Features

Writing for the Guarding in London, Helen Browning declares that organic food is here to stay, in spite of declining sales. 

The Lake County Post-Tribune wrote yesterday about the recently-passed US Farm Bill, with interviews from local farmers who got nothing and those on the receiving end of the subsidies.  While the farmers are specific to the Lake County region, this story is playing out all across America, and has a huge impact on all of us - especially those who are struggling to make ends meet farming small plots of land.

An interesting article on WorldChanging inspecting the downsides to urban vertical farming:

Construction requires a lot of energy. Keeping vegetables warm in winter requires a lot of energy. Recycling water requires a lot of energy. Generating artificial sunlight requires a lot of energy. In other words, the secret ingredient that makes vertical farms work (assuming they work at all) is boatloads of energy.

The general tone of the article seems to imply we all need to be in urban centers. Given the premise that humans somehow are required to be packed together his point seems to follow naturally.

Environmentally speaking, it makes more sense to move another person into a city than it does to make way for a berry patch.

In my case, I keep moving farther and father away from anything that could be considered a city.

And even in densely-packed cities, there's always a lot of unused or otherwise "wasted" space.  It's not about demolishing a building to plant corn.  It's about growing crops in the margins.  Sometimes the margins are walls.

A few weeks back CNN-Money reported about George Irwin:

George Irwin builds green structures for a living, but his latest project aspires to rebuild lives. This summer, Irwin is donating a vertical urban farm for residents of Los Angeles' graffiti-scarred Central City East.

Part art, part urban renewal, part local eating.  He's also CEO of Green Living Technologies, who does this professionally.  They have a gallery of other green walls they've done.

Alan Bjerga writes for Bloomberg about the soaring cost of farmland.

U.S. farmland values are at a record high even as the rest of the country suffers the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, with the highest crop prices ever pushing up agricultural real estate.

Once again, this is simple economics.  Demand for food products has risen, particularly as we have decided to start using food for non-food uses, like ethanol.  Rising prices always attracts more producers, wanting to get a slice of the profit pie.

The resources that produce the profit will increase in cost also, as everyone along the chain of capitalism tries to capitalize.

While investigating local food options, often you find yourself with a choice of CSAs.  It can be difficult to pick which to join, as each supplies different produce throughout the season. Plus, you have to pony up a chunk of change up-front, which can be harder to swallow than lettuce gone to seed.

Enter the "food club", as described by Plenty magazine:

The way it works is fairly simple: Customers sign up to be members for a low fee of $5 a month that helps to cover overhead. Each week, a group of organic and sustainable farmers provide a list of their available products to an order coordinator. All of the products are listed in an e-mail that goes out to members. Members respond with what they want to order for the week and buy from the farmers they choose. Farmers drop their goods off and pick up a check from the ASN.

As a consumer, that sounds awesome.  But, what if you're a farmer who has a lot of kale this week, but no one orders it?  Sure, the free-market's invisible hand will teach you not to grow so much kale next time.  Maybe next week folks will buy your collards.  Or not.

The CSA farmer, on the other hand, still has has $500, which was pre-paid, at the beginning of the season.

And the middleman takes a portion of the proceeds.

The author of the article claims:

The food club system is also a better business model than farmers markets because it concentrates the most important kind of buyers.

Then again, the farmer is trading certainty (pre-paid CSA shares) and revenue (direct-to-farmer) for uncertainty and a reduced take.  The upside is hopefully broader exposure to a larger market.

While some people may find themselves living on acreage in healthy farmland, urban areas provide much less cropland.

How do you eat local when you can drive for an hour and still be "in town"?

The Wikipedia tells us about vertical farming

Vertical farming is a conceptual form of agriculture done in urban high-rises. In these high-rises (variously called "farmscrapers,") food such as fruit, vegetables, fish, and livestock can be raised by using greenhouse growing methods and recycled resources year-round, allowing cities of the future to become self-sufficient.

The Vertical Farm Project has been studying the problem and possible solutions.

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

They tend towards the large-scale "farmscrapers" building-scale vertical farms.  I would imagine "victory vertical gardens" should be possible on patios and porches.

Indoor vertical farming also solves many of the "problems" of a local diet.  Since the environment is controller, seasonality becomes less important (asparagus in august!). And transportation costs are lower than even the farm on the nearest rural tract of land.

I have to admit, I'm entertained by vegetarians.  I respect them, I won't force-feed them bacon (c'mon, bacon!), but they sometimes make me giggle.

Slate has an article discussing the ethics of honey for vegans.

Does honey qualify as a forbidden animal product since it's made by bees? Or is it OK since the bees don't seem too put out by making it?

I guess a human-managed hive is indeed like a CAFO for bees.  But the bees certainly "are provided access to pasture."  I can't imagine any non-free-range bees producing honey. 

Honey is one of those products that you have no excuse not to buy locally.  But is any honey, local or not, moral to consume?

Joe Napsha writes in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about the widespread effects of rising oil costs.

As operating costs skyrocket, farmers are being forced to pass along the extra costs to buyers at farmers markets or to food processors and retailers when they can, agriculture experts say.

We routinely speak of the "food chain" but ultimately it's more of an "oil chain".

Homegrower's Exchange is not a way to trade your kind bud from your basement hydroponics rig.  No, it's a place to...

Trade and exchange your surplus fruit, vegetables and other homegrown produce with other members in your area.

They have regional groups, forums about each type of produce, and a place to submit photos and videos.

If you look out your window, I'm sure you'll see some of that squash you're already tired of eating.  Wouldn't it be great if you could trade for some tomatoes?

At this point, it seems to lean heavily towards the Australians, but there's US-based groups available also.