Melissa and Wythe were honored to join The Farm Report team for this special and important series on the Farm Bill and the politics of food. Please check out the interview, and follow The Farm Report for more critical news and analysis of what's happening across all of agriculture. Despite an increasing number of farmers growing food in cities urban agriculture wasn’t acknowledged in the farm bill until 2018. Lisa Held, journalist with Civil Eats and former Farm Report host provides the...

Wythe chats with NYC educator Vicki Sando about her years of research into green roofs—especially those on schools—and her creation of the illustrated book What is a Green Roof? Vicki created the book to help kids and adults understand the benefits of green roofs, including to urban farmers. We talk about her own work to green the roof of one school in New York, how green roofs help kids learn across subjects, and how some of our favorite green roofs function. This is an excellent...

Melissa and Wythe host the inspiring food and urban agriculture entrepreneur Henry Obispo. Henry is founder of Born Juice, the United Business Cooperative, and ReBORN FARMS. We talk about Henry’s background, the importance of the South Bronx in inspiring him, why he started a juice company, and how he started organizing other Bronxian food entrepreneurs into a worker cooperative. Henry tells us the story of the Bronx Salad, and we discuss his future plans for growing greens in the Bronx.

Following up on their review of recent bad news in the field of vertical farming, Melissa and Wythe catch up with an expert: Henry Gordon-Smith, founding CEO of the urban and controlled environment agriculture consultancy Agritecture. Henry relates his thoughts on recent shifts in commercial indoor and urban agriculture, reflecting on some of Agritecture’s experiences and what could happen in the near future. It’s a short, fun, and informative conversation!

Melissa and Wythe catch up with each other regarding a recent trend in urban agriculture: the closure or financial restructuring of several high-profile indoor farms in urban areas. We look at recent news articles on this topic, theorize why the indoor ag-tech sector is struggling, and speculate about what could happen next. We’ll return to this important topic with guests over the course of the season, so subscribe!

To kick off a new season of Fields, Wythe and Melissa chat about Melissa's current work as both an instructor of urban agriculture at New York University and the manager of the school’s Urban Farm Lab on Houston Street. Recorded in October 2023, just before harvest time, this informal conversation covers a range of subjects, from the crops students grow to how Melissa’s syllabus has covered different aspects of the history of urban agriculture over time.

To round out Season 3, Melissa and Wythe talk about the concept of the “urban forest” in NYC with scientist Mike Treglia of The Nature Conservancy. Mike was trained as a herpetologist (reptile scientist), but he now focuses on the total ecological systems of cities, especially trees. The Nature Conservancy itself works to study and protect land in many different ways, including in New York City. Mike also works with Forest For All NYC, supporting policy that can create and realize a...

In what ways are cemeteries like parks? How tall should the grass in a cemetery be allowed to grow? Following up on some of the themes from our discussion with NYC Microseasons about urban plants, animals, and fungi not typically thought of as farms or gardens, Melissa talks with Joseph (Joe) Charap, Vice President of Horticulture at the Green-Wood Cemetery, about the history of cemeteries as green spaces in NYC and the broader United States. They discuss the rich and biodiverse ecosystem...

(Note, this one was taped when it was still cold, and now it’s hot!) As author Allison C. Meier states, “There are no seasons, only microseasons now.” What are microseasons? They’re a different way of viewing time as local, marked not by arbitrary flips of the calendar or the coming and going of major weather patterns, but by more ephemeral and sometimes obscure environmental shifts that only last a few weeks. With Erin Chapman, Allison writes a newsletter called NYC Microseasons that...

The Fields team chats with domestic farming entrepreneur and nutritionist Mary Wetherill about her company, Green Food Solutions. They set up farms in urban buildings using Tower Gardens (hydroponic growing towers) and conduct farmer trainings. Mary’s urban-agriculture business grew out of the Square Roots vertical farming accelerator in Brooklyn, but then quickly led to a new farm on a rooftop in the Bronx. From there, Mary’s team explored a whole new business model: to be a “vertical...

Melissa and Wythe catch up with their friend and former co-host, artist and scholar of food agriculture, Allie Wist. Allie is currently completing an interdisciplinary arts Ph.D. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a focus on the senses, the Anthropocene, and environmental archives. We talk about her work studying how plants’ odors are changing due to climate disruption, the future of sustainable pest management, how rising temperatures affect different plants, the future of coffee...

In late 2022, we caught up with friend-of-the-show Yolanda Gonzalez, a Cornell Cooperative Extension agent and urban agriculture expert, about all of her exciting work. We talk about Yolanda’s path into agriculture, the general purpose of Cooperative Extension, how Cornell came to set up a branch for commercial urban growers in NYC, and the kinds of support that Harvest NY offers to different urban growers today. Specifically, we dive into the online Community Mushroom Educator (CME) Training...

