Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Dan Susman has loved digging in the dirt as far back as he can remember. His parents were avid gardeners while he grew up in Omaha and Elkhorn, and he loved helping out.
That was the first step on a winding path toward making "Growing Cities," a documentary about urban farming. The project took Susman, 23, and friend Andrew Monbouquette, 23, across the nation this summer. They just wrapped filming and expect to finish the movie early next summer.
Susman majored in ecology and environmental studies at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. That led to working on organic farms and urban gardens both there and in Portland, Ore.
"I saw all these things happening, people gardening in backyards and providing vegetables to the community," Susman said. "I started thinking about engaging communities, teaching kids where food comes from, watching their faces when they pull that carrot out of the ground."
On Christmas break of his senior year at Dartmouth, Susman shared his dream with Monbouquette, his friend since middle school. Susman said he wanted to tour the country to see what urban farmers were doing and bring ideas back to his hometown to further grow the urban farming community.
Monbouquette, who earned a degree in rhetoric and media studies at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., said he wanted to join the trip.
"He'd been doing urban farming. I was interested in making movies. Those ideas blended," Monbouquette said.
Susman secured fellowships and grants to cover filming costs, and the two set out in early May on an urban-gardening pilgrimage that began in Denver. They saw beekeeping community gardens in a Latino section of Los Angeles, then toured a 100-year-old suburban farm in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Next came the lively urban farming scenes of Oakland and Berkeley, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Seattle.
"We filmed some really cool projects in Chicago and Detroit — one of the most happening places in urban farming right now," Monbouquette said.
In Boston, they visited the country's oldest running victory garden. They saw a full-acre rooftop garden in Queens, N.Y., and toured a barge greenhouse on the Hudson River. Then they headed south through Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans and Austin, Texas.
"This was all very run and gun," Monbouquette said. "Time and money dictated not spending too much time anywhere, but we came out with some great footage."
They filmed Omaha last, in late July, finding "more than we really could have imagined," Susman said. They visited Benson and City Sprouts community gardens, an urban beekeeper, a woman who keeps goats in her backyard, and chef Clayton Chapman at the Grey Plume restaurant in Midtown Crossing, which uses fresh local produce.
The next steps will be to raise funds for post-production (a fundraiser is planned for Omaha in November) and edit 150 hours of film down to about 90 minutes, Susman said. They plan to enter some film festivals next spring before seeking a distribution deal, or perhaps finding ways to self-distribute, such as short educational videos targeting kids.
"My big dream would be to create a place in Omaha for kids to go and learn about how food is grown," Susman said. "I want to inspire kids to reimagine what's possible in our cities, whether on a rooftop, in an alleyway, or in front and back yards."
While Nebraska is a farm state, he said, few kids in urban areas understand how food is grown and what is possible.
"It's a matter of getting past the idea that all we can do is grow corn for gasoline," he said. "The average age of a farmer in the United States is 57. We need a new generation to replace those who are retiring, and we need to find ways to do things differently — to produce food close to where we live. Young people are very open to that."
They also plan to take "Growing Cities" back on the road, screening the movie for people they met on their three-month road trip.
"Lots of folks are interested in good food and sustainable agriculture," Monbouquette said. "It's really exciting these efforts are going on in Omaha as well."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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