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Ann Beser

Ann Beser image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
November
Year
1975
OCR Text

Farm-A-Lot

Ann Beser, as the 30-year-old director of Mayor Young's Farm-a-lot program, offers hungry Detroiters a unique solution to soaring food prices.

It works like this: When a property owner fails to pay taxes on a vacant lot for three years or more, the lot can be taken over by the state. The state then turns its Detroit lots over to the city, which is more or less stuck with them if no buyer appears.

After having been given 3,000 lots throughout the city in this way, Mayor Young decided the property had to be used one way or another. He decided to offer them to residents for urban mini-farms, and Mrs. Beser was given the responsibility of coordinating the program.

According to Mrs. Beser, the federal government refused to provide funding for the new self-help program, but some local businesses helped out with donations-notably the J. L. Hudson Company, which provided a 22-quart pressure canning unit.

Out of the 500 lots initially given Mrs. Beser, 300 have been farmed so far, yielding an average of $139 worth of produce per lot. She believes that with improved farming methods and expertise, the yield could be upped to $500 to $800 per lot.

Six people from the surrounding community worked on each lot. According to Mrs. Beser, 39 per cent of the urban farmers were employed. One local Boy Scout troop worked a lot and sold the crops door to door at a minimal price. The Scouts also won a blue ribbon with their crops at the State Fair in October.

Mrs. Beser feels the program has been good for the city "psychologically."

"When one feels one is nothing," she notes, "then one is nothing." She adds that her program helps give participants a feeling of self-esteem through this creative and productive use of their idle time -and idle land.