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I. The Food Movement and Urban Agriculture: The Popularity and Mainstreaming of Urban Animal Husbandry
Raising livestock is increasingly becoming an urban phenomenon. Books helping people to grow more of their own food in the city, often called "urban homesteading," have blossomed in the past few years. While many of these guides concern vegetable gardens, there are also books targeted to keeping goats on city-sized lots and keeping bees on rooftops and backyard balconies.1 There are numerous books about raising backyard chickens, including installments in the popular Dummies series-Raising Chickens for Dummies.2 And, many, many books are designed to help people grow more of their own food by creating an urban homestead. Backyard Homesteading3 and Your Farm in the City4 for example, include guidance on keeping forms of livestock that many urban homesteaders agree can be especially well-suited to city life: chickens, goats, and bees.
The popularity of these books does not exist in a vacuum. They are a reflection of an expanding group of people who want to grow and raise more of their own food, but want to do so without leaving their homes in the city. The growing interest in producing one's own food can be tied to what Michael Pollan has deemed the "food movement."5 Michael Pollan, an instigator, catalyst, and documentarían of this movement, states that the food movement is about more than just eating:
What is attracting so many people to the movement today (and young people in particular) is a much less conventional kind of politics, one that is about something more than food. The food movement is also about community, identity, pleasure, and, most notably, about carving out a new social and economic space removed from the influence of big corporations on the one side and government on the other.6
Pollan notes that the movement has many facets, from national agricultural issues like advocating for organic food and against genetically modified food, to regional and local issues like increasing availability and access to local food through farmers' markets and community gardens.7 Although the food movement has many facets, one of the basic tenets of the food movement is dissatisfaction with our current industrialized food system and a desire to increase the connection between eaters and growers...