Farming is hard, rewarding work and Growing Home Inc. is giving Chicagoans in search of a job a chance to reap the rewards of work in the field. But, this field will be farmed in the city.
Hoop houses are erected on the site and collards, kale, mustard greens, salad mix and spinach are a good example of the crops that will be grown year round. Graduates from the job training program are working on site.
Growing Home is a six-year old certified organic agricultural business with a social mission of providing transitional employment for homeless and low-income adults. Program participants are difficult-to-employ people, most of whom have criminal backgrounds. Growing Home also operates a 10-acre farm 75 miles southwest of Chicago at Marseilles, Illinois and a half-acre urban farm on the south side.
In 2007, Growing Home harvested fifty crops (130 varieties) and four animal products — honey, worms, worm castings, and eggs and had sales of over $70,000. Growing Home’s current customers include some of Chicago’s most well-known restaurants: Bistro Campagne, Lula Cafe, Blackbird, First Slice Cafe, Green Zebra, North Pond, Soundings, and Vie.
The U.S. organic sector is expected to grow from $13 billion in 2003 to over $25 billion in 2007. However, less than 3% of organic produce available in Chicago is grown locally.
Happy Thanksgiving from ZimmComm New Media and AgWired!
Here’s Tricia Braid-Terry and former Secretary of Agriculture John Block at last week’s NAFB Convention. We didn’t know it at the time but we were in the presence of greatness.
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I gave a heads up to all the farm podcasters out there recently about the Marantz PMD 620. It’s now on the market and my order is in. So you can expect to see this bad boy connected to the golden ZimmComm microphone soon.
One of the projects I’ve had an opportunity to play a part in this fall has been a series of video presentations with Moe Russell, 
Some highlight audio clips are featured in this week’s program. I asked past NAFB President, Pam Fretwell and new NAFB VP, Greg Akagi, what they think is the future of farm broadcasting. I think you’ll hear that both are certain there is a good future.
Last week I covered some of the awards given out at the NAFB Convention. One of the things they do is present tenure awards each 5 years after you become a broadcast council member (used to be called voting members). Besides that they give them out more frequently to really old timers like Derry Brownfield, Brownfield Network here (just joking Derry) who received a certificate for 41 years of membership, presented by Rae Nell Halbur, KFIZ!