Bees, peas, chickens and worms — the city of San Francisco just opened the first new farm bureau in the state in 50 years.
The new organization is a local chapter of the American Farm Bureau Federation, a national nonprofit that provides political and logistical support for the agriculture industry.
The urban bureau’s founding president is Ted Fang, former editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner.
Fang said his vision for the San Francisco Farm Bureau will focus on innovative production and agricultural technology.
“We’re talking about aquaponics and mushroom farming,” said Fang. “We want to make San Francisco into an ag tech hub.”
Ag tech refers to machines and engineering, like using drones to monitor crops, finding new technologies to test soil or building vertical farms, which are rare in the city.
“There is a kind of farming that grows food for the community,” said Fang. “Vertical farming, by contrast, is more of a commercial operation that is expensive and can only be done with a limited number of crops.”
A lot happens on a lot
Fang is currently the program manager for the Florence Fang Community Farm, which is named for his mother and based in Bayview-Hunters Point.
Established in 2014, the Florence Fang Community Farm operates as a civic space. It hosts performances, chef cook-offs, community talks and educational events involving partners like the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Recology and the Chinese Progressive Association. The one-acre lot, which sits atop a Caltrain tunnel, was made a community site through an agreement between the AsianWeek Foundation and Caltrain.
Fang said the new bureau is interested in helping both amateurs and entrepreneurs.
It may be hard to believe in a city as urban as SF, but there are over 100 urban farms and community gardens in the city on public and private land. Half are owned by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, Fang said, and the rest are independent farmers. About 50 are food-producing community gardens.
Urban farming is smaller in scale and can be atypical. Seawater farmers grow oysters or crabs. Vermiculture is the practice of raising worms for fertilizer and compost. Insect farming involves making good bugs that fight bad bugs.
“There’s this cute white butterfly called a cabbage moth. In its larval stage it is a caterpillar that eats vegetables,” said Fang. “One thing you can do about that is to grow purple needle grass, the official state grass of California, which grows a certain kind of beetle that lives in the grass during the day. At nighttime, it comes out and it goes hunting for these caterpillars, then you don’t have those cabbage moths flying around.”
There are also a surprising number of farm animals in San Francisco.
“Not necessarily roosters, but chickens for sure,” Fang said. “One of our members is raising pigs. There are a lot of goats in the city, mostly for clearing lots. And beekeeping is big in San Francisco. There is a San Francisco Beekeepers Association. The honey made by the bees is unique.”
A bee-liever in urban farming
Fang owns a one-acre farm in the Bayview neighborhood, where he has seven hives.
“Most agricultural bees are on big farms, where they pollinate a certain crop, like almonds,” he said. “But in San Francisco, they pollinate so many different things that the taste of the honey is much more complex.”
For people who want to start farming, Fang recommends talking to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has new resources focusing on urban farming. There are no licenses needed to start farming, but to sell food publicly or at a farmers’ market, growers need a certificate from the San Francisco Department of Public Health to verify that the products are theirs.
“One of our members is raising pigs. There are a lot of goats in the city, mostly for clearing lots. And beekeeping is big in San Francisco.”
Ted Fang, San Francisco Farm Bureau president
Fang said things like soil testing and pest control are big problems in search of innovative solutions. There are no soil testing labs in San Francisco.
“In San Mateo, there is a Resource Conservation District that could help you test soil,” he said. “But I would talk to the other existing farms. All of us help each other.”
The San Francisco Farm Bureau is hosting a social and educational event from 4 to 8 p.m. on Monday at the Haight Street Shroom Shop, 2080 Hayes St. in San Francisco.
More information is available on the farm bureau’s website.
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