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Smart cities are (un)paving the way for urban farmers and locavores
Kerry Trueman, Grist
If some sort of natural disaster or terrorist attack were to shut down New York City’s food supply chain, our supermarket shelves would reportedly be picked clean within three days. Other U.S. cities aren’t any better prepared for such emergencies, thanks to our fuelish dependence on a globalized food system.
So my husband Matt keeps a bin filled with tins of sardines under the bed in our sardine tin-sized Manhattan apartment. Plus two cans of organic vegetarian chili, and a Kelp Krunch sesame energy bar. He’s on a self-sufficiency kick, too; makes his own vanilla extract, sauerkraut, duck rillette, and cat food. I guess we’ll be in pretty good shape if calamity comes a-callin’.
But how will our fellow New Yorkers feed themselves? Will they pluck purslane from the sidewalk cracks? Raid Annie Novak’s rooftop farm? Where will the freegans forage when the dumpsters are as empty as a Palin stump speech?…
(30 Aug 2010)
Another great and informative post from Grist’s Feeding the City series that links to a lot of recent urban agriculture work. -KS
Dwindling Fossil Fuels and Our Food System
Lester Brown, Mother Earth News
Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted from the earth has exceeded new oil discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil, but discovered fewer than 9 billion new barrels. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, decreasing every year.
As a fossil fuel, natural gas is susceptible to the same problems we see in oil, whereas electric c…
It can’t be denied: Agriculture uses a vast amount of oil. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel, natural gas or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production also is energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture and international transport of phosphate and potash fertilizers all depend on oil. Our answer to the question of how we can end world hunger has thus far been to focus on increases in agricultural technology. These advances, unfortunately, require even more fuel.
Fertilizer production accounts for 20 percent of energy use on U.S. farms, and the demand for this fertilizer continues to climb. In addition, the international food trade separates producer from consumer by thousands of miles, further disrupting soil nutrient cycles. For example, the United States exports some 80 million tons of grain per year — grain that contains large quantities of basic plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The ongoing export of these nutrients will slowly drain the inherent fertility from U.S. cropland if the nutrients are not replaced.
This international food trade is responsible for more than just soil nutrient depletion. Sustainable farming alone cannot solve this problem. The amount of energy used to transfer goods from farmer to consumer equals two-thirds of the total amount of energy used to grow it on the farm (see “U.S. Food System Energy Use” chart in the Image Gallery). An estimated 16 percent of food system energy is used to can, freeze and dry food — everything from canned peas to frozen orange juice from concentrate.
Food miles — the distance food travels from producer to consumer — have risen in the United States thanks to cheap oil. Fresh produce routinely travels long distances, such as from California to the East Coast. Most of this produce moves on refrigerated trucks.
Excerpted from Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, available for download or purchase online.
Many communities respond to growing concerns about food security by forming local food policy councils. These nonprofit groups — which work to build stronger local food systems that are less oil-intensive than factory farms — generally include food producers, consumers, merchants and policy makers. To find out if your community has one, search the Web for “food policy council” and your state’s name, or “food policy council” and your city’s name. Also, check out the Community Food Security Coalition’s information page on food policy councils. If there’s not an active council in your area, consider setting one up. — MOTHER
(Aug/September 2010)
Students imagine new possibilities in intensive summer agroecology program
Goshen College press release
If there is a common thread among the seven students from five colleges who studied in Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College’s Agroecology Summer Intensive (ASI) this year, it is one of new possibilities.
“Now I know that there are ways to survive as a small farmer,” said Emma Regier, a biology major at Bethel College (North Newton, Kan).
“This is an exciting time to study sustainable agriculture,” added Dale Hess, director of the program. “There are indications that the Obama administration has recognized the connections between the way we grow food and eat, and the health-care crisis on one hand and the climate-change and energy crisis on the other.”
Students study four courses during the nine-week agroecology intensive: Soils, Vegetable Crops, Agroecology and Small Farm Management. The biology of growing food is only one area of emphasis. Politics, economics and environmental justice are all part of the web of connections that students delve into. Living together on site and sharing a kitchen adds yet another layer of understanding of the process that brings food from the ground to the table.
