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  • From: Bob Waldrop <bob@bobwaldrop.net>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] energy inputs and year round growing was Re: soilless crop production
  • Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 07:07:31 -0500

I doubt that the study discussed any social justice issues involved with moving food from poor countries to rich countries. A few years ago, I had my roof replaced. The roofers were all from the same village in mexico. They had been farmers in Mexico. But then, one day the Mexican government showed up and said that their land, which they had been on for generations, was actually the property of a North American Corporation, so it was hasta la vista to their farms. So it came to pass that they ended up fixing my roof in Oklahoma City, instead of growing food in Mexico. Now their land, which used to grow food for Mexicans, grows food for North Americans.

I sometimes say that buying out of season produce during the winter, imported from the third world, is like snatching food from the mouths of hungry children. Fiery rhetoric, no doubt, but I think it alas is true.

Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma Food Cooperative

On 9/13/2012 1:43 AM, Cory Brennan wrote:
I would also wonder if the study addressed life cycle costs - i.e. the full
costs of extracting petroleum including cutting of trees or any other
environmental degradation. Or how about the cost of the Iraq war? Did the
people count that in their 1500 mile study? I think it's really hard to get
any useful info out of studies that don't give at least a stab at bringing in
life cycle analysis.

I just toured our local water facility today and found out that our
surrounding cities spend 70% of their energy on PUMPING WATER! They pump it
hundreds of miles around the bay in the most circuitous route possible before
it ends up in our faucet. The problems that bad design have created on just
that one front are a bit mind numbing. I had some conception of what that bad
design might be, but pumping water in giant circles just for the hell of it
was not one of them. :-0

So, does transporting the water around in pipes count as transportation? LOL!
A lot of ag water comes from on site wells so it is less of an issue for ag,
I think. But when you get into life cycle analysis, things can get pretty
complicated.

How about the use of potable aquifers to transport coal slurry hundreds of
miles, instead of using trucks, so that California can pump water all over
the state? Like they are doing with the Hopi water in Arizona? That starts
getting to be like one of those mind bending movies - Vanilla Sky, etc. Yes,
we're using up water so we can have water, Alice. What's wrong with that?

There are so many variables, as Frances pointed out. I think one can be safe
in saying that the less resources we use in design, the better, and strive to
make the system entirely self perpetuating.

It's very interesting to see these studies coming out though - helps to know what
policy makers might be reading. We had the water people telling us about this study,
and that study. One of the studies "found" that graywater users just
increased their need for water. So it didnt' reduce water use from the city. But what
were they using it for? If they're growing food, it reduces stresses elsewhere from
agriculture.
Koreen Brennan

www.growpermaculture.com
www.facebook.com/growpermaculturenow
www.meetup.com/sustainable-urban-agriculture-coalition


________________________________
From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] energy inputs and year round growing was Re:
soilless crop production
Frances, et al: Good points. I don't have the whole study with me, just those numbers, but I assume it is for an average of US Ag output on some large scale, e.g., commodity food.

What "84% of the energy expended is in production" says to me is that
production is where the improvement can be gotten, as you suggest. Local, small-farm
food, has a far better chance of having a small carbon footprint than commodity food.

The leverage point is in the growing, more than in the transporting.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Sep 12, 2012, at 3:37 PM, Frances and David wrote:

