Urban Farm Day 2008
711 Emile St
Emile St. Community Farm
A few Saturdays ago (June 14), Last Organic Outpost held an event at the Emile St. Community Farm in Houston, TX called Urban Farm Day. This was spearheaded by a wonderfully-spirited Joe Nelson Ice T who founded the Last Organic Outpost, a non-proft organization. Joe has taken countless strides to build community in Houston where, if just by looking you would think is lost in a sea of traffic and concrete. He achieves this through growing gardens and providing local, organic food to the nearby residents. Urban Farm Day was a celebration of this community and in agriculture, sustainability, love of the land and all that it can provide for us.
Two things were most profound to me that day: meeting Dan Phillips, one of the keynote speakers of the day, and taking part in the ceremonial blessing of the garden. After hearing so much of Dan Phillips, also a Huntsvillian, and all his wonderful contributions to humanity I officially met him there in the garden. Right there underneath a Chinese tallow tree, in front of the giant "FarmArt" sign that was recently added to the Silo by some biodiesel powered artists from the east coast, I became educated about how he recycles and reuses old stuff into new artistic, beautiful, low cost, efficient housing. Now, I knew that he was doing these types of housing projects in the great city of Huntsville, but I did not realize how much he cared about the current state of the world and how much we, Westerners, waste in any given day. That is what struck me the most because I think about those things everyday and how so much useable material just gets thrown in the landfill. And that some products only have a single use and that single use may only be a few days but the life cycle of it can be thousands of years. Oh yes, reduce, reuse, recycle, has been my motto for so long. Only now has that phrase evolved into something much, much bigger and even more meaningful.
The second most profound thing was the ancient ceremonial dance to bless the land and garden was absolutely amazing and was something I have never done. Although we received a crash course in how to do the dance and we probably weren't the most graceful group, there was a common purpose. Without farms there would be no food, without quality soil and water we would not be here. It was a celebration of fundamentals of life that gets taken for granted in our culture. I do not know their names, the couple that did this dance, I would like to thank them for performing and teaching a powerful blessing. It meant quite a lot to me to be a part of it and the entire Urban Farm Day. I left there energized, elated even and so empowered by all the great people attending, it only spurred me to keep pushing for what is important in life: education, art, sustainable local communities and food. I think that is what Joe wanted and he has succeeded wonderfully. I hope Houston takes a hard listen to what he has to say.
I would also like to personally thank all that helped with preparing and providing the food for the event. Also thank you to those that spoke about their current projects regarding recycling, reusing, and sustainable building. What great things you all do.
Dan Phillip's website
www.phoenixcommotion.com
Last Organic Outpost
www.lastorganicoutpost.com
Houston's Radio for Peace 90.1 FM
www.kpft.org
I am happy to see that the urban farm day went well.
It seems to be a really exciting time for urban farming. There is the movement towards "urban homesteading" and guerrilla gardening in various areas (and press/acceptance of these ides is increasing, it seems) and now there is growing excitement about the creation of vertical farming. We've highlighted a support campaign for forward movement with those on our blog.
Keep up the great, great work.
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