During the nine-week program, students encounter a wide range of alternatives to industrial agriculture. The group visited a conventional thousand-cow dairy farm, a grass-fed meat farm with its own kill floor and an organic Amish farm, among others. They also had the chance to plow with oxen at Tillers International, a farm that preserves and studies low-capital technologies, and to meet a couple who just began their own Community Supported Agriculture two years ago.
…Point of View – Orion Nightwalker Yazzie
Orion Nightwalker Yazzie is a student from Aztec, N.M. He has also studied agroecology at Prescott (Ariz.) College.
I come from a community that is based on traditional agriculture: raising corn and sheep. This is still an important part of my Navajo culture and I grew up seeing the value of it. Farming enables us to stay on our land and not rely on the outside world.
I came to Merry Lea’s agroecology program because deserts and mountains are all I know. I wanted to see agriculture in a different setting. I was also curious about Mennonites and what their culture’s relationship to the land might be like.
One thing that struck me during my time in the Midwest was the way food is grown as a commodity. How odd it is to produce food for others but not for yourself! Around here, farmers grow thousands of acres of corn and none of it is edible for them. Navajos grow small patches of corn to feed their families. To us, corn is sacred. In our creation story, people are made from corn. During prayer, corn pollen and cornmeal are scattered in four directions. One of my clans is called the corn clan.
After my education, I plan to return to my home community and practice agroecology. I really respect my elders and parents and relatives. I have a place in my family and my community. I don’t want to move to a place where I have no relationship with the people or the place. Our homeland is considered very sacred. You can’t just go somewhere else and be a Navajo; it is place-based.
In my area of New Mexico, there is a lot of energy development: uranium, gas and coal. People feel pressure to abandon agriculture and work for these companies, participating in the pollution of land and water, even though they may not have electricity themselves. Navajos have a weird relationship with the dominant culture; wanting what it has and yet not wanting it. We have a culture that is thousands of years old, with a sophisticated religion and practices, but we are up against modern culture that sees itself as the apex of civilization. I want to help young people understand that our traditional agriculture is still important and still a way to maintain sovereignty and independence.
(24 Aug 2010)
Egg Co-ops Take Community Gardens to a Whole New Level
Sara Novak, Treehugger
Yesterday’s piece on salmonella shown a pretty negative shadow on our nation’s egg producing industry. The recent salmonella outbreak is a clear example of the downfalls of an out of control globalized food system. But the picture isn’t all grim. As a farm-to-fork trend further gains momentum across the nation, there’s certainly a light at the end of the tunnel. And egg co-ops are just another example of what happens when the community comes together in the name of food.
The egg co-op shown on a recent episode of Cooking Up a Story, shows us what happens when a community comes together in the name of good eggs. Don’t have the time to take care of your own backyard birds? Start an egg co-op like this one at Zenger Farm in Portland, Oregon. Members of Zenger’s CSA wanted fresh eggs to go along with their farm share so they put up flyers at local coffee shops to find people interested in helping raise the chickens that would then be housed at the farm…
(22 Aug 2010)
UK Bee Industry Abuzz With Mite Resistant Breed
Stefano Ambrogi, Planet Ark
A British beekeeper said on Wednesday he may have discovered a strain of honey bee immune to a parasite that has been gradually wiping out populations of the vital insect worldwide.
Scientists have been trying to find a way to fight the pesticide-resistant Varroa mite.
But now a retired heating engineer who has spent 18 years searching for a mite-resistant breed may have made a breakthrough.
Ron Hoskins, 79, from Swindon in southern England, says he has managed to isolate and breed a strain of bees which “groom” one another, removing the mites.
Since making his discovery, which he said happened by chance, he has been artificially inseminating queen bees in the hope they will establish themselves.
“The Varroa mite has been causing havoc with colonies in countries all over the world, apart from Australia. It has spread at an alarming rate and is very destructive,” Hoskins told Reuters.
“If this problem is left unchecked it could be a disaster for the food chain waiting to happen,” he added.
He said recent research had found that more than two thirds of all Britain’s honeybees have been lost to the parasite. He is now looking for funding to further his research and has had an invitation from Australian officials and counterparts eager to keep the parasite at bay…
(26 Aug 2010)
