In the near future, buying groceries may mean going to a nearby neighborhood food center featuring foods grown from a neighborhood farm or vertical farms. Food centers or vertical farms could supply a city with over 50 percent of its produce. Urban farming initiatives are growing rapidly, but many do not know what direction it is headed in.

Jolie Oliveti, a grower for the Revision House urban farm has doubts about urban farms providing food for entire cities in the future. "Building primarily a food system based on urban farms could be a difficult thing, because you have to grow a lot of food to feed all the people of Boston let alone places like New York City which is worlds bigger than Boston," said Oliveti.

According to studies done by Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University and an architect, in 2050 80 percent of the world's population will live in urban areas. Advocates for vertical farms believe that the indoor farms can provide food for as many as three billion people. Despommier designed a 30-story eco-system to feed the added population.  "If climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach:move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It's called vertical farming," said Despommier.

There are many people who dismiss this idea, claiming that it is costly and not feasible. Andrea Godshalk is writing a book on urban farming and thinks that farming outdoors cost less. "The vertical farming idea seems highly expensive and there's a lot of resources needed and there's a lot we can do before that is really a necessity. I think there is a lot we can be doing in between needing that because people want to farm and I think it's really important that people have access to the farms on the ground."

A vertical farm would work like a functional ecosystem: waste would be recycled and water used in hydroponics and aeroponics would be recaptured by dehumidification and used repeatedly. Buildings built solely for vertical farming are not the only structures that can house a vertical farm. Schools, restaurants, hospitals and top floors of apartment complexes can be used to house vertical farms.

 N.J. Unaka, a research fellow at the Institute for Ecological Design, thinks that vertical farming is possible but our current resources should be used to house the farms.  "If you have abandoned industrial buildings in the city that could carry the load of soil and plants, why not?  If you are planning to build a skyscraper specifically for that purpose, I'm not so sure.  I think people should grow food where they can and if that includes on a window sill, on a fire escape, on top of a roof or up awall, great," said Unaka.

The future of urban farming is unknown but it has the possibility of going in many directions. Unaka thinks that there are so many problems with the way American industries grow food and it may take years for America to rework our agricultural process. "The biggest direct problem is the food policy of the US government -it fundamentally pays farmers to waste food, kill soil and then either go out of business or get large and toxic. Their production is efficiently hidden from view, their value is determined solely on the dollar cost to extract, package, preserve and transport it.  The costs to the ecosystems they are part of, including the environment and our health are ancillary - economists call these externalities," said Unaka.

Soil is a very integral part of growing food. The healthier the soil, the healthier the harvest. Godshalk thinks composting on a large scale will help change the way we grow food.  She says that over 40 percent of trash thrown away is compostable. "There is a lot we can do. We can begin to build soil. In San Francisco, they have a city law that everyone needs to compost and the city picks up the compost and is selling it to vineyards and residents can get it sometimes. Those kinds of laws that make it a normal part of living in the city is that we compost are a valuable resource.

Whether vertical farming or large food systems are the future of urban farming there needs to be a clear plan for healthy food production and sustainability. If done right urban farming has the potential to be the nations leading food supply.

For more information about vertical farming visit http://www.verticalfarm.com/

For more information about Andrea Godshalk's book release date visit http://www.liberatoryecology.com

Earlier in December, President Barack Obama announced new and extended efforts to aid small business.  He detailed the ways in which the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus bill, would continue to help small business and subsequently boost the economy from Main Street to Wall Street. 

"I believe it's worthwhile to create a tax incentive to encourage small businesses to add and keep employees, and I'm going to work with Congress to pass one," Obama said in a speech delivered earlier this month at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

A large portion of the benefits will reach business owners through the Small Business Administration which works to provide loan guarantees for banks who are willing to lend.Loan guarantees lower the level of risk when a bank decides to lend money to a business that may or may not succeed. 

