I spent some time learning about ways the world can feed a burgeoning population. One emerging idea is through a “vertical farm,” an idea that has been promoted by Dr. Dickson Despommier, a former professor of microbiology and public health in environmental sciences at Columbia. He recently authored, “The Vertical Farm Feeding the World in the 21st Century,” which lays out the idea of growing our food vertically in greenhouse skyscrapers, rather than spread out over hundreds of millions of acres of farmland.
This idea has really captured my fancy and got my head spinning around all the ways it could be carried out. But let me take a step back. Today, our food travels on average 1,500 miles from field to table. Crazy. Much of our produce and fruits come from places like Mexico and South America. Wouldn’t it be cool if they could come from your own city?
That is exactly what Despommier is promoting. In the middle of an urban area could be a “vertical farm” that grows produce, fruits and grains and houses things such as fish farms. These future farms would grow our food year round while the excess waste, or biomass could be used to produce bioelectricity and biofuels. In fact, Despommier says that in some cases, a vertical farm could have up to five harvests per year.
While his idea could potentially grow grains like corn or wheat, the initial idea focuses on other crops. In my mind, for many, many years to come, the majority of our grains will still be grown in the great outdoors. In addition, there will be no animals here – they will still roam the countryside as well.
He writes that ideally, they would be cheap to build, modular, durable, easily maintained, and safe to operate. A vertical farm would mitigate external influences on crops such as too much rain or drought and disease along with the need for fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. Vertical farms would provide well-paying jobs and improve economics. He also believes they should be independent of economic subsidies and outside support once they are up and running and they should be profitable. (more…)
I just got my copy of The Food Security Reader. It is “The Best of Truth About Trade & Technology” with the foreword written by Dean Kleckner and edited by Mary Boote. I have only just skimmed it but if you like what you find at TATT then you will like reading through the stories told in this book. The TATT board has dedicated the book to Dr. Norman Borlaug.
From the start, Truth about Trade & Technology has spread its message of hope and growth. We began a weekly column, produced a weekly economic analysis, launched a website, spoke to journalists, appeared on radio and television, and attended meetings in the United States and abroad. More than a decade later, we can report many successes, such as the passage of new free-trade agreements and the growing acceptance of biotech crops. Yet plenty of tests await us: Agricultural trade remains badly distorted and biotechnology continues to face substantial resistance in Europe and many developing nations. As old battles end, new ones emerge–and our work remains as important and daunting as ever. The Food Security Reader is a chronicle of what we’ve done, a collection of our best columns on a wide range of subjects. Contributors include Michael Allen, Jeff Bidstrup, Mary Boote, Gilbert Arap Bor, Tim Burrack, Reg Clause, Maria Gabriela Cruz, Rosalie Ellasus, Bill Horan, Ken Kamiya, Carol Keiser-Long, Dean Kleckner, Cheryl Koompin, Rajesh Kumar, Darrell McAlexander, Jim McCarthy, Paul Rasgorshek, John Reifsteck, Tim Recker, John Rigolizzo, Jr., Ted Sheely, Al Skogen, and Terry Wanzek.
You can order the book on Amazon.
Calling all teachers and parents and those with nieces, nephews, cousins…OK, I’m basically calling everybody. You have to read this book, “Cows Can’t Jump,” by Dave Reisman. The book is about embracing our differences and focusing not on what we can’t do well, but on what we do best. In a world where a child’s self-esteem is attacked and challenged each day, this book helps gives children the tools they need to feel good about themselves and others and treat them with kindness, love and respect.
This lesson is learned through the eyes of various animals including a cow who can’t jump but who can swim who just so happens to be friends with a gorilla who can’t swim but can swing from a tree. You get the picture. While this book has fabulous illustrations by Jason A. Maas, and is geared for young children, you could make a case that this is a good book for adults to.
I think we spend so much time being harshly competitive in the workplace and not considering others’ feelings when we try to “get ahead” that you see self esteem issues among adults as well. So between the “Purple Cow” and Who Moved My Cheese? should now be a place for “Cows Can’t Jump.”
This is a beautifully illustrated and captivating tale that will make you smile with each reading and I give it high praise.
The book I read over the weekend now has a special place on my shelf since I have actually experienced a small portion of what author Tom Rivers describes in “Farm Hands“. The book is an accumulation of his writings for his local newspaper, The Daily News, where he chronicles the labor challenges faced by small farm operations in Upstate New York. While narrating his experiences of picking fruit, planting vegetables in the pouring rain and milking cows at the crack of dawn, among others, he also eloquently tells the stories of the immigrants who he worked beside each day.
