Field Exploration Report on Sustainable Agriculture Practices

This report provides an analysis of urban agriculture, focusing on sustainable practices and the Steinhardt Center model. It explores the Steinhardt Center as a model for sustainable urban agriculture, emphasizing its social goals, community building, and educational aspects. The report also discusses year-round farming and the cultivation of plants from diverse origins, highlighting innovative technologies and organic farming approaches. Additionally, it examines plant miniaturization in urban agriculture, explaining the use of plant tissue culture methods for efficient propagation and reduced space requirements. The report references several studies to support its findings and provides a comprehensive overview of sustainable urban agricultural practices.

Running head: FIELD EXPLORATION
Field Exploration
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1FIELD EXPLORATION
Table of Contents
1. Steinhardt Center as a model for sustainable urban agriculture..................................................2
2. Year round farming and growing of plants from different places of the world..........................2
3. Plant miniaturization in urban agriculture...................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................4

2FIELD EXPLORATION
1. Steinhardt Center as a model for sustainable urban agriculture
With the growing population in the United States, farming in cities has become a
common aspect. In the current study the Steinhardt centre model had been taken into
consideration where a farmer also takes into consideration social goals during the process of food
production. The social missions could be related to establishment of food security, community
building and educating people about urban sustainable agricultural practices. As commented by
Zimmerman, Zhu & Dimitri (2016), ethics of urban sustainable agriculture considers food as the
vehicle for improving life of the residents and communities. The Steinhardt Center propagated
the non-profit model for long term economic stability of socially –minded urban farms. As
argued by Fan & Myint (2014), farms with social mission rather than sole market profitability
have been seen to contribute more towards sustainable food production.
The social motivations of urban farms can be specifically defined as social government
for sustainable communities, where the organic food producers form affective networks based
upon shares ideologies of sustainability and holism. However, there is a requirement for
sufficient amount of support from federal and governmental agencies which can help such
networks, become integrated into the major town planning as transition town movement for
sustainable urban agriculture.
2. Year round farming and growing of plants from different places of the world
The model of urban sustainable agriculture can be helpful in maintaining year round
supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. This sustainable agricultural practice also helps in reducing
the use of pesticides and insecticides, which in excess doses could lead to biological

3FIELD EXPLORATION
magnification. Some farmers have been using innovative technologies along with controlled
environment which allows them to grow food throughout the year. Some of the inventory
technologies which could be mentioned over here are use of plant tissue culture for increasing
the production rate of the endemic varieties. Additionally, some farmers have been growing and
culturing plant varieties of diverse origins and nature in their nurseries. The urban farmers have
been using vegetative propagation methods such stock cutting and grafting for maintaining year
round propagation of the endemic varieties (Mirschel et al., 2016). The Steinhardt center has also
been using organic farming approaches which ensure that pesticide or insecticide free
agricultural practices are established.
3. Plant miniaturization in urban agriculture
The totipotent nature of the plant cells have been utilised in order to regenerate whole
new plants from a miniature explants. As commented by Troccoli et al. (2014), plant tissue
culture methods have brought about a revolution within agricultural research aspects and
approaches. In this respect, an explants taken from the desired plant variety and as small as a 2-5
mm can be grown and propagated using solidified media containing macro and micronutrients
within controlled conditions. Single, small explants can give rise to hundreds and thousands of
the same varieties of plants. In this respect, the miniaturization of plants reduces the demand for
additional space and germplasm maintenance. Therefore, plant miniaturisation is both cost
effective and an easy and convenient method of multiplication of the chosen plant varieties.

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References
Fan, C., & Myint, S. (2014). A comparison of spatial autocorrelation indices and landscape
metrics in measuring urban landscape fragmentation. Landscape and Urban Planning,
121, 117-128.
Mirschel, W., Wenkel, K. O., Berg, M., Wieland, R., Nendel, C., Köstner, B., ... & Badenko, V.
L. (2016). A spatial model-based decision support system for evaluating agricultural
landscapes under the aspect of climate change. In Novel Methods for Monitoring and
Managing Land and Water Resources in Siberia (pp. 519-540). Berlin:Springer
International Publishing.
Troccoli, A., Maddaluno, C., Mucci, M., Russo, M., & Rinaldi, M. (2015). Is it appropriate to
support the farmers for adopting conservation agriculture? Economic and environmental
impact assessment. Italian Journal of agronomy, 10(4), 169-177.
Zimmerman, R., Zhu, Q., & Dimitri, C. (2016). Promoting resilience for food, energy, and water
interdependencies. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6(1), 50-61.