"They used to be 75 and 80 percent (of the total loan amount) and now they are 90 percent," said Boston-based SBA Business Development Specialist David Polatin.  "They've also eliminated the fees for our loans...so that saves thousands of dollars for the small business," he said.

The stimulus bill has provided better loan guarantees, fee reductions and tax incentives for small business since February 2009.  Many of these incentives are set to expire soon and the Obama administration is hoping Congress will act swiftly.

"Well, I believe the money is gone," said Polatin about the amount allocated to small business within the stimulus bill.

Now that the money is drying up, Pres. Obama is looking to extend these incentives for small businesses with hope that it will spur progress for the economy overall. 

Health care is the largest employment sector for immigrants in the Bay State. A 2008 study by the Immigrant Learning Center (ILC) called, "Immigrant Workers in the Massachusetts Health Care Industry" showed health care employs almost half a million workers and immigrant workers comprised almost 15 percent of the state's health care labor force.

The 2008 study was the first ILC-sponsored research about immigrant workers. Marcia Hohn, the ILC's Director of Public Education who contributed in the study, said they expected the study would show immigrants working in health care but they didn't know the extent of their involvement. She also said the study's findings of a strong immigrant work force in health care is due in part because many Americans are not willing to do certain jobs.

"Immigrants are filling critical vacancies, not taking jobs away from other people. They are filling in where there were not enough people. They are bringing skills that some Americans, native-born workers don't have, especially in the medical science area," said Hohn.

Click below to listen to Marcia Hohn talk about the "Immigrant workers in the Massachusetts Health Care industry" study. 

The study showed that more than half of all workers in the medical science field were foreigners. Immigrants comprised 40 percent of pharmacists, 28 percent of all physician assistants, 28 percent of all physicians/surgeons and 10 percent of all nurses.

Nursing is an employment sector that has been having trouble finding employees. Hohn said that although the nursing sector talks constantly about the crisis it's going through, nothing has come out of it."They talk about the coming retirements and the need for culturally competent health care but they haven't moved forward very well on trying to increase those numbers of foreign-born nurses or nurses that come from different cultures and backgrounds," Hohn said.

These job vacancies in the nursing industry have opened the doors to immigrants who are struggling to find jobs elsewhere. Marie, a woman born in Haiti who cites privacy issues for not revealing her last name, studies English at the ILC and works as a nurse assistant. Before coming to the US four years ago, Marie worked as a manager at a factory in France, where she grew up. She said finding a job as a nurse assistant was easier than finding a job as a manager, regardless of her experience. Still, she thinks is difficult for immigrants to find jobs in health care because of the language barrier but that doesn't stop them for applying.

"I asked for job because I knew many Haitians prefer working in hospitals and nursing homes because it's less difficult," Marie said.

The ILC study found that the health care establishments with the highest immigrant employment base (at least 20 employers or more) are hospitals, followed by nursing facilities and personal care establishments. The aging Baby Boomer generation was listed in the study as one of the primary reasons job vacancies in the health care sector will continue to grow. The study showed that Massachusetts ranked 12th out of 50 states in the percent of population 65 years and older. Therefore, a lot of people in the working population are starting to retire. This is also the reason why the demand for registered nurses and home health aides will increase dramatically, as the elderly start lacking the ability to take care of themselves.

"Improving human health, that often opens up a whole number of other jobs," Hohn said. "Clearly, the need for people who are in home health care and are taking care of people because of age or illness, that's a huge and important service that many immigrants play in."

Click below to hear  Hohn talk about what contributions immigrants are making in health care.

Working in elderly facilities or nursing homes has opened the doors for immigrants to step up the health care ladder and aspire for better positions. When Margaret Namaganda came to the US from Uganda,  she had a diploma in accounting from Kyambogo University. After she applied for accounting positions and was unsuccessful, she decided to go back to college and get her bachelor's degree in management with the hope of finding a good job after earning that degree. She immediately started working in a nursing home to make money to pay for her tuition because it was one of the few jobs available for her. Namaganda was able to pay her way through college but still couldn't find a job in her related field.

