agriculture and education

I recently developed and spoke on a panel at the ASLA 2012 conference in Phoenix titled, "Beyond Food Production: Agriculture and Landscape Architecture in the 21st century." Grow City published a post reflecting on this session as well as another session pertaining to local food and the educational value of agriculture in design. 

I am happy that there is a continued interest in the topic of local food, and in particular, that the notion of diversity of programming the agricultural landscape is discussed. While the Grow City post focused on the educational aspect of designing for food, it highlighted (whether intended or not) the fact that the possibilities of local food production are nearly endless. 

We can think of food on numerous scales, consider it as an educational tool, an outlet, a recreational program, or as a planning tool as well as a piece of urban infrastructure. 

Of course, a shout out to Rutgers University Professor Holly Nelson on her part of the panel as the main focus of the Grow City post!