Earthday Round the Corner

On this, the eve's eve of the 40th anniversary of Earthday, we should remember to still celebrate what April 22nd, 1970 was a call for. It was a call to improve the quality of life on Earth, to engage politicians, musicians, writers, business leaders and anyone else breathing, that the planet is a prerequisite to our own lives, and that beautifying it beautifies us.

So when John Tierney of the New York Times wrote an article--"7 New Rules to Live By"--I was struck that he did not mention vertical farming. You see, vertical farming is simply a creative expression of the solution to a handful of man-made problems: climate change, hunger, water scarcity, species extinction, all of these are problems whose solutions lie in producing daily behaviors that are in line with the world we hope to produce. So the first question is, What kind of world do we want to produce?

I'll start.

Josh Tickell on Jay Leno

Josh Tickell, whose movie, Fuel, illustrates a path for discarding our nation's oil crutch for energy needs, was interviewed on Jay Leno about one year ago.  Leno seems especially enthralled by the notion of a solution in vertical farms.  So that this clip doesn't gather cobwebs, I'll share it here, where hopefully it will be something pleasant to some, and something at least remarkable to most. 

Leno Hosts FUEL Director Josh Tickell from Stacy Hess on Vimeo.
(Video courtesy of Vimeo.) 

If there's one thing to take away from this, it's that good ideas are sticky.  That means that the most important thing that supporters of vertical farming can do is tell people about it.  Tell someone a good idea, and it will stick there, like planting a seed, and then germinate when one hears the idea again and again.  If we spread this idea like gigantic wings, then it will fly.    

A Quite Right Food Panel Night

This past Thursday, on April 8th, Leonard Lopate of WNYC hosted a panel discussion on everyone's favorite topic: urban farming.  Panel members included friends of Vertical Farming Annie Novak of Greenpoint Rooftop Farm and Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, as well as urban ag all star Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee, and artist Fritz Haeg, who created Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, a book documenting the urban food movement around the country. 

I've got to be honest--I haven't watched the whole thing.  But I wouldn't be surprised if Vertical Farming came up in this discussion.  Scott Stringer has made it very clear that he wants to have Vertical Farms in New York, and Will Allen is actually working on a sort of low-tech Vertical Farm outside of Milwaukee.  (From what I understand, he is converting an abandoned warehouse into another of his urban food oases.) 

Watch the whole conversation (87 minutes, heads up) on the Green Space (WNYC's studio for stuff like this) website here.

Vertical Farming on Huffington Post

Just thought I'd share that Huff Po is featuring a "Vote For Your Favorite VF" article complete with pictures of some Vertical Farm designs.  Check it out and vote.  I'm interested to see the results. 

Valcent's VertiCrop system somehow made it into the running, but let's not get confused: what they're doing is cool, but it's not Vertical Farming.  No greywater remidiation, no waste-to-energy recapture, single story, etc. etc. etc.  I know they're trying to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the VF name, which makes sense, but it's just a little too transparent for me. 

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).

How Can We Feed Everyone?

How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

Check out more from Fast Company.  Is anybody still surprised that a global commodities market widens the gap between rich and poor, fed and unfed? 

Feast Your Eyes

On this.

Complete with ETFE, it's good by me. 

(Design by Rahul Surin)

Dickson Despommier, A Top-Tenner for Inspiration in Sustainable Food

Fast Company, a forward-thinking design, technology and business magazine, just published their top-ten list of "Most Inspirational People in Sustainable Food."  And guess what: Dick Despommier made the grade.  About the Vertical Farm guru, they say:

The Vertical Farm Project is the brainchild of Despommier, a professor at Columbia, and his students. Envisioning a world of sustainable farms housed in urban skyscrapers, the project proposes paying traditional farmers to simply plant trees on their land, in an attempt to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Crazy? Maybe. But it's inspiring more thought, more solutions.

Really, this is no surprise.  News outlets from the New York Times to Icon Magazine have covered the Dr. and Vertical Farms.  He's galvanized urban farmers and rooftop dreamers all over the world.  The creativity that skyscraper farms inspire will not be undercut by the broken-record arguments of those who think every feasable good idea already exists.  For Vertical Farming, it looks like its time has finally come.