Urban soil is contaminated with high levels of lead and other toxins.
One of the most sustainable and efficient ways to manage contaminated soil within an urban environment is make new topsoil through composting.
Various techniques are being tried throughout the country (e.g., adding fishbone meal, growing sunflowers, etc.) and each is problematic in some way.
NOFFN is working with several partners to make our own soil through composting thereby controlling its quality.
The challenge is creating enough clean, usable compost to meet local demand.
Recognizing the centrality of high quality soil, NOFFN is exploring several pilot projects – neighborhood soil building, neighborhood-wide composting facilities, fertilizer resources from local waste materials such as from the regional seafood industry, etc. – that will serve as models for increasing access to good quality compost.
- New Urban Farm Intensive Soil Building – a major part of NOFFN’s Urban Farm Incubation will be to intensively build soil on each new lot that will be transformed into an urban farm. Various organic waste streams (restaurant and grocery waste, manure, leaves, wood chips, sand, dirt, etc.) will be redirected to each lot. After a period of time, the composted material will be tested for toxicity and if safe to use will be used in growing areas. This process will be repeated with each new urban farm building soil for initial growing and the continued composting to maintain the fertility of the area.
- Tool & Farm Equipment Lending Library – Farmers have limited resources. NOFFN has supplied various hand tools to urban farming projects in the past. With the increase of urban farming in NOLA, NOFFN will seek to create a lending library of hand tools and power farm equipment (saws, drills, tractors, small front end loaders) for borrowing by the different urban farms.
