Urban Agriculture as a Career Path

DETROIT — “I want to be an urban farmer,” said Tom Howe, 19, a freshman at Wayne State University. “I want to start a community garden in some kind of ecovillage with farmers and chefs.”

This may seem an unusual career goal for a young man of the twenty-first century, let alone one from Birmingham, an upscale middle class suburb of Detroit. It’s also counter-intuitive that a major university located in the middle of the cultural center could offer Howe a means to his aspirations.