Denver Urban
Homesteading (DUH) is dedicated to promoting local agricultural and good food. Irina moved to the United States from Central Asia and was
dismayed by the quality of many of the processed foods eaten here.
Eventually James reached his wife's level of awareness and after he began the
campaign to change Denver's restrictive chicken and goat laws he decided that he
and Irina could make a contribution to local society by helping to offer classes
and a market while creating a financially sustainable organization at the same time.
We don't promote political views at DUH.* We have
found that people who care about good quality, local food are liberals,
conservatives and centrists. Some of our best customers are Democrats, and
Republicans, and Independents, and Libertarians and non-voters. We meet
people with wildly different backgrounds and beliefs every week at our market,
and we want them all to enjoy what our market has to offer without fear that
they are subsidizing certain beliefs. These are people that are happy to
be rubbing shoulders with each other at the same market who might otherwise
never come together, and we are very happy to know them and see them in our
market.
Neither do we take a position against industrial
agriculture, but rather we take a position for local agriculture.
*We make an exception for promoting the
changing of laws to make it easier for urban homesteaders. James began a
campaign in early 2009 to convince Denver officials to allow chickens without
going through a complicated and expensive permitting process. That
campaign is ongoing at www.denverbackyardfarms.org
Additionally, we promote sustainability in every aspect of
our business and our personal lives. Irina grew up in the Soviet Union,
where there wasn't a Walmart or Home Depot in the neighborhood where one could
buy cheap, mass-produced products that it was easier to just throw away and buy
new rather than to repair. Consequently, Irina is the most conservative
shopper and most avid and creative recycler James has ever met. She truly
dislikes the consumerist mentality that permeates our society and wants to make
her own small effort to change it. Hence, she teaches a class in how to
restore your old wood furniture and save a tree. (Which she teaches for
free on Earthday.)
James and Irina are social entrepreneurs.
According to Wikipedia, "A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a
social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and
manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur
typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur
assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society as well as in profit
and return. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen
groups, many now are working in the private and governmental sectors and making
important impacts on society."
Contact us at james@denverurbanhomesteading.com
The DUH classroom is a place to learn things about urban agriculture, food and
other sustainable activities that are practiced far too uncommonly in this era.
The DUH
market is a place to sell and buy locally-produced agriculture and to learn
about healthy alternatives to the supermarket.
Our mission
is to:
* Help educate the public through classes in urban agriculture, food and
sustainable topics of interest to individuals and families.
* Help people reconnect with local food production, gardens and the kitchen.
* Sell high-quality, local
food and agricultural products thereby promoting local farming and local eating.
* Promote sustainability and self-sufficiency.
* Provide a meeting place for activities centered around food and agriculture.
Denver Urban Homesteading was created in response to the growing awareness that
our industrial food production and delivery systems are not meeting many of our
needs. We intend to provide an alternative.
DENVER
URBAN
HOMESTEADING
