Food

Creating a market for the taste of home

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In the main section of the Lederer Youth Garden in northeast Washington D.C., run by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), a staff member pulled up a weed from the rows of okra, peppers, and watermelons. “This will sell for 3 dollars a bunch at the farmers market,” he said. “But here in our garden, we consider it a weed.” Looking on, Yao Afantchao, who works with the University of the District of Columbia’s (UDC) cooperative extension service and its agricultural experimentation service, smiled and shook his head. On just the other side of the Lederer Garden’s green house, the small demonstration garden he manages boasts an entire section dedicated to growing this weed.

Could rationing be made palatable?

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Could a system of energy rationing, or even rationing of high energy goods and foods work in the US? The conventional answer is that it is politically impossible to even consider it, and that the public would never go along with it. But a closer look at the history of rationing during the second World War suggests that it might not be so unthinkable, and that in fact, rationing has historically been viewed as highly positive, pro-democratic and good public policy by the general populace.

Concerning the unbearable whiteness of urban farming

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Go to where people are at, not where you want them to be. Stay far away from “knowing what is best for people”. If people in your neighborhood don’t care about growing food, don’t force it. Maybe people feel more excited about an after-school program teaching photography to youth? If so, try to integrate your food-based ideas into programs that the community actually wants. Unite your interests with those of whom you work with; don’t patronize.

Major reports point to oil supply turmoil and price volatility

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Major energy reports published this year are pointing to a significant rise in the price of oil due to supply constraints sometime over the next three years – the only disagreement is how soon.

So far 2010 has seen three international reports considering the future of oil production, demand and prices. These were published by high profile groups that command widespread respect – in turn, a collection of UK industrialists, the US military and a joint effort between Europe’s most recognized insurance company and a politically connected think-tank.

Largely ignored by the media, and considered separately online as they came out, it is interesting to do a compare-and-contrast between documents produced for widely different audiences on each side of the Atlantic.

Can we solve two problems at once – unemployment and preparing for power down?

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The model is simple and has been done before. From 1933 to 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) provided jobs for younger workers conserving natural resources (e.g. our national parks) in the US. The program was part of a general jobs creation program proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to provide a stimulus to the economy and, so to speak, kill two birds with one stone. There was a great deal of resource management work that needed to be done, things like building access roads in national parks, and there were millions of unemployed young men who, without meaningful work, would have likely run amuck. It was, in fact, a brilliant idea.

Tea

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As we headed back to the shelter for tea, though, some of the Irish workers did something curious — they gathered wild plants from the meadow as they walked and chatted, arriving at the shelter with arms full. They quickly rinsed the plants, dropped them into a pitcher and poured boiling water over them, and in a few minutes had instant herbal tea.

3 pillars of a food revolution

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A few years ago, I stumbled on a United Nations study that transformed how I think about the climate crisis. In the report, researchers pegged greenhouse gases from the livestock sector at 18 percent of total global emissions. Combine this with other aspects of our food chain—from agricultural chemical production to agribusiness driven deforestation to food waste rotting in landfills—and food and agriculture sector is responsible for nearly one third of the planet’s manmade emissions. Move over Hummer; it’s time to say hello to the hamburger.

Two agricultures, not one

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A great deal of the discussion of post-petroleum food production misses the fact that in societies before oil — and thus arguably in societies after oil — food was produced by two distinct systems. The last century saw the dismantling of one of those; the present century will have to see its reconstruction.

The fruit of sharing

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In our local neighborhood in Los Angeles, for the third year running, we are hosting a group purchase of bare root fruit trees.  It started on a whim.  I was ordering bare root fruit trees for my own yard, and thought perhaps a few others might wish to piggyback on my order.  I posted it on our local Transition email loops and suddenly my order had exploded to 21 trees!  We qualified for extra volume discounts at the supplier, and the box that arrived on my doorstep the following January was so big that it could easily have contained one of the Lakers basketball players!