US (IL):Researchers quantify urban agriculture with Google Earth

Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a methodology that they used to quantify the urban agriculture in Chicago, reports Farmers' Advance. John Taylor, a doctoral candidate working with crop sciences researcher Sarah Taylor Lovell, uploaded lists of community gardens into Google Earth, then developed a set of reference images to determine which gardens were actually producing food. Of the 1,236 "community gardens" on record, only 160, or 13 percent, were actually producing food. Taylor then used Google Earth images to locate other food production sites in the city, including residential gardens. The final estimate was 4,648 urban agriculture sites with a production area of 264,181 square meters. Residential gardens and single-plot gardens on vacant lots accounted for almost three-fourths of the total. The results of this study suggest that both backyard gardens and vacant lot gardens contribute substantially to Chicago's total food production.

More information: http://www.farmersadvance.com/article/20130107/NEWS03/130107001