Why was this an important and book worthy endeavor? Because Americans feel their jobs are being taken by illegal immigrants – jobs they feel are rightfully theirs. However, this is only partially true. Many difficult and grueling farm jobs are in fact taken on by immigrants, many in the States as part of a special farm labor program. However, the jobs are available because Americans don’t want them. They are low paying and high intensity positions. Yet without these immigrants, most of the farm operations would no longer be able to financially survive.
To learn more about why Americans don’t want these farm jobs, for one year Rivers became a farm hand at various operations near his home. While working next to men and women who have come to the States from other countries, Rivers discovered that working on a farm is one of the hardest jobs imaginable. He lost more than 30 pounds during the year and spent countless hours nurturing sore muscles. The result was rewarding though, after the year ended, he successfully completed the Disney Marathon.
I too understand how difficult work it is having lived and worked on a produce and fruit operation for several months. I can honestly say that I do not have the fortitude to pursue this kind of work; yet I have a much greater understanding and respect for those who toil away in the fields to put food on my table. Quite frankly, I’d rather make the same amount of money working in a coffee shop for minimum wage and tips (something I’ve actually done extensively) and I’m not alone.
The labor issue has become very prominent in the U.S. this year due to many states, particularly Arizona that are attempting to curb illegal immigration. In response to this issue, along with ramped unemployment in the country, the United Farm Workers launched a “Take Our Jobs” campaign. To my knowledge, Americans are not jumping off couches to “take their jobs”.
That said, the next time you’re eating dinner and you’re about to lament the immigrants who helped put food on your table do two things. First, read Farm Hands (or read it anyway because it is truly a moving book). Next, sign up to “Take Their Job“. I bet 99 percent of you will stop complaining and begin working with ag producers to help address the farm labor issues.
This week I read a book about the ongoing discussions regarding the causes of the food crisis. It should come as no surprise that several of the main reasons the globe is in the midst of a food crisis, according to a The Food Wars author Walden Bello, are commodity speculation, biofuels, increased demand for food in Asia brought on by prosperity, and most influential, the massive ag policy reorientation known as structural adjustment.
“More central as root causes have been structural adjustment, free trade, and policies extracting surplus from agriculture for industrialization, all of which have destroyed or eroded the agricultural sector of many countries. No one factor can be pinpointed as the cause of the global food crisis. It is the confluence of these conditions that has made the contemporary food price crisis so threatening and difficult to solve,” writes Bello.
One area of focus in The Food Wars, is how US and EU agriculture and agrofuels policies are hurting those very people they are indirectly supposed to be helping. At one point in the book, Bello describes the “capitalism versus the peasant” and details the move to corporate farming – even in the U.S. He cites a statistic about US government subsidies for agriculture, “currently, 38 percent of producers who provide 92 percent of US food receive 87 percent of all farm program payments.”
He then proceeds to explain how the family farm manages to persist among the growing number of corporate farms.
From there, Bello outlines how many corporate players favor the World Trade Organization’s efforts (WTO) to phase out farm programs that subsidize farmers and allow the dumping of US grain abroad. He then notes that, “the United States has steadfastly refused to significantly reduce, much less dismantle, its farm-support programs, which transfer some $40 billion a year to the agricultural sector from consumers, firms and taxpayers.” He says that this stance ultimately equates to free trade for the world and protectionism for the US.
Obviously, Bello explains the above in great detail in the book but ultimately, he segues into the idea that as we enter the world of deglobalization, there may be an opportunity for peasant and small-farmer based agriculture serving local and regional markets to play a starring role in how the production of food is organized and orchestrated.
Bello does a good overall job of trying to address all the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of food prices. In his conclusion, he offers some ways to help people take control of their food security and points again to small farmers or peasant-based farming as a good model to develop local or regional sustainable alternative economies.
I came across an interesting little book a few weeks ago called Public Produce, authored by Darrin Nordahl. The book discusses the urban agriculture movement and highlights several programs in both California and Iowa – two states the author has called home (and I have also called home).
The move to public produce has been driven in part by several issues: energy security, food security and the rising cost of food. The author notes how intricately all three of these issues are tied together – higher price of energy means higher price of food.
But what he really focuses on are the future options to grow our food in light of a backlash against production agriculture. “Now, as the twenty-first century is underway, a cresting wave is readying the backlash against large-scale corporate agriculture on fields hundreds–if not thousands–of miles from where we live, against mass-produced, chemically grown produce; against the rising costs of food and the declining health of the American people.”
