Roof Options
Understanding Future Uses of Roofspace and Defining An Early Path to Profitable Roof Estate Investing

Shanghai’s Skyfarms
March 16th, 2012

Via GoodToChina, a look at an interesting rooftop community initiative in Shanghai:

GoodtoChina launches Skyfarms – a rooftop community initiative in Shanghai – a place for people to come together, learn, and grow their own fresh, local, organic food in a gorgeous and convenient setting. GoodtoChina, with our partners at Jiashan Market and Anken Green, will make it as easy as possible for you to succeed as an urban farmer!

SkyFarms members receive a plot of land to grow their own organic vegetables. Plus, GoodtoChina provides a kick-off workshop to give you the basics to get started, a seasonal planting calendar, access to onsite farming tools, a complimentary seed packet, urban farming resources, and water for irrigation. A selection of seasonal seeds and seedlings can also be purchased directly from GoodtoChina.

Membership in SkyFarms requires an up-front annual financial contribution and a commitment to work at least twice per month at the site.

SkyFarms will kick off the growing season with its “Get Started” urban farming workshop on March 3^rd at Jiashan Market and March 10th at Anken Green. We’ll cover best planting practices, what veggies to plant, how to benefit from your organic waste and much more.

Location	Annual Membership Fee	Workshop Date and Time
JIASHAN MARKET Lane 550 South Shaanxi Road	1000 RMB	Saturday, March 3, 10:00am
ANKEN GREEN 668 HuaiAn Road	1200 RMB	Saturday, March 10, 11:30am

Sign-up for a SkyFarms plot on our events page and we will send you registration details.

To ensure you benefit from the “Get Started” workshop sign up prior to February 29. Open day to see plots is February 25, 2012.

For more info contact:

kareenerbe@goodtochina.com (English)
yanye@goodtochina.com (Chinese)

Shanghai, along with New York City and other global cities, is moving towards a green, healthier society. This has meant green roofs, often in the form of organic vegetable farms, on city rooftops. The benefits for the city and its residents are multifold from energy-saving to sustainability to waste reduction. It also allows city residents to grow their own healthy food without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. This has been a major incentive in New York City where 84% of consumers are concerned about food safety and are consequently looking for innovative solutions to feeding themselves and their families. Similar levels of concern are present in Shanghai. With an undeveloped rooftop policy, plenty of opportunity is available for

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As potential uses for building and parking lot roofspace continue to grow, unique opportunities to understand and profit from this trend will emerge. Roof Options is committed to tracking the evolving uses of roof estate – spanning solar power, rainwater harvesting, wind power, gardens & farms, “cooling” sites, advertising, apiculture, and telecom transmission platforms – to help unlock the nascent, complex, and expanding roofspace asset class.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy. Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation. He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”

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