Can an urban farmer earn a living wage? | Teresa O'Donnell | TEDxHouston
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- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2024
- Urban farming is particularly interesting in a city with so much available space. In Houston's Plant It Forward Farms, refugees are given access to acres of land that they maintain and manage. Several of these plots have gone on to provide sustainable income for these families, and have gone on to become community centers for neighbors to come together and celebrate these previously empty spaces, and the people who have given them a new life.
Teresa O’Donnell wants to live in a city with a farm in every neighborhood. She sees refugees operating these farms and becoming a bit like rock star urban farmers in their communities. And as executive director of the Houston-based non-profit Plant It Forward Farms, she is working towards these goals, one plot of land, one farm and one American Dream-seeker at a time.
Plant It Forward was formed in 2011 as a social entrepreneurial venture by the software company to connect the dots between unused land, refugee famers in need of acreage, and Houston’s need for locally grown produce. Plant It Forwards Farms has been highlighted in the PBS series, “Food Forward,” on PBS Local News Hour, in the Houston Chronicle, and in Sugar & Rice and Edible Houston magazines, among other media outlets.
Learn more about Plant It Forward at www.plant-it-forward.org.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx
local farming is profitable
curtis stone has a channel, makes 70k a year on a half acre.
Tom Robertson let's see the #s...the person you are speaking about does not know his water costs...I asked he said, not sure low I think....not a good business practice. especially in a city , rural can be different if they have a well.
bgswtdaddyliscious go to his channel. he's been doing it 7 years. has a book
gives classes. travels as a consultant. he puts his numbers out there.
it's about high value crops, short maturity he is not an all around farmer.
Curtis stone urban farmer
In the financial industry that is how you make money...books, speeches, appearances...hey more power to those folks. But if you say make $100k off less than an acre, show us the books....Im sure the IRS would like to see also, but then again that is why we have tax write offs...more power to him.
Like I said
Curtis backs up what he says.
Go look at his channel.
He isn't the first but he's becoming the leader of a new industry.
He's Canadian.
amazing and wonderful project to build a strong communities care
I'm from asia I hope to be a urban farmer there so much stress here in my home country
Goodluck bro! I'm also aspiring to have my own urban farm. From the Philippines
Jeffrey Tan how well did u guys make with urban farming?
Lovely history...
Back to Eden gardening for sure works !!!
In the mid 19 hundreds over half of the population were farmers. Today it is less than 3% & mostly corporate controlled. Be inspired by countries like Switzerland who grow their own food in their backyards & then do swaps for the variety of food they need to eat.
What do you mean by 'corporate controlled'?
In mid 90's living in Hou and was upset about high poverty, hunger, poor birth outcomes and was trying to get city to plant food in the irrigated medians instead of grass. They roundly, soundly made fun of me. Still wonder how much different dwarf fruit trees, plantings of peas and beans , lettuces and carrots would have eased hunger and increased community. They wanted it to make them money, never saw the value in their own residents.
Do you have a bed of strawberries? Where we live, chocolate covered strawberries were selling for $3.99 for one and $4.99 for two, on Valentines day. This may be a niche for someone with a greenhouse (Valentines Day is on Feb 14th).
Excellent. I'm new to gardening because I have access to land where I'm living...and it can happen: that beautiful garden with vegetables.
Farming is all work and no play for very little $$$...do a good small Garden and be careful who you listen too.....
Sounds totally fucked, the way you describe it, which I'm sure is the reality for many people. Check out some permaculture videos and see alternatives - maximizing production per land per time per amount of work put in. Start with passively collecting water as high on the land as you can (gutter level?). Spreading it out and sinking it with ponds and swales - can be done on a small scale. Increase the amount of perennials - fruit bushes, trees, perennial vegetables like asparagus. Build soil so fertility increases. Design stuff to require as little work as possible.
Coffee?? It's east Africa The Yemeni people have sold coffee to some of the most valuable and high quality coffee to blue bottle and it goes for $16 a cup last time I heard.
Looking at the title, my first thought is does he need to, i.e. can he simply produce enough food to feed himself and his family? Maybe a little excess of some things to trade for (sell for money to buy) other things he needs. Combined with a very well designed - passively heated and cooled, rain water capturing, grey water using, (dare I say black water using) house. He may not have any expenses left.
There is always still taxes
How about organic chickens and eggs? They taste good.
Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of people who have a passion for chickens / eggs and can earn a living "niche marketing."
Not a family but almost an Army --but a great story.
To anyone reading this that is sincerely interested in making money through gardening or urban farming, before taking the time to watch a 17.5 minute video, don't bother. The first ten minutes or so are entirely unrelated to agriculture (a sob story about refugees) and could have been cut out. The next five minutes are somewhat related to agriculture, but nothing to do with the average person (background on how and why the refugees began gardening), and in the final two minutes the speaker finally gets to her "point" about how a lot of people working together were able to make some money selling produce (but never gives any kind of dollar amount nor specifics).
So unless you're an African refugee with farming experience who knows a lot of other African refugees with farming experience who know a lot of donors and volunteers willing to devote their time, space, and money to your endeavors, look elsewhere to figure out whether or not you might be able to make money as an urban farmer. I think this lady might have her heart in the right place (or just enjoys flaunting her generosity and "selflessness" to large audiences), but she's not using her head. So many speakers with better information and experience on this subject could have easily taken her place.
Well said Primus! I don't see any philanthropic companies loaning land and resources to Americans. I for one would jump at an opportunity to farm an acre that I could then sell. Especially if I could get a bunch of free labor from people who need to feel good about themselves! U.S. companies whether large or small need to remember the old saying that "Charity starts at home".
Ted talks seems to be a form of symbolic ego masturbation for "PROFESSIONALS" who are bored of being rich and what to make a difference.