He then notes that the “buy-local” movement is leading the way for the “slow-food” movement, which Nordahl says seems to be the choice of the future.
One component of the slow-food movement, which is focused on in this book, is that of public produce. This can be in the form of community gardens or even community food growing along public sidewalks. The idea, is that this food is free and gives people of all economic status, especially the poor who have less access to fresh fruit and vegetables, access to fresh foods.
But this is a new way of thinking that many people, especially city governments, are slow to adopt. Most cities don’t allow fruit trees to be grown along a sidewalk due to the clean-up required of fallen fruit (and the litigious nature of our society). And, you have to deal with people who take more than their fair share.
Another option discussed is to create an edible garden (either front or back yard) that incorporates fruit and vegetables into your landscape. The majority of the spoils would go to the homeowner, but he or she would have the option of giving the extra food to their neighbors or members of their community.
While I see the the concept of public produce and edible gardens a good one, I don’t believe that this concept will work well in cold areas (you’d only have public produce in the summer and fall) and, I don’t believe you can grow enough food in your backyard or along the sidewalk in city spaces, to feed the masses. It will take all forms of food production to feed us in the future.
Despite the drawbacks, if you are interested in the concept of public produce and how to start a program in your community, then this book is a good start.
Everyone has an opinion about the veracity of global warming, except, maybe global governments who are pursing economic improvements on the back of climate change. The quest for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and predominately carbon dioxide (CO2) has led to a spurt of new research around the development of more sustainable practices and technologies. But at what cost to the environment? This question is asked and answered in the new book Green Gone Wrong, by Heather Rogers.
This question may on the surface sound like an oxymoron. How can you be developing technologies to improve the environment, yet hurt it at the same time? According to Rogers, this is in fact happening every day, all over the world. Rogers breaks up the offenses into three categories: food, shelter and transportation.
The crux of the food section studies what organic farming really means (or doesn’t mean) and the movement to “beyond organic“.
So let’s talk a little about Rogers’ view of agriculture. She writes, “The fallout from conventional agriculture can be devastating. Synthetic fertilizers typically contain high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, much of which is eventually washes into coastal waters where it fuels rampant algae growth.” The result are Dead Zones where no fish can survive.
She continues by saying that pesticides linger on food, which “wreak havoc on human health.” (more…)
As I write this review, I’m sitting on my deck looking out at dozens of acres of avocado, orange and lemon trees. Yesterday, I helped to plant a vegetable garden – the produce being grown for a local restaurant. The irony is that as I am surrounded by abundance here in America, I’m reading about those in other countries who have less than nothing. “Enough Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty,” written by journalists Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, details the struggle of countries, especially Africa, to feed their people.
Agriculture is the lifeblood of the world. As a matter of fact, is it the largest industry in the world. Yet many countries cannot compete with world prices in part due to subsidies in other countries such as America and the European Union as explained by the authors. These subsidies keep commodity prices artificially low, so low that most subsistence farmers in third world countries can’t compete. Traditionally, the answer to this problem has been food aid. Give the enormous surplus grown in places like America, to third world countries.
While food aid is a matter of life or death for millions of people each year, it does not lift the people out of poverty. It does not solve the problem of widespread starvation. The farmers of Africa must have a way to make a living – one that allows them to buy food. According to the authors, more “food” aid needs to be given in the form educating farmers on how to grow more crops with less. Helping them to build irrigation systems, giving them access to affordable hybrid seeds and fertilizers and allowing the commodity markets to work in a way that farmers from around the world can sell competitively sell their food.
The reason that more educational aid is not given, say the authors, is that food aid is a way for American or European farmers to sell their surplus crops. If other countries have enough food, and begin to compete in world markets, then farmers from first world countries will lose money.
One interesting example of aid was in the telling of a story about a couple from Ohio, the Rufenachts, who are raising cattle for a village in Africa. The proceeds from the sale are sent over the people who have used the money to improve their agriculture through building irrigation systems, dams, and more. When their town found out about what they were doing, they joined in to raise even more money. In one year the Ohio town raised more than $30,000 for agriculture projects in the village. It was a moving story about how farmers in America are helping farmers in Africa.
In the book, the authors list out several ways to conquer hunger including, keep promises to expand development aid, create a global fund to aid small farmers in Africa and to invest in infrastructure. This is a moving book about the plight of the hungry and what not only governments but individual people can do to help eliminate hunger.
