Farmers typically live modest, if not downright poor lives, working unforgiving swathes of land to earn their keep and fill their plates. We romanticize the farm life from the fast-paced and crowded vantage point of the modern city, but the romance only goes so far. The reality of ceaseless hard labor and unpredictable profits makes a stable office job nice and comfy, which is why farmers have been moving cityward for ages, leaving the agricultural life behind and seeking more lucrative occupations.
True, there's been a resurgence of interest and enthusiasm for urban farming, but the reason for starting and maintaining urban farms still generally have more to do with either health benefits, gourmet cachet or plain survival, than with an entrepreneurial opportunity. Except, maybe, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where an urban couple, Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen, developed a well-defined, teachable farming technique they believe can function as a toolkit for a successful start-up business. They call it SPIN (Small Plot INtensive) farming -- an approach that "makes agriculture accessible to anyone, anywhere." They partnered with Roxanne Christensen of the Institute for Innovations in Local Farming to run a sub-acre test farm called Somerton Tanks, through which they demonstrated over several years that small-scale city farms can bring in serious money.
In 2003, its first year of operation, Somerton Tanks Farm, located in northeast Philadelphia, the fifth largest city in the U.S, produced $26,100 in gross sales from a half-acre of growing space during a 9 month growing season. In 2005 gross sales increased to $52,200. So in just three years of operation Somerton Tanks Farm achieved a level of productivity and financial success that many agricultural professionals claimed was impossible. And it is providing a way for independent farmers to once again have a viable role in the food production system that has tipped too much in favor of large scale mass production agriculture.
Mr. Satzewich points out that city growing provides a more controlled environment, with fewer pests, better wind protection and a longer growing season. "We are producing 10-15 different crops and sell thousands of bunches of radishes and green onions and thousands of bags of salad greens and carrots each season. Our volumes are low compared to conventional farming, but we sell high-quality organic products at very high-end prices." The SPIN method is based on their successful experiment in downsizing which emphasizes minimal mechanization and maximum fiscal discipline and planning.
It's an interesting fusion of internet start-up and hands-on farm. They sell guidebooks on the Web, offer email guidance and consulting, and make an unapologetic business case to promote SPIN as the way to farm.
What Are The Key Success Factors?
LAND – SPIN can convert vacant unproductive land into healthy cropland, thereby creating open green space that is self-sustaining
MARKETS – SPIN spurs the creation of a network of neighborhood-based farms that can profitably serve the growing demand for locally grown food
FARMERS – SPIN attracts a new crop of farmers by reducing the 2 big barriers to entry - land and capital
CAPITAL – SPIN is low-capital intensive and can be started with micro-level investment
So far they've run successful SPIN demo plots in Saskatoon and Philadelphia, but they're evangelists on a mission to get city-dwellers everywhere to adopt this practice, which they say promises financial health and ultra-productive land in any urban yard or lot. Like Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates, SPIN offers a way to replace hungry lawns with nourishing gardens -- SPIN's just taken it to another level, turning the process from an art installation/activist project into a profitable enterprise.
