The new urban agriculture education coordinator serving the Agriculture Extension offices for Jefferson County and Denver isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.
Blake Angelo, hired in May to fill a new position to help people who want to use their urban property for farming, has converted his yard in Edgewater into a demonstration farm. His eighth-acre lot now supports a 1,000-square-foot vegetable garden and fruit trees. It yields a cornucopia of produce, along with eggs from his five chickens.
That experience will come in handy in the position created by the Colorado State University extension after officials began receiving an increasing number of inquiries about farming in the city.
“Callers were asking us how to start for-profit businesses and nonprofits and wanted to learn how to raise their own fresh produce,” said Rusty Collins, director of CSU Extension for Jefferson County and Denver, in a press release announcing the position.
The education coordinator position is a halftime, 12-month appointment. The coordinator’s focus is on people who are already using commercial agriculture in an urban setting to either generate revenue or share their produce, and on those who want to get started. It will be evaluated at the end of the first year to determine whether it is meeting public needs.
“There’s some confusion about urban gardening,” Angelo said. “There are gardens, and then there’s larger-scale commercial growing in the city, which usually involves multiple plots, through which people try to make a living or augment a primary income. What people tell me is, ‘We can make money, but we’re struggling to make a living.’”
He said in Jefferson County, lots tend to be bigger and people can cultivate a half acre.
“On that scale, you can grow a lot of food,” he said.
He said county extension offices have wonderful horticultural resources to help people grow plants but did not have resources to help urban agriculture start-ups and existing producers develop successful business plans.
“But at the extension, what we do is education and technical advising,” he said. “We’ll work with the university faculty to bring cutting-edge research to the public, provide examples of business models and evaluation tools and look for partners who can help growers with project management.”
His first task is to complete a needs assessment for urban farmers. Based on what he learns, he will create programs, including webinars and classes, and materials that urban farmers say they want. He said some of the information would apply to rural farmers, but urban farmers face unique issues, such as zoning and land-use restrictions and requirements, and neighbors.
“There are some misconceptions in urban areas,” Angelo said. “People say they don’t want their neighborhoods turned into farms. Urban farmers face the challenge of showing that these operations are beautiful places.”
Angelo said that what he does to help urban producers is not counterproductive to rural farmers’ need to make a living.
“They are working on such a different scale,” he said, “and usually it’s a secondary effort. But urban farming can be really successful for people looking for part-time income.”
To reach Blake Angelo, call 303-271-6620, or contact him via email at blake.angelo@colostate.edu. Jeffco/Denver CSU Extension.