“Producing first generation ethanol from corn is a mistake,” writes Al Gore in his new book, “Our Choice A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.” The book details the issues surrounding global warming, and presents various options to curb the issue. As a writer in the agricultural industry, I paid extra attention to the chapter regarding biofuels. It came as no surprise that corn ethanol was not presented favorably.
Gore writes, “The production of ethanol in first generation biorefineries has been a disappointment. However, it has had the benefit of increasing income for farmers and has led to the emergence of an infrastructure that will prove highly valuable when second generation technologies are available to produce ethanol from nonfood crops.” He goes on to discuss his personal disappointment with his early support of corn-based ethanol and then continues to lay out the case for second and third generation fuels including cellulosic ethanol.
The industry hasn’t taken the criticism lying down. Bob Dinneen, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association sent a letter to Al Gore stating, “Given your attention to science and the facts, I am disappointed by the treatment of ethanol and other biofuels in your new book, Our Choice. Many of your characterizations of today’s American ethanol industry are out of date or simply wrong.”
Biofuels aside, throughout the book, Gore uses a combination of words, graphics and pictures to demonstrate the climate change debate, detail many of the solutions and offer policy recommendations. There is one area where I think Gore did a great job, and that is explaining what the six categories of global warming pollution are: carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, sulfur hexaflouride, tetrafluoroethane, carbon monoxide, butane and nitrous oxide. To date, the biggest focus has been on carbon dioxide and Gore’s focus throughout the book is no different.
No matter what side you are on in the global warming debate, Our Choice will give you a platform for futher disucssions on how best to create programs and policies to address global warming.
I’m thinking about eating dinner and if I were susceptible to drama then I’d rethink my dinner plans. I just finished reading the novel “Out at Night,” a work of fiction by Susan Arnout Smith, that uses genetically modified organisms (GMO) as its basis for murder and mayhem. Now, I don’t profess to be able to discern between fact and fancy when it comes to GMO crops, but for the most part, it appears that the circumstances in the book are fancy.
So here’s the plot. As the world converges at the largest agricultural convention in Palm Springs, California, a man is murdered and set on fire in a genetically modified soy field that is to be unveiled during the conference. As the story unfolds, there is a crazy environmental organization staging rallies and protests and planning to take down the event during the closing session. But is the murder tied to the environmental organization or is there another factor in play?
Now I must concede that readers of this book will not get unbiased information surrounding GMO crops but much of the circumstances surrounding the plot, for example countries that won’t accept GMO crops, are in fact reality. In addition, Smith doesn’t portray the work of environmentalists in a positive light -she chooses to portray the most left-wing of the bunch. This in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem for agriculture or the environmental movement, but while this is a work of fiction, many readers will take the plot to heart. On the flip side, using the extremes in both industries makes for a more tension-filled plot.
On that note, and being a more educated reader regarding agriculture and the environmental movement than most, the book was a fast-paced thriller and I was entertained from beginning to end. If you can put your personal opions aside on these issues for a few hours, I promise you’ll be entertained.
I went to bed last night thinking I should write an ode to oil. It would be partially flattering as some of my favorite things come from petroleum by-products, and partially lambasting as our addition to it has caused such harm. The fuel to my passion last night? The book “Power Trip“ by Amanda Little.
Little traveled the country for two years to take us on the journey of fossil fuels including oil and coal. One area where she spent considerable time is fossil fuel’s role in our food. It’s used to fuel the farming equipment. It’s used in fertilizer. It’s used to transport the food to market (on average, our food travels 1500 miles from farm to table).
To help us better understand the relationship between petroleum and agriculture, and agriculture and fuel, Little visited the Kansas farm of a dear agricultural friend of ours – former National Corn Growers Association President, Ken McCauley, where she was treated to a lesson in precision fertilizer application technologies, and the role of corn in ethanol production.
Farmers have been getting harassed of late about their use of fertilizer, and when Little asked McCauley what would happen if he, “cut out fertilizers altogether?” he answered, “If you don’t put your fertilizer on, you’ll cut your yields by half or more…Look at poor countries–when you travel to places that don’t use fertilizer you’ll see they’re raising a third of the yield.”
But what about organic farming that uses no fertilizer, asks Little in response to Micheal Pollen’s claims most notably made in his book Omnivore’s Dilemma? Well, I’m only going to give you a taste of what McCauley said….you’ll just have to read the book to discover his thoughtful answer. “It’s not a way to maximize production…”
To read more about this book check out my separate review on DomesticFuel.com. Ready to learn what McCauley’s answers are to sustainable farming, and why corn ethanol is so important to America? Then buy the book.
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