Thanks for sharing this and taking the topic in a new direction, Tony. I'd
love to see this study, but the way I see it, there is more to this than
meets the eye.
I have heard that it would cost more, environmentally, to keep apples or
pears fresh here in BC than it does to fly them up from Argentina, for
instance. This might be true and certainly assuages my conscience in the
buying of an organic pear from abroad. However, I feel that we need to look
into the factors involved. It's easy to leave something out of the equation,
isn't it? And then, equations can and do change, don't they? Advances in
refrigeration and/or air travel might change the outcome of the equation. A
change from air to sea might change that, too. However, I am told that sea
travel uses the dirtiest of oils, sadly. Again, one piece of information
coming across, with variables that could, in time, change.
I am mostly wondering, though, whether the study differentiates between
types of growing operations such as organic, conventional and gmo. Huge
energy inputs in artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and ge seed creation.
Huge inputs, and, I might add, sadly, losses. Are we talking about the type
of food that is mass produced and mass distributed merely? If so, then we
are leaving a whole lot out of the equation of possibilities, and narrow our
path of selection based on a particular set of premises.
Another possibility (a small point, but perhaps worthy for the sharing of
different layers of the formula for consideration): perhaps the vertical
garden removes some of the energy input from the harvesting side of the
equation. It does, most certainly, allow for denser living while
simultaneously, producing food, of that we can be fairly certain. That, in
turn, means, that if we are going to grow our own food, we can, by virtue of
vertical gardening, live nearer one another and other destinations. This
might be seen as an unexamined factor in the growing of vertical food,
depending on the extent to which we want to examine our alternatives in an
'as if they were to multiply throughout the world' fashion.
Once we move beyond conventional practices, there is a world of difference
out there waiting to be discovered. Consider foraging additions to the
diet, and the food forest and hugelkultur techonologies for growing. Perhaps
the energy saved through wise ways could go towards the vertical growing out
of season/out of growing zone practices. And perhaps there is a way, just as
rocket stoves have provided incredible methods for conservation of both
energy and air quality, to affect these conditions with energy wise
technology, too. As more and more people grow food in the vicinity of their
homes, this increasingly becomes possible. Solariums off the front of
houses, for instance, provides dual purpose for heating, and effective Zone
1 location for multi season cultivation. Perhaps lights for growing can also
serve as lights for living. (This would be true for greens. The lights
required for fruiting have warnings about looking at them) I grew indoor
greens of the edible variety for a while, and I must say that the full
spectrum lights were very cheering to the rainy winter here, as were the
greens. Tricky part was the ecosystem aspect -- eventually bugs developed.
Love the prospect of having an attached to the home food growing area some
day.

Just some thoughts on the matter.
Hope this helps,

Frances




-----Original Message-----
From: Toby Hemenway
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 12:30 PM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] soilless crop production

The sad thing about food miles is that transportation energy used in
agriculture--the 1500 mile salad--is only 4% of the total energy involved in
growing, processing, distributing and selling food. Reducing the distance
food travels will have very, very little impact on the energy costs of the
food system. Most of the energy use, 84%, is on-farm and processing.
Vertical farming, whether renewable-based or not, uses more energy, wherever
it is done, and doing it locally won't change that.

(the source for the numbers is "The Impact of Household Food on Climate
Change," Environmental Science and Technology, 2009, 42:3609 by Weber and
Matthews)

This really bummed me out when I heard it, since food-miles was such a good
bludgeon to use for the local food argument. Ah, well. There are a lot of
other reasons that food should be grown locally.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Sep 12, 2012, at 11:09 AM, Joy Cernac wrote:

Re: vertical farming. The elephant in the room is the ENERGY required to
transport food. An energy cost-benefit analysis and side comparison would
need to be conducted between the average amount of transportation
fuel-related food miles (1500mi) from farm to plate, compared with the
amount of energy to generate power for localized vertical farms.
Obviously,
such as the point of Mr. Head, renewable energy would negate the
global-warming and fossil fuel-associated issues assciated with tower
gardening indoors. Renewables combined with localized organic
aquaculture-derived food production are the only sustainable answer in my
mind, as we are all crowded in polluted cities and are living in a
fossil-fuel propped-up nation. This model is being developed by countless
individuals right now, across the world - combined, closed-loop aeroponics
and aquaponics models that produce an ecosystem in working together. In
the
city, soil contamination is always an issue...so growing in water, locally
in the cities is the healthiest solution while we are getting our food
system off the grid. Once all our electricity is run on renewables and we
all have long-range electric vehicles that can transport food great
distances (we're looking at a couple hundred years out for that...), then
it will make environmental cost-benefit analytical sense to transport food
long distances. It's only a matter of time until the localized
aeroponic/hydroponic models are implemented on a grander scale and the
cities are thereby moved toward having a secure, sustainable food supply.