Primus Ultimum thank you for save my time
Primus Ultimum i should read your comment before watching it. 17 minutes of my life wasted.
Thanks, you saved me some time. The talk started with a question, and if that question does not get answered, I am better off elsewhere.
awesome...let see the $$ on paper...costs/ profit/ taxes...
Lately i think i am a refugee from USA FEAR YOUR GOVERNMENT
I'd like to share with you JADAM korean natural farming. I'm in OK
Living wage = land tax,s....
This is about refugees, not much about farming, I cut it after nearly slitting my wrist at 9 minutes in.
CLICKBAIT TRAP! A beautiful project, but nothing useful for someone actually interested in market gardening.
..thanks,
GOOGLE
What about your own people .....not good .....
Nice lady but quite disorganized.
Sounds like me when in front of a camera. Have no idea why but think I'm "camera shy." Forget what I was going to say, get tongue tied, loose my notes, start stuttering, panic attack, ARG!!!
Grow weed and you sure will!
What she is not talking about farming... I am out!
Instead of throwing around broad terms like "Sustainable income", why don't you give us some black and white figures. I can grow enough veggies in my back yard to make a couple hundred a week selling at the farmers market, but that sure doesn't equate to a living wage. Scale it up to an acre and you can make pretty good money, if you can sell it all! Hopefully all the other refugee farmers on the acre farms surrounding you aren't all growing the same stuff (this is quite common by the way), or else there is a glut of (fill in with your' choice of crop) and depress the price so much that it's not even worth growing. So the question remains unanswered. Can you make a living wage? You only touched on that briefly in the final minutes of your' vid.
i came for the gardening. I got the sobbing feel good refugee story. thumbs down. No need to spoonfeed propaganda with fake titles.
Yeah...we just need another Billion Refugees....problem solved....Market Gardening = Subsistence Farming....
Look up JM Fortier. How often do you need a farmer?
the refugees will be here anyways.better that they grow food for themselves and to sell that we can have good food too
elizabeth barrett Absolutely. Harry is very mistaken when he equates market gardening with subsistence agriculture.
Jeez lu eez. Another code word: "Living Wage."
Define "living wage."
One where you can pay all your bills, and save for retirement.
It depends on the family structure in the household and the location. If there are two adults in a household working full-time (each working 2,080 hours a year) and they have two children then the living wage for Houston, TX (which is where they are focused on in the video) is $57,417 per year for the household, or $13.80 per hour per adult. Here's a link to a breakdown from MIT for Harris County, TX (where Houston is located). You can search it for other locations if you're interested. livingwage.mit.edu/counties/48201
Then "living wage" is totally arbitrary. I know people that earn $105,000 per year and $40,000. They're both neighbors, yet the $40,000 people can pay all of their bills and save for retirement. The $105,000 have declared bankruptcy twice in the past 15 years and still rack up the debt and don't save for retirement.
"Living wage" is just Newspeak.
A living wage is situational, but not arbitrary. Different people have different life situations. The term living wage is used to mean what the term minimum wage generally implies. It is a cost of living wage, which was then shortened to living wage. The term is used to establish the idea that the actual cost of living for the employee is taken into account when calculating the least amount of wage that can be earned to functionally sustain their household's needs and minimalist lifestyle. Still how much your family needs to earn is relative to your own requirements. I'm not sure why the phrase upsets you. Isn't it better to say they can earn a living wage than some fixed number? The anecdote in your comment proves that a fixed number for a wage is what is actually arbitrary. What's the problem? Newspeak? The term isn't ambiguous or politically charged (though politicians may use it without understanding what it means, but that's not the same thing). If a business model can pay a living wage to it's employees and still maintain proper business finances above that amount then it is consider a viable business model. Market gardening can provide a wage far more substantial than that of a living wage, but it has to at least provide a living wage to even be considered. A minimum wage job isn't enough, because minimum wage isn't enough. Even if it were there's a shortage of those too as of late, so businesses have to be created.
tpsu129 Totally agree! That's why I'm against a "minimum wage" in this country. Besides, we're SUPPOSED to be a Capitalist country, based on competition. So let's compete for those jobs.
Took 10 minutes of build up to start talking about urban farming, and then there wasn't anything informative given.
A relationship with the Creator and Redeemer doesn't make it into the top five, huh?
I agree, God should ALWAYS be first!
god doesnt exist
If you're wrong you'll end up in a lake of fire. If you're right and become a Christian, you'll become a much better person.
Which God?
Very disorganized and meandering, lots of blathering and little to do with the nuts and bolts of earning a living/. I have a farm and a neighbors has become a "boutique" farmer. He makes more money ONLY because of boutique foods - small tomatoes, micro greens, leafy greens and herbs for restaurants. But that is NOT what the world eats which is why folks who grow beans and corn don't get rich. Boutique farming is the easiest, least labor intensive and phoniest type of "farming".
As a friend said, they are farmers except they grow no beans, peas, corn, potatoes, carrots or zucchini. LOL
Man, you have NO idea!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, professor. The dirty little truth is that we get food from groceries who are supplied by gigantic farms with year-round capabilities. I'm all for community, urban, home and church gardens but let's get real - they provide a small fraction of what we eat and are seasonal. If we're serious we should teach canning and freezing. I repeat, these farms make money only because they have high-end customers.
After seven boring minutes I was disgusted Braggart shooting off her mouth and saying nothing about urban farming.
BORING
some usefuseble information would have been nice
instead it´s 1/4 houre of self-congratulation and crying about a "heart warming" refugee story
Why is she. Crying .....make america it ...again ...
omg, i would not speak with this woman.... 9min45 seconds of a story worth about nothing... and the last 7 min about the topic arent worth it. lost 17 min of my life.