I find it both ironic and unfortunate that we are turning rural farm fields into suburban homesteads; at the same time that we are turning an entire city block into farm land. The rural and suburban farmers complain that there is no market for their produce; yet we read that there is insuffient access to produce in the city. What is the problem? Why do we need to eliminate existing infrastructure and lose the tax base for something that already exists a few miles away? It just seems backwards.

In regard to urban / east side residents purchasing fresh produce and food; all I can say is that I lived in poverty for a number of years. You can feed an entire family on 2 boxes of $.39 spaghetti or fettucine noodles ($.80 total) yet the average orange costs $.80 a piece; bananas are $.50 each, the same as a can of spaghettios or mini-raviolis. It is not cost effective to purchase fresh produce when you are on a fixed or supplemented income, the prepared foods are more cost effective on the fixed budget.

I see this as a 'pie-in-the-sky' solution that is only possible because of the poverty and vacancy in Buffalo. We have to stop suburban expansion, save the usable farm land, and force people to move to the city. There isn't enough space in the city to farm economically; it is just going to be a nice-to-have at best, a trendy little farm to say that you bought your produce locally, the price for that is huge.

Clearly slowing or reversing sprawl is a desirable goal, but there has been little political will to do that.

This proposal is a creative effort to utilize some of the hundreds (thousands?) of acres of vacant residential lots in Buffalo.

One option, after the tragic ice storm least October, might be to create tree nurseries on some of the vacant lots . . . "tree farms" creating some jobs for struggling nearby neighbors, especially on more polluted tracts . . . in addition to more idealistic aspirations to raise produce.

Dick Kern

I'm curious, how does the City zone these things. As far as I know the City has no zoning for agriculture, which this clearly is. How do other cities deal with this issue.

I've had the unique and very fortunate opportunity to introduce Rod McCallum to this neighborhood and 194 East Utica - I live two blocks away from the proposed farm site.

I first wrote about the house abit over a year ago and according to Common Council proceedings, Louis Engel built 194 East Utica in 1889. He was a produce dealer and had a biz located at 37 Michigan in the former Elk Market. This location now belongs to the Senecas.

Here's a post with plenty of links to interior and exterior slide shows - right here... You'll want to click into that and at least see/hear the piece that BRO's own David Steele wrote. The Preservation Board was key in helping us remove 194 East Utica from the demolition list - as the City had already contracted to spend 23K to knock it down...

We'll soon be adding Queen City Farm to the growing list of near East side success stories - Merrieweather Library, Performing Arts HS and Artspace...still plenty of houses to homestead over here...join me on a tour - every Saturday at 11am...Rod and his family were the first to show up for my first Artspace Backyard Neighborhood Tour, last November...

If you can't make Rod's presentation Tuesday at the Landmark Society, make sure to attend the fundraiser later this month...