3irloom uses delicious food, sourced locally, to help tell important stories about Black food traditions, especially in and around Baltimore. Join Melissa and Wythe for another powerful conversation about the roles that growing food plays in culture, both in and beyond the kitchen! And stay tuned as we catch up with H3irloom regarding their farm in the near future.

Melissa and Wythe sit down at the Heritage Radio Network studio in Roberta’s to chat with Ben Flanner, co-founder and CEO of Brooklyn Grange, to talk about the history and future of rooftop farming.

Ben walks us through the decade-long history of Brooklyn Grange, which has led the field in turning rooftops into farms in NYC. We talk about the challenges that face rooftop farmers, the innovations that have led their business model to work, the different kinds of crops grown across the many Grange rooftops, and what the future holds. We also brainstorm about edible meadows, urban food forests, and the general eater’s shifting awareness about food and agriculture’s links to climate. It’s a special conversation, and we hope you’ll give it a listen!

If you enjoyed Seasons 1 and 2 of Fields, get ready for some of our biggest, boldest episodes yet in Season 3! If you haven’t tuned in to Fields before, no worries. Check out our new episodes, dropping soon. Many thanks to all of our guests, from farmers and chefs to USDA and Extension agents.