Wythe and Melissa chat with Zac Harrison, owner of the modern food hub Fresh Harvest based in southeast Atlanta (close to where Wythe grew up!). Fresh Harvest is a self-described modern CSA and ethical food hub that is committed to sourcing fresh food from farms local to Atlanta, and to making the customer experience easy enough that people will continue to buy local food, week after week. 80% of their artisan foods are sourced from within 70 miles of Atlanta. As Zac says, “People do care...

Melissa and Wythe catch up with their friend and collaborator Jeffrey Landau, Director of Business Development at Agritecture Consulting. Jeffrey is an expert in controlled environment agriculture (CEA, or indoor farming), urban agriculture, and urban agriculture policy. He’s spent the last year traveling to farms and gardens across the U.S., working much of that time with different stakeholders in the city of Dallas to craft an urban agriculture plan, and he shares with us some of his...

Melissa and Wythe are joined by their friend Leigh Ollman, a mushroom grower, educator, and food systems consultant. We talk about Leigh’s role in kickstarting the NYU Mycology Group, her work as a professional mushroom grower (she started with 150 logs, farming mushrooms commercially during the pandemic), and her current role as a professional mushroom educator thanks to an amazing Cornell program. We also talk about Leigh’s new project, Citizen Species, which seeks to document biodiversity...

On this week's episode of Fields, Melissa (Wythe was away on jury duty) speaks with the multi-talented Annie Novak. Annie is the co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, the director of Growing Chefs, a nonprofit that provides food education in schools and the community, the manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, and the author of The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a Vegetable Garden or Farm. Annie began her journey into growing with commodity...

Wythe and Melissa are delighted to chat with not one but two experts on urban agriculture from two different parts of the United States Department of Agriculture: Nina Bhattacharyya, Urban Agriculture Specialist at the USDA Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (UAIP), and Blake Glover, State Conservationist at the New York State Office of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Nina and Blake clarify how the USDA supports urban growers around the country,...

Melissa and Wythe catch up with their friend Jonas Günther, co-founder of the Brooklyn-based food startup, We Are the New Farmers (WATNF). The New Farmers don’t grow lettuce and tomatoes, however: they grow a fresh superfood called Spirulina—a fast-growing microalgae (clump of tiny water-living plants) that looks like a beautiful dark green foam, has no taste, and can be used to add nutrients to almost any dish. Jonas walks us through the history of his company, starting at NYU, where he...

For the first time in Fields history, Wythe and Melissa interview four urban growers at once! We speak to the principles of H3irloom Food Group—Linda and Floyd Taliaferro, and David and Tonya Thomas—about their simultaneously innovative and tradition-inspired approach to cooking and growing, as well as their educational initiatives using agriculture. Longtime collaborators with local farmers, the H3irloom Food Group is currently developing their own 68-acre farm, Gabriel Fields, just outside...

Melissa and Wythe sit down at the Heritage Radio Network studio in Roberta’s to chat with Ben Flanner, co-founder and CEO of Brooklyn Grange, to talk about the history and future of rooftop farming. Ben walks us through the decade-long history of Brooklyn Grange, which has led the field in turning rooftops into farms in NYC. We talk about the challenges that face rooftop farmers, the innovations that have led their business model to work, the different kinds of crops grown across the many...

If you enjoyed Seasons 1 and 2 of Fields, get ready for some of our biggest, boldest episodes yet in Season 3! If you haven’t tuned in to Fields before, no worries. Check out our new episodes, dropping soon. Many thanks to all of our guests, from farmers and chefs to USDA and Extension agents.

When and why were large farm animals banned from NYC? What’s happening on the one working farm exempt from this ban? Did you know that thousands of pigs used to freely roam around New York City? Pre-COVID, Melissa and Wythe chatted with environmental historian Catherine McNeur and long-time animal farmer Heidi Woolever (formerly of Queens County Farm Museum) in order to learn why we don’t see pigs in the streets any more. We then followed up with Heidi in March, 2022. Queens County is the...

Following up on our various dives into mission-driven commercial vertical farming, greenhouse-growing at the Texas State Fair, indoor growing as a tool of food sovereignty in Brooklyn, and food-focused architecture, the Fields hosts discuss both the history of and recent innovations in greenhouses in cities, especially NYC. How can domestic homes incorporate greenhouses to grow food? What have cities done so far to create more viable opportunities to grow food in greenhouses? Melissa reflects...

Scott is a scientist, advocate, and educator working at the intersection of social justice and biodiversity conservation. He helps manage the amazing Radix Center in the South End of Albany, NY. Among many other amazing projects that we talk about with Scott, Radix is… growing trees without cloning in order to increase genetic diversity and help protect against pests; planting trees such as paw-paws with climate change in mind; teaching a love for the living environment and an ethic of...