"After not finding a job I decided to go to Middlesex Community College for prerequisites for the nursing program because health care was the only field that would take me and they needed my labor," said Namaganda.  Namaganda now works at the Seven Hills Foundation as a direct support care staff. She said getting that job was very easy.

"I took a one-month training course and received two certificates as a home-health aide and as a nursing assistant. I did a Red Cross state examination that has three parts - written, oral, and practical - and then I got a license that I just have to renew when it expires," Namaganda said.

Namaganda is not surprised that health care is such a large employment sector in Massachusetts. She said she believes other employment sectors have become very selective and discriminating.

"Because immigrants have accents that business professions find hard to understand,  nobody wants to employee them," Namaganda said. "Also, with our education certificates from home, the American standard believes our education systems to be so low that it doesn't equate to their requirements," she said.

However, the ILC study shows that  the health care sector seeks out those cultural differences The study noted that  public health officials at the highest levels have called on the health care industry to improve cultural competence. They have suggested a number of strategies that would help improve it such as the ibetter language skills by staff members, training in cultural competence and hiring of more immigrants. Dr. Karen Wallace, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital, said having different ethnic and cultural groups in her workplace have given patients from other ethnicities a sense of ease.

"Not all our patients speak English and the hospital, it's not an environment where anybody feels completely comfortable," Wallace said. "So having nurses and doctors who can help a patient understand an illness that they might be suffering from and make them feel secure is vital in health care," she said.

Hohn is hoping that the ILC study will increase recognition of the important role immigrants play in health care and that more attention is paid to the workforce development programs that take people from the lower levels of health care employments and bring them to higher positions.

Small business continues to drive the American economy despite recession, according to federal statistics.  The Small Business Administration states nearly 60 percent of all jobs created come from small business. 

Business owner Steve Martin recently went through some life changes and decided to quit his job as a construction worker.  He realized working for anyone else could not bring the level of happiness and satisfaction he had always dreamed of having.  S0 six months ago Martin started the b Positive Project which aims to be "the craigslist of positive information."

Having an entrepreneurial spirit is something Martin believes he was born with. The odds of gambling his success by working with a large corporation is a risk he doesn't want to take any longer.  Martin would rather take matters into his own hands. 

"If I can bet on myself, where I have total control over everything...I'm like a wild, wild cowboy," said Martin.  "I'll do anything." 

The first money-making project for b Positive started with a bad sweater party in Boston with proceeds benefitting the Starlight Children's Foundation. "The goal of the event is to take the proceeds and buy sporting event tickets for the kids," said Martin. 

Martin is hoping the concept behind the b Positive Project will eventually have an effect that reaches beyond his wildest expectation.  "As people become involved with the b Positive Project, the more it's going to evolve into something that's kind of beyond my imagination," said Martin.  "It can definitely continue to grow and pick up momentum and hopefully spread like wildfire throughout not only the Boston area but nationwide and eventually globally."

Confidence and an unprecedented level of determination are Martin's best recommendations for any young adult who is looking to start their own business. 

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a "not-for-profit academic research consortium" that aims to "make high quality international research data on entrepreneurial activity readily available to as wide an audience as possible", found that Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 are most likely to start a business than any other age group. 

As a 30-year-old business owner himself, Martin falls directly into this demographic and believes starting young is the best time to take the risk."I think if you are 21 and you have no responsibilities, I don't think you should be scared about entering the world," said Martin.  "I wouldn't tell someone not to pay their student loans though." 

Martin plans to continue building his business and hopes he will have the support he needs from family, friends and the city of Boston. 

Bunker Hill Community College has seen a rise in the number of students who are interested in becoming their own boss. Students from varying backgrounds are finding The Community Center for Entrepreneurship at BHCC offers a wide variety of beneficial resources and guidance as they pursue their entrepreneurial goals. 

According to CCE Coordinator Jennifer Fukuda, students come to the center with a higher level of courage and determination than students she remembers from her four-year university experience. 

