To cultivate vegetable in Soho, Manhattan, NY.

The last time I visited Manhattan I walked a bit around [they suggest you not to do this if you're a tourist, but for me it's ok].

Now, I was in the downtown [near the stock exchange, in Nassau Street to be accurate]. And taking broadway I walked North [with the new WTC as a kind of reference behind my shoulders].

Suddenly [surprising things always happen suddenly] I noted a farm. What? A farm in the middle of Manhattan?


Uh?
It's a farm which cultivates in Manhattan to sell local products. Now ... I wonder about how healthy are those products, but anyway the matter of fact that there is a farm in the middle of Manhattan [not exactly in the middle, it's a bit South of the middle] is particular.

What do you think about the idea to cultivate vegetables near to where you need them?

 

Has to be some unique tax consideration to discount the land value.

 

Right. The landowner gets his property taxes abated or forgiven, in return for allowing agriculture on urban land. The produce from such farms thus costs the community orders of magnitude more than produce grown on more fertile and suitably located land. IOW, it's nothing but another scam to increase the subsidy to idle landowning.

 

Urban agriculture has been a trend for awhile. The reality is all the fencing around that one likely cost more than the veg it will ever produce. I support urban farming, but that particular spot looks more like a For Show Garden than anything else. It is a good use for vacant lots and the like though. My city has a couple but they are more instructional oriented than high-density producers. They are so they can have school trips and the like and teach people how to grow vegetables. If you want to maximize yields, you really have to do high density plantings which isn't as accommodating to TV news crews or a bus of children.

 

I tend to believe that this is a great opportunity for virtue signaling. Think about what it says to the limousine liberals who want to pretend they care, all the while living in the city that is the poster child for how abused folks have treated the environment they claim to care for.

But hey with that land they might feed a small family or something..

 

It is most certainly not. It is a grotesquely wasteful and unjust subsidy to land speculation.

If people want instruction, they should go to an actual farm.

No. Their only purpose is to subsidize idle land speculation by relieving the owners of vacant plots of their property tax liabilities.

No. Agriculture has learned a lot from illegal marijuana growers. If these people wanted locally grown vegetables, they would use hydroponic vertical greenhouses and artificial light, which are orders of magnitude more productive than open-field agriculture per unit area, and use an order of magnitude less fertilizer, pesticide, and water per unit of production than open-field agriculture.

 

As for I've understood, it's a terrain where they demolished old buildings [did they recover the soil before of putting there a farm? I hope so ...].

Ok. You're in Manhattan, but in a forgotten area of Manhattan.
It was January 1st 2020. I was still around [after a night between Brooklyn and Wall Street] and in an empty NY I decided to take a walk in the wild. You see elevators to park cars [probably to disincentivize thieves, I think], poor houses and decrepit buildings. With good peace of the Mayor of NY ... [who is Italian American, btw].

It's not about to see the Freedom Tower at the horizon, it's about what you find North. The Korean quarter is full of great brands, it's incredibly rich [and I obtained attention because of my Italian shoes and my Italian cloths ... I have already noted this well before. In particular I remember a couple of ragamuffins I met [probably they were English]. She told him "he has to be Italian". He asked her "why?". She answered "look at his shoes!".

She was right.

But this made me wonder: is there a low which prohibits to walk around wearing very nice shoes in NY?
Mysteries of New York ...

 

I don't know much about hydroponics but vertical growing has its own problems and expenses. I am sprouting broccoli right now and I must keep them encased in glass to keep rodents out. Encased in glass presents problems with ventilation and heating. Then, with hydroponics, you either need fish or water polluting chemicals for plant food. With fish you also have a heat battery in the water. Water stores heat and releases it slowly. I use the water in my "fish shed" to even out the air temps. Without glass you need artificial lights. Even with LED lights it may become expensive.

 

Not compared to the foregone rent of valuable urban land kept vacant for growing vegetables.

Then you have a rodent problem.

Features, not bugs. Why do you think farmers use greenhouses, hmmm?

That's not how you spell "fertilizer."

The water is re-used so as not to waste the fertilizer. See how that works?

Another feature.

Unlike marijuana growers, greenhouse operators growing vegetables don't have to hide their operations, so they can use both.

Not compared to the opportunity cost of urban land rent.

 

You don't expect rodents in urban areas?
Yes, that is why urban farming is not nearly as practical as using rural farm land.