By Jeanne Storck

They’re trading lawns for lettuce, bringing hens into the family fold and harvesting honey just steps from their back door. They’re the new urban farmers, and they’re coming soon to a yard near you (if they’re not already there).

As climates change, fuel prices rise and food shortages loom, a growing number of city dwellers are realizing that converting a home into a homestead makes ecological and economic sense. At San Francisco’s Garden for the Environment, organic gardening classes sold out two months in advance. Landscape architect Colin McCrate of Seattle Urban Farm Company reports Seattlites are clamoring for backyard vegetable plots. The movement even has its own campus — earlier this year the Institute of Urban Homesteading opened its doors in Oakland, California, offering city slickers the chance to train in the rural arts of gardening, beekeeping and food preservation.

Urban farming isn’t an entirely new concept. During World War II, Americans produced almost forty percent of the nation’s food in backyard Victory Gardens. This summer, San Francisco is resurrecting the idea, replacing the manicured lawn in front of City Hall with vegetable beds and encouraging residents to do the same.