"I feel like the students here, especially the ones that have entrepreneurial ideas, are here to get their education and want to start a business...there is just a lot more focus," said Fukuda. 

The center opened in January 2009 and currently operates under two main functions. The CCE works as the main resource providing drop-in services to anyone with an idea. Coordinators like Fukuda can also give advice to current business owners that might need help in areas such as funding or creating a new business plan. 

The Center also manages the Associate of Science Degree in Business Administration program which offers an option in entrepreneurship for students as well as certificates in business entrepreneurship.  "We're a service here for the BHCC students and the local community as well.  Our main focus is the Charlestown and Chelsea area," said Fukuda.  "We're basically a resource to send people in the right direction."

First-year student Emmanuelle Pina came to BHCC from France three years ago for the value of the education she was hoping for and the positive interactions she had with administration. 

"I researched everywhere and found Bunker Hill Community College really interesting because it's a two-year degree program and the people are really friendly here.  It is not a business school, all about money.  So you feel like you are treated really well.  Especially as an international student because it is really pricey to look for a school here in Boston," said Pina.

The Center is designed to set students up for success after they leave the community college by teaching them practical business skills through classes or special events like bringing in local business leaders. "We have free seminars, workshops and big events like Global Entrepreneurship Week," said Fukuda.  "We've brought in people like Dan Curtin from ZipCar and hosted the Young Entrepreneurs Alliance students.  We had the founder of Boloco Restaurants, getting to make a connection with the students to be able to reach out to the community."   

Some may move on to a four-year university, start their own business or look for a position at a business that is already established. BHCC hopes to guide students like Pina as they pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.       

Entrepreneurial Programs Near Boston

Bunker Hill Community College-The Community Center for Entrepreneurship

Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Entrepreneurship Center

Babson College-The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship

Emerson College-Emerson Experience in Entrepreneurship

Harvard University-Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship

Many organizations in Massachusetts were founded specifically to help out the immigrant community. These organizations can provide a number of services, such as English learning courses, legal services and cultural activities. Click below to find out where these organizations are located and how you can contact them.

Ideally all workers have the basic human right to be treated with respect and dignity at their job. Yet immigrants find themselves having employers who violate these ideals.

The National Immigration Law Center states that federal and state labor and employment laws protect all workers, regardless of their immigration status. These laws give undocumented immigrants rights under state and federal wage and hour, health and safety, and anti-discrimination laws. These workers are also protected in their right to form a union. However, Joanne Goldstein, of the Massachusetts' Attorney General's Fair Labor Division, said a high number of labor complaints are reported in Massachusetts. In 2006 immigrants, represented about 14 percent of the Massachusetts population. Goldstein said that one out of five complaints received by the Fair Labor Division come from immigrant workers. Jennifer Doe, a Massachusetts Jobs with Justice organizer, argued the state's laws don't really protect immigrants like they should.

"Because our laws are more punitive than they are protective, what ends up happening is undocumented workers feel trapped in their working conditions," Doe said. "They feel like they can't complain and as a result they are exploited." 

Click below to find out what rights immigrant workers have and what are the most common problems they face. 

Goldstein said one of the most common cases of labor law violations in Massachusetts is wage theft. This would include employers who pay workers less than the $8 minimum wage required by the federal Minimum Fair Wage Law. It would also include cases where the workers don't get paid overtime. The Fair Wage Law states that most employees must be paid one and one-half times their regular hourly rate for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a given work week. However, the state law doesn't require overtime after eight hours in a day. In most wage theft cases, Doe said the employer fails to give workers their paychecks at all.

"They end up not getting paid at the end of the week and being told that if they complain about not getting their paycheck they would be deported," Doe said, adding," that creates a climate of fear and harassment and as a result it hurts other workers.".

In the past year, the Fair Labor Division has handled more than 3,000 cases of wage theft involving immigrants.

