A business case for backyard farms

Americans are spending more on vegetable gardens. $1.4 billion dollars in 2007, to be exact, up 25 percent from money spent on vegetable gardens in 2006, according to the National Gardening Association. Now some West Coast businesses, such as Portland's City Garden Farms and San Francisco's My Farm, are poised to turn a passion for vegetable patches into profits.
   
City Garden Farms, started earlier this year by friends Martin Barrett and Dan Bravin, found they shared an interest in sustainable food systems and possessed complementary skills suitable for a small business focused on local food. In the course of their conversations and research, the pair also discovered Small Plot Intensive (SPIN) farming, a method that applies intensive organic agriculture techniques to sub-acre plots of land to produce an abundance of quality produce. And so, the idea for City Garden Farms was born: take un-used plots in Portland backyards and turn them into productive organic vegetable gardens.
   
Barrett says it has been anything but difficult securing land for city gardens. They first sought land donors through an ad on Craigslist, which he says was very successful, and after receiving press coverage in the local paper and talking to friends and neighbors about what they're doing, Barrett and Bravin now have about a quarter of an acre of land planted throughout the city, with the goal of eventually having one full acre in production. Land donors receive as much organic produce as they like, and Barrett says they're typically excited to participate in the program.

"Portland people are really switched on to food miles, the proper use of land, urban renewal and all of that," Barrett says. "We've got a long list of people who want to give us their land to farm."

With the City Garden Farms program, property owners donate land in exchange for produce, and the farmers make a return on the time and materials invested through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and sales at local farmers' markets. While Barrett is still keeping his day job for the time being, Bravin has been farming full time since March. City Garden's CSA program is fully subscribed with 22 members, and the farm is now beginning to attend some of Portland's larger, busier farmers' markets. Barrett says he sold to 15 percent of the attendees at some of the smaller markets and hopes for a similar return at the larger markets, where he says City Garden Farms has the opportunity to reach between 800 and 1,000 customers a week. In the end, the primary hurdle may be meeting demand.

"Once people find out where our produce comes from, they're really into it; it's an idea that resonates with Portland" says Barrett, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland. "In fact, one of our favorite slogans is that we're 'More Portland than Portland,'" he jokes.

San Francisco's My Farm, also started in early 2008, takes a somewhat different approach, and charges customers for organic gardening services. San Francisco residents with unused land suitable to organic farming can sign up with My Farm to either grow just enough food for themselves or become owner-members and allow My Farm to use their land to produce enough to sell as well. Upfront garden installation costs to customers are from $600 to $1,000, depending on the amount of land available, and maintenance fees run $25 to $30 per week, with discounts for owner-members.