73 Urban Farming in Indianapolis
Rick Bein
Urban Farming in Indianapolis by Rick Bein, Bhuwan Thapa, Jeff Wilson
Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating vegetables in or around urban areas. Besides horticultural products, urban agriculture involves animal husbandry, beekeeping, aquaculture, and agroforestry. Increasing urbanization coupled with the challenges of sustainable development in cities have contributed to a growing interest among urban agriculture researchers, policy makers, and stakeholders (Siegner et al., 2018). Growing prevalence of urban agriculture represents a resurgence of vegetable growing where there is a popular dimension of contributing to a greater cause. The chicness of gardening provides opportunities to serve preferences for local produce. Urban Agriculture is also being explored as a strategy to address issues of food insecurity, income inequality and health disparities. Gardening is considered an option to remedy the urban food deserts where there are no grocery stores within a one-mile radius. The myriad potential health & social benefits while maintaining a watch out for toxic air and legacy contaminants in soils.
History of urban agriculture in Indianapolis
Urban agriculture has been a part of the landscape of Indianapolis begun in the 1840s (Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, 2019). German immigrants brought with them their greenhouse technology and developed numerous urban farms on the south side of the city. From that time, they provided a significant supply of the city’s vegetable needs until the 1970’s. Year-round production was made possible by heating the greenhouses in the winter using mostly coal as fuel. Diminishing evidence of these old greenhouses (Figure 1) can still be found on the south side of the city, in particular along Bluff Road, W. Washington and Rockville Rd. This area was once a hub of vegetable production in Indianapolis. The Indiana Historical Bureau placed an official state historical marker honoring the early German gardeners in Bluff Road Park at Bluff Rd & Hanna Ave. (Sharp 2019)
Figure 1. Remains of a 1950’s greenhouse and smokestack of a coal fired furnace. Photo by Rick Bein 2020.
With construction of the interstate highway system in the 1960’s, many changes to the American landscapes occurred. The Census of Agriculture shows a drastic decline of farmland in Marion County from 58 percent of the county to 23 percent in 1978 and 2.9 percent in 2012 (1). Much of the decline in local vegetable production in Indianapolis diminished drastically with the growth of the interstate highway system enabling refrigerated trucks to bring fresh vegetables in two days from frost free areas in California, Florida, and Texas. As transportation and refrigerated shipping became more efficient, the cost of produce imported from out of state became less than those of the Indianapolis producers who had to bear the cost of heating greenhouses. Gradually, the local vegetable production in Indianapolis was reduc