ENVIRONMENT


Fleet farming – turning lawns into lunch


An innovative re-purposing of household lawns holds promising potential for the future of food production.


by Martin Oliver


I


n Central Florida, a new urban agriculture project in the Orlando area demonstrates how under-


utilised space can be used for producing food in city suburbs. Fleet Farming is an initiative that


involves converting areas of lawn to chemical-free food production. In addition to being unproductive, lawns are also profligate users of water, fossil fuels, pesticides, and fertilisers. Organisers team up with willing householders to create ‘micro farms’ of at least 500 square feet (about 46 square metres.) A local regulation allows up to 60% of the yard to be used for growing food. There are a limited number of pre-


requisites, which include a minimum of two years during which no chemical sprays have been used. Permaculture techniques are widely utilised. Because Florida has fairly sandy soil, a thick layer


of mushroom compost is usually added as the growing medium. The subtropical climate enables a wide variety of fruit trees to be grown. This project arose in 2014 from the


local NGO Ideas for Us, and especially its monthly brainstorming session called The Hive. Gardens are maintained by local residents, and by school pupils looking to earn internship credits. The founder is Chris Castro, who is in his twenties, and who somehow finds the time to run operations on top of a fifty- hour working week. The gardeners are active in two


Orlando suburbs, hip Audubon Park, and Parramore, a disadvantaged largely African-American area with high unemployment and a low average income. It is considered a ‘food desert’ where healthy food is largely hard to find locally.


52 MARCH | APRIL 2018


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