Urban farmer Heidi Kooy is proof that you can grow food anywhere—even bustling cities like San Francisco.
As TakePart reports, Kooy and her family dine on onions, tomatoes, lettuce and other fruits and vegetables grown right from the 250 square foot backyard of their Excelsior District home. They also eat eggs from their two chickens, Sweet Pea and Coco Puff, and drink milk from their miniature goats, Lucy and Ethel.
Kooy’s enthusiasm for urban farming all began after a frustrating trip to the grocery store to buy eggs. “I would stand in front of the egg case for 15 minutes trying to figure out which were the best or most healthy eggs to buy. With all the different kinds of labels—free range, cage free—I was just confused,” she says in the video below. “And if I was this confused, I didn’t know how I was going to make good choices for my daughter. So I became obsessed with getting my own chickens and raising our own food here in San Francisco.”
The most amazing part is that Kooy didn’t necessarily come from an agricultural background. While she grew up around farms in her hometown in Nebraska, she wrote in her blog that she’s never lived on one itself. She was also an anthropologist before her current job as a small crafting business owner. So while she might not exactly have farming in her blood, she’s willing to put in the extra effort it takes to feed her family fresh (chemical-and-GMO-free!) foods.
“My urban farm is the way I provide for my family, the way I contribute to my family,” Kooy says.
We mentioned before that the urban farming revolution is happily catching onto sprawling cities around the country, from New York City to Detroit. This agricultural movement giving us fresh, in-season and nutritious food as locally as possible. And if one busy San Francisco mom can farm right from her own backyard, maybe it’s not so hard for more of us join the revolution as well.
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