Grist.org writes an exceptional piece that ties back to a conversation that we had a few years ago. Here at TCGMN, we’ve always had a policy against corn field development, but have we turned the tables on ourselves? We have spent the past year and a half installing urban farms at our developments, edible landscaping at our retail property and started Minnesota’s first rooftop farm. Today, we’ve got multiple irons in the fire, all having to do with urban agriculture (or is it agricultural urbanism), its time we start thinking about things a little bit more carefully.

Prairie Crossing, located about an hour north of Chicago, is turning out more than just fresh, local (not as local as we’d like), organic produce for Chicago-area consumers. They’ve got a multi-faceted new urban plan that can be exercised in just about any semi-rural location.

Check out the article or watch Mike Sands, executive director for the Liberty Prairie Foundation in this video:

Mike from david Hanson on Vimeo.

“The challenge presented by Sandhill Organics,  is not only the diverse, integrated growing, but the marketing and financial planning involved: “We don’t have those farmers. If you offered $20,000 per acre to an average farmer, they’d likely say they couldn’t handle that. [Matt, Peg and incubator farmers] are entrepreneurs who pick farming as their business, not people who say they want to be a farmer.””