rake aborted! for uninitialized constant that does exist - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have built a rake task --
# SET RAKE TASK NAMESPACE
namespace :db do
# RAKE TASK DESCRIPTION
desc "Fetch property information and insert it into the database"
# RAKE TASK NAME
task :insert_properties do
# REQUIRE LIBRARIES
require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'
# OPEN THE XML FILE
mits_feed = File.open("app/assets/xml/mits.xml")
# OUTPUT THE XML DOCUMENT
doc = Nokogiri::XML(mits_feed)
# FIND PROPERTIES OWNED BY NORTHSTEPPE AND CYCLE THORUGH THEM
doc.xpath("//Property/PropertyID/Identification[#OrganizationName='northsteppe']").each do |property|
# GATHER EACH PROPERTY'S INFORMATION
information = {
"street_address" => property.xpath("/Address/AddressLine1/text()"),
"city" => property.xpath("/Address/City/text()"),
"zipcode" => property.xpath("/Address/PostalCode/text()"),
"short_description" => property.xpath("/Information/ShortDescription/text()"),
"long_description" => property.xpath("Information/LongDescription/text()"),
"rent" => property.xpath("/Information/Rents/StandardRent/text()"),
"application_fee" => property.xpath("/Fee/ApplicationFee/text()"),
"bedrooms" => property.xpath("/Floorplan/Room[#RoomType='Bedroom']/Count/text()"),
"bathrooms" => property.xpath("/Floorplan/Room[#RoomType='Bathroom']/Count/text()"),
"bathrooms" => property.xpath("/ILS_Unit/Availability/VacancyClass/text()")
}
# CREATE NEW PROPERTY WITH INFORMATION HASH CREATED ABOVE
Property.create!(information)
end # ENDS XPATH EACH LOOP
end # ENDS INSERT_PROPERTIES RAKE TASK
end # ENDS NAMESAPCE DECLARATION
when I run "rake db:insert_properties" this is the error I produce --
rake aborted!
uninitialized constant Property
/Users/stevejobs/Sites/nsrosu/lib/tasks/property_information.rake:39:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.1/lib/nokogiri/xml/node_set.rb:237:in `block in each'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.1/lib/nokogiri/xml/node_set.rb:236:in `upto'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.1/lib/nokogiri/xml/node_set.rb:236:in `each'
/Users/stevejobs/Sites/nsrosu/lib/tasks/property_information.rake:21:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'
Tasks: TOP => db:insert_properties
(See full trace by running task with --trace)
I have a Property model with a table set up to accept all of these attributes, so why am I getting this error?

Answer 1

Your rake task needs to boot the Rails environment prior to running. That way you can access the classes.
To do this, you need to run the environment task. To make this happen, change your task definition to
task :insert_properties => :environment do