To create and sustain food security, these challenges will need to be overcome, at least to some degree. One of the biggest obstacles may be how residents conceive of possible solutions. This includes many assumptions about what can and cannot be grown, the methods of cultivating or raising food, the restrictions of climate or topography or law, or the availability of land. Although a sizable number of Northamptonites are interested in growing their own food in urban and suburban settings, many people view conventional agriculture as the primary—if not the only—means to grow enough food for their community to be more secure and less dependent on the global food system.
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This project addresses the obstacles facing local food security in Northampton, in part by (a) looking for existing opportunities that can be expanded, (b) highlighting new opportunities for initiating the critical infrastructure needed for a local food system, and (c) looking past pre-conceived notions about agriculture that could limit the adoption of innovative ideas.
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Restricted Growing Season Consumers have come to expect an assorted selection of produce throughout the year and enjoy products imported from abroad. Local growers and distributors have trouble competing with suppliers from the West Coast and the southern hemisphere because of the cooler climate and shorter growing season here. Northampton’s outdoor growing season for most crops is no more than 120 days and as short as 90 days at higher altitudes. Indoor growing can prolong the growing season, but with conventional methods often at an added financial and energy cost.
Little Economic Incentive to Become a Farmer Over the last fifty years in the U.S., agribusiness has expanded to become a $1.5 trillion business annually, but farmers are receiving an increasingly smaller percentage of that figure (Pretty 2001).
Land is too expensive to farm Finding affordable land to cultivate as a start-up farmer can be a considerable barrier.
Lead-contaminated soil in urban environments Lead contamination in urban soils associated with old factories, gas stations, coal ash from late-twentieth-century residential coal-fired heaters, and buildings that once had or currently have lead paint poses a potential health hazard. Other unseen contaminates may also make food cultivated at polluted sites harmful (Nordahl 2009).
Wildlands versus Agriculture Wildlife need intact habitat, and farming and development can overlap with that habitat and destroy it. Agriculture may have to be kept from certain areas to respect wildlife.
Feed NorthamptoN challenges TO a lOcal fOOd sysTem in nOrThampTOn
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