Here is a great editorial from the Detroit News in support of what I am trying to accomplish with my urban farming bill.

Editorial: Clear the path for Detroit farming

State lawmakers should support bill to speed growth of limited farming operations within city limits

Politicians and interest groups are overreacting to the Detroit urban farming idea, which should be achievable with relatively simple legislation. But there's stiff opposition to a proposal by Sen. Virgil Smith, D-Detroit, to exempt cities of more than 600,000 — Detroit, in other words — from Michigan's Right-to-Farm Act.

The Michigan Farm Bureau is nervous about amending the 30-year-old act, which protects farmers following approved practices from nuisance lawsuits. Smith wants to relieve Detroit officials' anxiety that agricultural plots would, under the act, be immune to city rules protecting residents from such annoyances as farm noises and odors.

The concerns seem a little ironic.

It's hard to see how a narrow law change, clearing the way only for limited types of farming in Detroit, would threaten the rights of farmers throughout Michigan. And it's inconceivable that Christmas trees, vegetables and greenhouses wouldn't be preferable to weeds, old tires, trash and crumbling buildings, from which Detroit's ordinances currently aren't protecting its citizens.

Urban farming has been proposed as a unique antidote to a major ill. There are 30,000 acres of vacant land in Detroit because a one-time population of more than 2 million has shrunk below a million. The city, battling to avoid financial collapse, is ill-equipped to oversee all the abandoned property or maintain streets and other infrastructure it encompasses.

Gary Wozniak and the nonprofit SHAR Foundation are eyeing 2,400 east side acres where they could develop a cluster of small farms, 30 acres or less each, raising crops in fields and greenhouses without disturbing the neighbors. They could offer jobs paying as much as $15 an hour, he believes. He cites a Michigan State University finding that tilling 5,000 acres could result in as many as 28,000 jobs and produce food to meet 70 percent of the city's needs.

Hantz Farms, a separate proposal envisioning the world's largest commercial urban farm in Detroit, has been on hold for a couple of years because city leaders have delayed a necessary rewriting of zoning ordinances.

Detroiters, meanwhile, are ahead of their leaders. While the city resists commercial agriculture projects that could have a bigger impact on its well-being, small-scale neighborhood farms are springing up and operating without interference. Greening of Detroit, an 8-year-old nonprofit group helping urban farmers, has seen the number of farm sites grow 41 percent, to 1,234 from 875, according to its urban agriculture director, Ashley Atkinson.

Lawmakers in Lansing should make sure that the way is clear at the state level for such enterprise — either through legislation proposed by Smith or a reasonable alternative. It shouldn't be controversial or all that difficult.

Then Detroit leaders need to cut through the fear and ignorance that often stand in the way of innovation. They must resist the urge to weigh down the new effort with burdensome rules.

Urban farming wouldn't fix Detroit's budget woes or halt its population decline, but could return some of its slack land to productive use. The proposal represents another instance in which citizens are ready and willing to make things better if government only will step aside and let them.