A Blueprint for a Profitable Urban Farm

For cities littered with vacant properties, urban agriculture has become the "why not?" option. The land is just sitting there, so it might as well be used for something. The urban farms and community gardens that have sprouted on some of these sites have become community projects and some have even turned into businesses. Most, though, are small-scale efforts. But they may not have to be. A new report [PDF] from the environmental nonprofit Global Green USA argues that even a modest plot of land could potentially become a job creator and profit maker.

Using Youngstown, Ohio, as its testing ground, the report assesses the feasibility of turning vacant residential land into a working farm. The analysis suggests that at least three to 10 acres of contiguous space would be needed to create a viable commercial farm. Working with the city, they identified a collection of 31 vacant plots totaling 5.5 acres in the city's Oak Hill neighborhood, all of which have been donated to the city's land bank.