Urban Farm is a fairly broad term that defines essentially any type of (generally) organic food cultivation in an urban setting. As with most pastimes, hobbies, and movements, it draws people from all walks of life, and elicits a wide range of purpose and expertise.

Poking around the internet reveals some of these differences. Here is a small sampling of missions and stated purposes, collected from various urban farming endeavors:

• We believe all communities can empower themselves and their environment by actively participating in the production and management of their most basic needs. (…) We cannot rely on distant farms in distant countries and markets to feed us, let alone nourish us. We must take responsibility for ourselves and our communities.
  
• Sink your teeth into a juicy pear, add some fresh basil to your favorite dish or sauté some seasonal vegetables; all found within your arms reach right in our yard. The Urban Farm not only awakens the possibility to reconnect with the earth and agriculture in simple, practical ways, but it also nourishes the promise of a future that will sustain life for years to come.
  
• Are you interested in eating more fresh, organically grown vegetables? Would you like to have a secure, sustainable food source in your backyard? Have you always wanted to have a garden, but don’t feel you have the time or know-how to get started? If so, you might be interested in the services that the Seattle Urban Farm Company provide.
  
• The Mill Creek Farm is a collectively run urban education farm that utilizes vacant land to improve local access to nutritious foods and to promote sustainable resource use by growing and distributing produce and by demonstrating ecological methods of living.
• Alemany Farm empowers San Francisco residents to grow their own food,
  and through that process encourages people to become more engaged with their communities. We grow organic food and green jobs for low-income communities, while sowing the seeds for economic and environmental justice.

Some (the first one, for example) are, overall, dead serious, and can be translated as: “People, this is a fucking problem. We have to do this.” They speak of responsibility and necessity. Not to say there’s nothing else there - there’s usually talk of community, ideas, people - but this is clearly not an issue of physical beauty or reconnecting with nature.

To some degree the flipside of this is demonstrated by The Urban Farm. “Sink your teeth,” “favorite dish,” “reconnect with the Earth” - this doesn’t have much to do with basic needs or responsibility. The farm’s practices are informed by ideals of sustainability and education, but the presentation of its purpose is more aesthetic and spiritual. There is, however, a shared vision in this case - planning for the future.

In actuality, there’s much in common. Even when not stated, you can often glean apocalypto-phobic undertones to many of these mission statements. There are also usually references to food security, a distrust for more conventional food production. The idea that urban farming fosters understanding and improves communities is usually found somewhere on these sites. It’s just that what is stated as being a primary purpose is all over the map.

Additionally, I would imagine that most folks involved with urban farming would most likely appreciate all the various types of motivations involved. A high-end landscaping company that installs edible gardens, for example, probably sees the value of a community garden in the projects. The founder of a school gardening program no doubt supports transforming backyards into tiny farms.

So far, we’ve seen a good sampling of these missions. I’m holding out hope we’ll meet someone with a totally zany reason for his or her urban farming project - “Jesus told me to or He’d smite me,” or “I won’t eat vegetables from the store because grocers stick them down their pants in grocer hazing rituals” - and sometimes I think it’s personalities, rather than motivations, that set these folks apart from each other.