New York’s JFK airport has an urban farm. Wait, what?

The potatoes in your bag of complimentary airline chips could someday come from a farm at — surprise! — New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Outside JetBlue Airways’ Terminal 5, a few thousand black plastic crates form raised beds for an urban garden. USA Today reports:

Designed to promote New York agriculture and add a bit more green space to the airport, the 24,000-square-foot T5 farm is growing produce, herbs, and the same blue potatoes used to make the Terra Blues potato chips JetBlue offers year-round as complimentary snacks to passengers during flights.

“In today’s world of genetically modified and franken-foods, it is very important to know where your food comes from,” said Brian Holtman, JetBlue’s manager of concession programs, at a farm “reveal” on Thursday. “By creating a farm at T5, we can show crew members and customers exactly where their food is coming from.”

This fledging farm-to-airplane-tray movement has a long way to go. It takes between one and three potatoes to produce each bag of JetBlue chips, according to CBS, and JetBlue hands out 5.8 million bags each year. The potatoes grown in the airport’s garden (smaller than half a football field) would meet less than 1 percent of that demand, CBS points out. That’s not the plan for right now anyway: The farm will provide produce for the terminal’s restaurants.

Read more here.

90 percent of US could live on food grown entirely within 100 miles

New farmland-mapping research shows the country’s surprising potential when it comes to eating more locally.

In all the years that I’ve been writing about choosing food grown nearby, the irony that persists is this: I can easily find and purchase food that was grown within 100 miles of my New York City address, but people who live in the middle of farming country cannot. If you ask me, that speaks of a screwy food system in need of help. We grow so much food in this country, yet the average food item travels, by one oft-quoted statistic, some 1,500 miles to reach our plates. Food miles aren't the only important thing when it comes to eating sustainably, but if we could make some shifts toward opting for things that were produced more closely, it would clearly be helpful.

But would it be possible for everyone to eat locally? According to a new study by Elliott Campbell, a professor at the University of California, Merced, it is. In his research, he found that in fact, 90 percent of Americans could be fed entirely by food grown or raised within 100 miles of their homes. It's hypothetical of course, but the potential is intriguing. And hopeful.

Read more here.

Land, Co-ops, Compost: A Local Food Economy Emerges in Boston's Poorest Neighborhoods

From kitchens that buy and sell locally grown food, to a waste co-op that will return compost to the land, new enterprises are building an integrated food network. It's about local people keeping the wealth of their land at home.

When Glynn Lloyd couldn’t source enough locally grown produce, he decided to grow his own.

Since 1994, Lloyd has run City Fresh Foods, a catering company based in Roxbury—one of Boston's lowest-income neighborhoods. He wanted his business to use locally produced food, but at that time it was hard to come by. So in 2009 Lloyd helped found City Growers, one of Boston's first for-profit farming ventures.

Today, City Growers is part of an emerging network of urban food enterprises in Roxbury and neighboring Dorchester. From a community land trust that preserves land for growing, to kitchens and retailers who buy and sell locally grown food, to a new waste management co-op that will return compost to the land, a crop of new businesses and nonprofits are building an integrated food economy. It's about local people keeping the wealth of their land and labor in the community.

“We don’t need big corporations like Walmart to come in and save us," Lloyd said. "We have homegrown solutions right here.”

Read more: http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/boston-s-emerging-food-economy