New Berkeley Urban Ag Ordinance Cultivates Growing Food Together
Recent Berkeley Urban Ag Ordinance zoning changes cultivate growing food together by allowing adaptive city farm production and programming in backyard, community garden and vertical farm settings, setting precedent for other cities
By Rob Bennaton and Peter Ruddock
Organic Farmer
December 30, 2021
Excerpt:
The little-known recent Berkeley Urban Ag Ordinance zoning changes cultivate growing food together by allowing adaptive city farm production and programming in backyard, community garden and vertical farm settings, setting precedent for other cities, thanks to the Berkeley Food Policy Council, the Berkeley Community Garden Collaborative and Slow Food East Bay. The Oakland Food Policy Council before them had successfully advocated for the “Right to Grow Food” citywide in 2014. In fact, urban and peri-urban food policy councils have been organizing food system changes for more equitable food access, with nearly 300 councils in the U.S. as of 2021, each with goals of more nutritious, affordable and local food, many in communities with limited fresh food access.
Both the zoning changes and groups organizing them are catalysts for the kinds of cooperative, community-based food and ag business and nonprofit efforts that can keep cities diverse, and support homegrown current-resident-based micro-economic development, with minimal start-up costs.
In 2018, the Berkeley City Council adopted a newly revised Urban Ag Zoning Ordinance to further allow citywide food growing, provide criteria for city agricultural land use intensity, set local food sales/crops parameters and provide guidance for associated agricultural education opportunities. For years, growing food on a Berkeley vacant lot was a rabbit hole complicated by incomplete agricultural land use zoning guidance.
