Urban Ag Status Update

It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in a room with Newark's Deputy Mayor, Stephen Pryor, where he voiced Newark's support and pursuit of Vertical Farming in his town--our slogan, it was decided, would be, "Bringing the Garden Back to the Garden State."  Then Chicago's Mayor Daley trumpeted the same message from his mayoral throne, only to announce his abdication from the position a few short months later.  In New York, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has been very consistent in his advocacy for Vertical Farming.  And it makes sense that he should be: New York City is the most densely populated US city with more than 70,000 residents.  Unfortunately, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been more tepid in his support. 

I know it's easy to think that things are very stagnant in this sphere, that the naysayers are winning.  Actually, they're not, and I'm going to look at a few recent initiatives that bode well for our ultimate goal of a Vertical Farm-fed world.

1BillionHungry

The FAO of the United Nations has recently launched a campaign to get people riled up about the one billion stomachs that don't get enough to eat. 

If you want to sign the petition (like I did), head on over here and make your voice be heard.

(Caveat: with all its resources, this viral campaign is the least the UN FAO can do to stop the terrible, terrible inequity which is the 21st Century hungry human.)

Reforming the Chicken

Dana Blankenhorn over at Smart Planet published a nice article about the FDA taking some initial steps to curb our outrageous food system towards something more sustainable, humane and less fattening.  Here's an excerpt from it:

We’re fat because we are reacting rationally to the incentives government has placed in the food supply market. These incentives favor quantity over quality, protein over vegetables, and things like corn syrup over cane sugar.

Change the incentives in the production and manufacturing of food, I argue, and consumers will respond. Just saying “eat healthy” when you have an unhealthy production system won’t get the job done.

I recommend heading over there to check it out.

Chicago's Mayor Daley Wants One Too!

Thrilled at the notion of growing healthy food just blocks from where he spent his childhood, Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley said last Friday that he would support efforts to establish vertical farming in his hometown.  Who will be first, Newark, Chicago, or somewhere else, I don't know.  But the race is on!

Read the full story at Journal Sentinal Online.

Update: check out Plant Chicago, the group pushing for VF in Chicago.

BP Spill and VF

I hope we’re all still outraged over the BP oil spill.  I hope that those people out there who call this the Age of Indifference are wrong.  I hope this catastrophe doesn’t get forgotten in all the miscellaneous hoop-la. 

If you watched President Obama’s speech last week, you were probably left a little bewildered.  What exactly is the plan?  This oil accident is profoundly devastating to local economies which rely on a non-oil-laden ocean; hopefully, BP will recoup them for current and projected future losses.  But this oil spill affects us all.

I have to admit, part of me is concerned that this is a spill from which the world will never recover.  I thought how ironic it would be if this were the end of man; no atomic bomb, no massive sea level rise (by the way, what’s the deal with Al Gore?), no meteor; just an accident from capitalism as usual.  But then I looked at a world map: Earth is BIG.  It will recover; however, whether we’re fit to stick around is another matter. 

Why Are Hamburgers So Cheap?

Really though, why?  The subsidies are part of it, of course.  And the subsidies have to do with what we want to export: there's more money to be made exporting meat and wheat than cucumbers.  Part of it is economies of scale: the b. model of McDonald's requires that there be thousands of locations to keep their prices so low.  

Can we do anything about it?

Fortunately, yes.  In capitalism, a dollar is a vote.  As long as money makes the world go round and people use cliches, a person's consumer behavior is meaningful.  Spending money responsibly and "being the change you wish to see" are the best bet I think.  The deeper issue, and the one that McDonald's would use in its defense, is that people like hamburgers more than salads.  Is that true?  Is it changeable?

Update: Annie Leonard over at The Story of Stuff uses the term "manufactured demand" to discuss how bottled water companies convince people to buy their inferior-to-tap-water product.  I think the term is great, and it obviously applies to the cheap hamburger discussion.  

(Thanks to GOOD and PCRM for this story).

Concrete Jungles Destroying the Wooden Ones

(Borneo. Photo from here.)

David Biello, from Scientific American, says, in his most recent article, that

A statistical analysis of 41 countries revealed that forest loss rates are most closely linked with urban population growth and agricultural exports...even overall population growth was not as strong a driver.

Deforestation has always been considered a major culprit in climate change--as forests disappear, so too does the Earth's ability to self-regulate temperature--but this article, and the accompanying scholarly paper, paint a clear picture of the root cause of all this tree felling: urbanization. Interesting.

High Steaks Gamblin'

A country's meat consumption increases with its GDP per capita, but what happens to a country when foreign bankers make cold, hard wagers on its future food prices? The Food and Water Watch, a consumer NGO headquartered in Washington DC, published this report in November, 2009, which provides a startling look at the connection between Wall Street's investments (read: speculation) in the future prices of commodities--including food--and the sharp rise in global hunger attributable to higher food prices.

Why Have the Climate Talks Neglected Food?

Seriously? It's no longer a secret that agriculture is a major contributor of greenhouse gasses. Reuters reports:

When that indirect effect [of deforestation] is included, farming accounts for
nearly a third of global greenhouse gases.

This report from Iowa State University (can't get enough of the Hawkeye state) tells a different story, but it still puts agriculture's impact on greenhouse gas emissions at a very noteworthy level.

Why would the Climate Change Summit ignore it?

Climategate: Bad News For Vertical Farms?

In case you haven't heard yet, Global Warming (GW) is a big hoax and Al Gore is a liar, a thief, a hypocrite, and soon to become the world's first carbon billionnaire. Oh, and he also has big socks and big feet...or at least a big footprint of carbon. The billionaire part is cool (can we have some?), but the other parts...not so much.

The UN Committed to Solving Global Hunger? Don't Be Fooled

We must give money to farmers in developing countries. It is, according to Jacques Diouf*:

“The most effective way to eliminate hunger from the face of the Earth.”

Bloomberg News published that in an article today that expounds the UN's commitment to curing the global hunger problem through, essentially, financial aid. The article almost convinced me that the UN is doing everything within their power to rectify this horrifying injustice.

But then I thought about subsidies.

Global Warming: Political Alarmism or Scientific Certainty?

Dr.s William Gray (pic. @ bottom), Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, and Kevin Trenberth (pic. @ top), head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, recently participated in an in-paper debate on climate change.

The Hunger Problem: Whose Is It?

European farmers protested low milk prices last week, saying poor governance is to blame for the global food crisis. "Hunger is a political problem," said farmer Sieta van Keimpema, the leader of one protesting group. Others agree:

"It is not the free market that is perverted, but the players in an imperfect free market," says Michiel Keyzer from the Centre for World Food Studies in Amsterdam. He points the finger at governments that created chaos by stimulating the use of biofuels and limiting trade by putting export barriers in place. "Institutions like the G20 don't pay enough attention to the problems that it, meaning the governments themselves, creates."

But some suggest that dumping milk in protest is a waste, and that the milk should have instead been used to make butter that could be sent to Africa.

What do you think?

Read the whole story here.