"We've seen an enormous up-tic in cases since the economy's downturn with bankruptcies and business closing," Goldstein said.  "Workers who often fear retaliation by employers for complaining about wage-and-hour cases fear even greater the potential of losing their jobs," she said.

Fernando Cervantes, an immigrant from Mexico, said he was a victim of wage theft when he was working as a janitor for the Coverall cleaning company. He worked around 10 hours a day for $6 an hour without getting paid overtime and he felt that he was being exploited because of his undocumented status. One day, Cervantes said the company "disappeared" and ended up owing him and his co-workers their paychecks. Afterwards, with the help of immigrant organizations like Centro Presente and the Chelsea Collaborative, they got to negotiate with the cleaning company and received a portion of what was owed to them. Cervantes can't understand why a country founded on liberty and freedom would stand for such abuses.

"I don't understand why this type of employer behavior continues to happen, where workers get abused, people can't stand up for their rights or get any benefits from their work," he said. "It just continues."

Cervantes thinks a good way to start preventing labor law violations is by educating the immigrant community on the matter.

"First of all, we should have an education campaign to the immigrant community so they can know their rights and know how to defend themselves," he said. "At first, I didn't know any of my rights. The rights I know now that I have are because of the two organizations that helped us in the case," said Cervantes.

Like Cervantes, several immigrants have said they have been taken advantage by their employers in the cleaning and hospitality employment sectors. In August 31^st, 2009, 100 housekeepers, which 98 percent of them were immigrants, got laid off from three Hyatt hotels in the Boston area without any given reason. At the end of the day's work, Hyatt managers fired the housekeeping staff and replaced them with temporary workers from the Georgia-based Hospitality Staffing Solutions. During previous weeks, the housekeepers had to train their own replacements after the managers told them the new employees would cover their shifts when they were on vacation.

These actions sparked outrage in the hospitality business and among government leaders. Gov. Deval Patrick took a step forward in the case and pleaded to Hyatt managers for reconsideration of the layoffs. The workers and their advocates took action in asking for support on legislation that will provide day laborers and temporary workers with better job protections, establish paid sick days and enforce wage compliance. The Hyatt responded with a statement that said, "We are providing the affected associates with assistance, including severance and outplacement counseling. Hyatt is committed to treating our employees with honesty and respect."

Duipattie Junga was one of the 100 housekeepers, who got laid off from the hotel chain. She worked at the Hyatt for 20 years and is still shocked by the way the managers, including her own, handled the situation.

"He said 'I'm going to go straight to the point. The hotel is making no money.' He said something like revenue not coming in. Everyone was like, we've been working five days for the past two years and it has never been slow," Junga said.

She also mentioned that after their meeting with the manager was over, they weren't even given time to gather all their belongings before leaving the hotel.

"They said you cannot go back upstairs even if you haven't finished your room, you're not going back. So when we were coming out the door we were given like a trash bag and they said, 'clear your locker,'" said Junga. "I said, 'Are we not going up to get our stuff?' He said, 'No, you cannot go anywhere. Just get what you have in your locker."

Click below to listen to Duipattie Junga talk about the sequence of events that led to the Hyatt layoffs.

Edwin Argueta, a Massachusetts Jobs with Justice organizer, thinks that neither the laid-off housekeepers nor their replacements are being treated with respect and therefore the Hyatt are committing double violations of workers rights.

"This new group of workers were being replaced at a lower wage than what they have been paid for. They were brought in by a temp agency that had history of violations in terms of nonpayment of wages," said Edwin Argueta, a Massachusetts Jobs with Justice organizer.

Three pieces of legislation have been proposed on Beacon Hill to prevent cases like the Hyatt and Coverall from reoccurring. All three bills had hearings this past fall before the Legislature's Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. Audrey Richardson, from Greater Boston Legal Services, said the Temporary Workers Right to Know bill would protect temporary workers who are sent off to work without knowing basic things about their jobs. The bill would require that a temporary agency give a worker basic information about the job they are being hired for in the language which the temporary agency usually communicates with the worker. Sen. Jack Hart and Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry are among the legislation's supporters.

