Keep on developing ideas on Urban Farm

What is Urban Farm? What are the benefits of Urban Farm? Can Las Vegas sustain an Urban Farm? Can Las Vegas benefit from Urban Farm? As I was learning more about farming in the city, I realized that it is more than just growing fruits, vegetables and flowers in your backyard. It is even more than understanding how to prepare soil or take care of the plants like an expert. The Urban Farming provides not only food, but food that is fresh, healthy and most importantly, locally grown and not brought from someplace else with added preservatives. Urban farms, as seen in other cities, have provided not only fresh and healthy food, but also promoted healthy living, empowered people and enriched neighborhoods and city environments, because residents of those cities were exposed to firsthand experience of farming, educational classes, hand-on workshops and training all in effort to better themselves and others.
Before Las Vegas became what it is today, it used to be an area where people farmed certain crops to feed their animals and grew vegetable and fruits for their own and their family’s use. With time, however, the farm gave way to 24/7 entertainment, hotels and casinos and today, only several people still grow small quantities of vegetables or fruits and only as a hobby and not as a lifestyle. I would like to change that and would like to increase the scale of how much people grow in their backyard to a scale of city wide. I would like farming to be a lifestyle once again.
Bringing farming back to Las Vegas Valley is important to me as well as raising awareness and informing people of possibilities of growing their own goods and educating them on how to start farming and gardening, how to pick the right type of plants to plant, how to take care of plants and even how to process freshly harvested goods. It is also important to take an opportunity, raise awareness about our environment and educate people about sustainability, such as how to use solar power, which Las Vegas desert has plenty and also about how to conserve water by recycling water and efficiently harvesting rainwater, because water in Las Vegas is scares. Farming is important to me, because I have experienced it growing up. I was born and raised in an environment where we grew our vegetables and fruits in our yard. I also spent many summers at my grandparents’ farm where fresh goods were placed on our table right from the farm and without even realizing, especially recently, I started to compare that environment with the one I currently live in, the desert of Las Vegas, and I know that people would love to experience what I have as I was growing up.
Many might question if my intensions are right since many believe that nothing can grow in the harsh environment of the desert, but they are wrong, because it has been done. Many countries of similar climatic conditions have been farming for centuries and even cities in the United States, and even in the Mojave Desert have been Urban Farming for decades and have been successful.
The question is, can Las Vegas sustain an Urban Farm? Absolutely. Can Las Vegas benefit from Urban Farm? Absolutely. Las Vegas Valley could become the city where people eat fresh and locally grown foods, live a healthier lifestyle in neighborhoods that have been enriched because there is an urban farm next door, because they can grow their own vegetables and fruits or buy them at the nearby farmers’ market, because they can order food at the restaurant that is established on Urban Farm or enjoy their day at work office with the window that opens up into an Urban Farm and better yet, they can also share all of this with people who are visiting from other city. Residents of Las Vegas can be empowered because of the improved environment.