the woman behind the farm

Annie Novak from Eagle Street Rooftop Farm || (photo by Lauren Mandel)

Annie Novak is an absolute gem.  As the co-founder and farmer of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn, NY, Annie gracefully juggles the responsibilities of food production, managing volunteers, answering to the media, marketing, and of course, what crops to plant next.  She masters all of these tasks, always with a smile on her face.  The rooftop farm was designed and installed by a local green roof company called Goode Green, atop a warehouse that is occupied by Broadway Stages.

I had the pleasure of visiting Annie’s farm on Sunday, and witnessed for myself what all the fuss is about.  The roof was busily occupied by an Australian film crew (shooting a documentary segment on Annie), a German journalist (writing a story on the farm), a Jamaican insect farmer (who raises insects as international chicken feed), an aquaponics practitioner (from Growing Power in the Midwest), volunteers, casual onlookers, and myself (the aspiring author).

When speaking with Annie on the roof, she explained how the goals of the farm are multifaceted: ”Food connects everything and all issues to everyone.  There’s nothing we do here that doesn’t have to do with food education, nutrition, and the environment.”  When asked about the desire to expand to other rooftops around the city, Annie responded that ”the need [for rooftop farming] is unbelievable.  It’s just a matter of finding the right chemistry between building owner and farmer… There should be one million Eagle Street Rooftop Farms in New York City.  They should be functional green roofs.  They should provide nutritious food.  They should be filled with passionate people.”

With her poise, generosity, articulate nature, and ability to connect people to one another, it is no wonder that Annie is a leader in the rooftop agriculture movement.  This is one farmer to keep an eye on.

For more information on Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, please visit rooftopfarms.org.

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we can’t afford NOT to do this

The bottom line is that cities can’t afford not to invest in rooftop agriculture.  The societal and environmental benefits of rooftop food production far outweigh the practice’s costs, particularly when expanded across a skyline.  Without targeted policy changes and financial incentives, however, rooftop agriculture will remain unaffordable to most people.  It is through this governmental action that rooftop farms and gardens can become a reality for individuals and communities.

There are currently no commercial rooftop farms in the U.S. that support themselves exclusively through sales.  Many depend on grants or funding from external beneficiaries, as well as significant amounts of volunteer labor.  Some farms have been successful in attracting investors, which is a wise strategy for gaining startup capital.  Gotham Greens in Brooklyn, NY (gothamgreens.com) is a commercial rooftop farm worth keeping an eye on.  The 15,000 sf hydroponic greenhouse facility is headed by a savvy CEO who hopes that Gotham Greens will become the first commercially viable rooftop farm in the country.

The diagram above weighs the costs of urban rooftop agriculture (left) against the benefits (right).  The comparison ranks factors in terms of significance, where the largest text represents the most significant cost or benefit.

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a li’l market research

At first glance, rooftop agriculture seems like a hyper-specific topic – a niche within a niche.  When you dig down into the subject matter, however, the topic’s vastness unfolds.  Some of the major talking points that fall within the rooftop agriculture discussion include:

- Food justice + equity

- Public health + organics

- Local food

- Policy

- How to build rooftop farms + gardens

- Economic viability

In order to act as the definitive resource on rooftop agriculture, my manuscript, Eat Up, currently discusses all of these talking points.  I wonder, however, if these points are too broad to capture a literary audience.  Does the manuscript currently contain a “liberal arts education,” when it should in fact have a more specialized degree?  Should the first book on a subject matter broadly discuss the new topic?  A little market research may help to shed some light on these questions.

This is where you, the reader, comes in.  The question that I pose to you, is what are you interested in reading?  I plan on conducting a few manuscript readings / market research groups around the Philadelphia area in order to collect more in-depth data, but for now, I want to hear what you have to say.  So don’t be shy, post a comment about what interests you.

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rooftop mushrooms?

Productive rooftops can yield more than just fruits and vegetables.  These cultivated spaces can produce unexpected agricultural products such as wool and honey, but what about mushrooms?  Most fungal species prefer the shade, and yet there are a few species that blossom in full sun.  This morning I launched an experiment to find out if one particular mushroom species has the potential to become a viable, albeit unsuspecting, rooftop crop.

Stropharia rugoso-annulata || (photo by Sue Van Hook)

After gathering miscellaneous green roof fabrics, drainage materials, and soil (known as media) from my office’s materials library, I assembled an ad hoc green roof plot on a balcony outside of my office in Philadelphia.  The plot contains approximately 3″ of standard green roof media, and is fully exposed to both sunlight and rain.

New York-based mycologist Sue Van Hook, isolated and cultured a type of edible mushroom called Stropharia rugoso-annulata, and provided me with a bag of spawn with which to inoculate the plot.  Generally speaking, spawn is any substrate that contains mycelium, or thread-like “root” cells.  The particular spawn that Van Hook provided contained a substrate of wood chips and compost.  If the growing conditions are right, this spawn will spread throughout the green roof media and eventually fruit to produce an edible crop of mushrooms.

Test plot 10.12.2011

I spread the spawn on top of the green roof media at a thickness of approximately 1″.  There was no need to water, since the air was thick and the forecast called for rain.  According to mycology guru Paul Stamets, S. rugoso-annulata often takes 12 weeks to fruit, or produce mushroom bodies.  Since my test plot was inoculated in October, fruiting will not occur until next year, if at all.  If the crop is successful, then the potential exists to try it on a larger rooftop scale.  This experiment could very easily fail, or it could be the start of something big.

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rooftop ag for a global audience

In this video clip I discuss the burgeoning field of rooftop agriculture and it’s potential for growth in the U.S. The video was originally filmed by Roofmeadow for the “Green Roofs and Walls of the World Virtual Summit 2011,” which was organized by GreenRoofs.com and held for a global audience this past month.

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