Legislators also are evaluating proposed legislation that requires uniform wage compliance and recordkeeping. The proposed bill would provide three years for workers to recover wages that have been denied rather than the two years currently allowed.

A third proposal, the Paid Sick Days Act, was introduced by Rep. Kay Khan that  would allow workers to earn up to seven paid sick days per year. Richardson said that more than 40 percent of the state's private sector workers now don't have even one guaranteed paid sick day.

Click below to listen to a complete description of the three bills.

Goldstein said the Massachusetts government has been working hard to prevent workers rights violations in the workplace. She said that the state Attorney General's Office under both  Martha Coakley and her predecessor  Thomas Reilly had its Fair Labor Division make partnerships with the workers rights community so that workers feel more comfortable and secure when they are coming forward with a complaint.

"Coakley and Reilly as well had a policy of not cooperating with federal immigration enforcement authorities in the past years. So we are proud that that is the case and that immigrant workers are treated and protected the same way all residents of Massachusetts are," said Goldstein. As for the workers rights legislation now under review on Beacon Hill, Richardson said the next step is to get the bills favorably reported out of committee and have the Labor and Workforce Development Committee recommend that they move forward to the full Legislature.

Students across America are looking for ways to make a living in a tough economic climate. Some are returning to school due to the job market, while others are looking for ways to be innovative and aggressive with their future.

Boston University senior Alex Hodara is a business administration student who decided to get his real estate license as a freshman. His parents didn't approve of it at the time, but Hodara is living proof that a young adult can start with nothing and make it big.

"In the beginning, the idea was not to start a brokerage. I just wanted to be a real estate agent," said Hodara. According to Hodara, he ended up with Hodara Real Estate which claims to have "pioneered the first student owned and operated real estate brokerage."

One of those students who works with Hodara is Jeffrey Zucker. Zucker is also a business administration student at Boston University.  He co-owns the property management division of Hodara Real Estate and works with landlords to manage rented properties.

"When I have the business stuff to do on the table and I also have some school project, it's really hard to focus on the school project when ideas are just flowing in for the business stuff," said Zucker.  "So its a challenge to really get everything done for both of them."

Hodara decided to take one challenge at a time and says he has accomplished more than he expected in four years of college. "I didn't have any goal at all. Still to this day I don't know where I'm going with my life," said Hodara. "That's kind of how my whole life has been because I'm still in school."

Hodara and Zucker plan to stay in Boston after they graduate to work with Hodara Real Estate.

 Casey Campbell is a staffing consultant for Hollister, Inc. "I would say in the last year or so, our numbers have doubled as far as people seeking out temp work," Campbell said. "And we're seeing a lot more people from a variety of areas."

Amy Jennings, a recent college graduate, settled for temp work after an exhausting search for employment. "I searched for a job over the summer and I probably sent out about 80 resumes in New York, Boston, Baltimore and DC, but I only heard back from a few places," Jennings said, "it's hard because the companies are receiving so many resumes."

For many young professionals, finding work through an agency is an easier route than submitting resumes online. Campbell also points out that temp-working can lead to long term positions. "I would say, most times, temporary workers are placed in more permanent positions, if not hired full-time," she said.

Hannah Ryan agrees. She says that temping is a good way to get your foot in the door."The ones that we can say, to our clients, have been temping for us, are the people that get interviews," Ryan said. "Instead of sitting at home and hoping you'll find a job online, they've been out there," she said, adding, "They've been making a positive impression."

Ryan also believes that temping has the potential to ease the stress of unemployment. "If you have the right attitude about it and you're not necessarily looking to make a fortune temping," Ryan said, "it can be a great way to help your mental state during your job search."

"The ones that I work with are the 'glass half full' kind of people," Hannah Ryan adds. "They've been working, they've been trying, they've been keeping their skills sharp...The kind of people that are willing to take a calculated risk and use their positive energy."