This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, from
http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish
Old
properties and empty lots in cities and towns around the United States are
finding new life as urban farms. EcoCity Farms in Edmonston, Maryland, is
located near shopping centers, car repair shops and homes. The neighborhood is a
working-class community. People do not have very much money, and they have
limited access to fresh food in markets. Over the past two years, the farm has
attracted volunteers from the community like Marcy Clark. She schools her four
children at home. On a recent day she brought them to EcoCity Farms for a
lesson. Her children harvested rows of spinach, mustard greens, lettuce, Swiss
chard and carrots. "It's important that the children understand the connection
between the food that they eat, the soil, the air, the pollution, how all this
is connected to their well-being," she says. Her son Alston agrees: "You connect
with the earth, where your food comes from. You appreciate the food a little bit
more." Margaret Morgan-Hubbard started EcoCity Farms. She thinks of it as a
place where people can learn to live healthier lives. "Our view is that what
happens in a community, influences the culture of that community. So our idea
was growing food in a community and showing that you can have farms even in
urban areas, redefines what's possible in that area, in that community and
brings people together." "Every piece of what we do here is a demonstration to
show people everything about how to have a sustainable community," she says.
That means not only farming food and raising chickens and bees, but improving
the soil with compost made from food waste. Sixteen wooden bins are filled with
worms. Their job is to eat the food waste and help make it into compost. EcoCity
Farms is an "off the grid" experimental operation. The farm gets its power not
from the local electricity grid but from the sun with solar panels. In winter,
the greenhouses are heated using a geothermal system. Buried tubes pump air at
underground temperature -- thirteen degrees Celsius -- into the structures.
Vegetables can be grown all year. So once a week, all winter long, neighbors can
come to the farm and pick up a share of the harvest. For VOA Special English,
I'm Carolyn Presutti. You can find two videos about EcoCity Farms -- including
one about the composting worms -- at voaspecialenglish.com.
(Adapted
from a radio program broadcast 06Mar2012)
원문출처 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OVw50eVQ2E&feature=youtube_gdata
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