Joy

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 10:28 AM, georg parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at> wrote:

Hm, in one of the linked articles it says
"Indeed, even in today's single-storey glasshouses, artificial
lighting is needed to enable year-round production. Thanet Earth, a 90-
hectare facility which opened in Kent in 2008 and is the largest such
site in Britain—it provides 15% of the British salad crop—requires
its own mini power-station to provide its plants with light for 15
hours a day during the winter months. This rather undermines the
notion that vertical farming will save energy and cut carbon
emissions, notes Mr Head, who has carried out several studies of the
idea. Vertical farming will need cheap, renewable energy if it is to
work, he says."
Sure does not sound like a sustainable idea, or does it?

Georg



Am 09.09.2012 um 04:25 schrieb venaurafarm:

On 9/8/2012 10:09 PM, venaurafarm wrote:

That was it, efficient, effective ways to grow food in a space
environment. Petri dish for cultured muscle tissue for the grill or
microwave. This was part of a Google+ conversation in comments on a
Google+ post with a friend.

Still, sprouts need only water while grasses and other plants need
growing medium that is soil-like i.e. sunflower, a recyclable
scaffold
for the roots to grow into with nutrient, similar with spirulina and
chlorella, container and nutrient. In a space environment I would
assume
they would maintain a culture library of beneficial microorganisms
for
use in food production and sewage treatment, recycling humanure as
soil-like growing medium and nutrients and secondary biological
treatment of liquid back to potable water; they already do this.
More of my comments in this thread:

Needless to say we need to conserve and protect our best farmland
for production of the cleanest, most natural, most nutritious food for
mankind. Elimination of toxins, contaminants, gmo's, all categories of
pesticides will be mandatory. Full engagement with soil building
programs for 1) season extension 2) water and nutrient conservation 3)
building soil quality through the right kind of tillage, cropping
system, application of soil amendments, mineral, macronutrient,
beneficial organisms will also be mandatory. Using permaculture
methods
will make all this possible. Here's to health and happiness!

<>

Need less food with better, more complete, maximum nutrition. This is
here now. Food combining for maximum digestion for maximum nutrition
for
maximum health and longevity. Raw foods is one of the strategies
used to
achieve this goal. Food combining for raw foods dieting = combining
foods at a meal that are compatible, not antagonistic, i.e. no acid
foods with starchy foods, only one kind of protein at a meal, no
protein
with starchy foods, eat separately; vegetables with starches or
vegetables with protein, fruit alone: sweet along, acid alone, some
subacid can be eaten with vegetables, i.e. peaches and tomatoes with
vegetable salads - there's lots to this type of raw foods diet. For
more
info obtain a used copy of Viktoras Kulvinskas book: Survival In The
21st Century: A Planetary Healer's Handbook (with artwork by Peter
Max).
This is a really good book. Other works include those of Ann Wigmore
on
sprouts, raw foods and cultured foods such as seed cheese. There's
lots
on all these people on the Web, try a Google search. Add traditional
Japanese macrobiotics nutrition - very excellent, controlled dieting,
excellent nutrition, fermented probiotic foods, kim chee, kraut, kefir
and more.

With permaculture and natural, biological, biointensive agriculture in
harmony with nature and Gaia, the Earth will be able to support life
for
much longer than with the present dominant method, chemical and gmo.
Tree of Life Web Project http://tolweb.org/tree/

There is vertical farming, a fascinating new concept though expensive:

An important book on this subject:
The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century by Dickson D.
Despommier (Oct 12, 2010)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Vertical-Farm-Feeding-Century/dp/B0055X6F1A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347125638&sr=8-1&keywords=vertical+farm
The Vertical Farm Project - Agriculture for the 21st Century and ...
www.verticalfarm.com

Images for Vertical Farming

https://www.google.com/search?q=Vertical+Farming&hl=en&client=firefox-beta&hs=e84&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnsb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=83tLULnLBoH00gGz1YDABQ&ved=0CC4QsAQ
Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms: Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms
Oct 24, 2009 – Growing crops in city skyscrapers would use less
water
and fossil fuel than outdoor farming, eliminate agricultural runoff,
and
provide fresh ...

<>

Hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics do that. It is a matter of
designing
equipment and processes scaled to the need at hand. Nothing wrong with
automation, auto-harvesting and placing in refrigeration or prep for a
meal. Much work has been done with growing blue-green algae and
chlorella; that could easily be scaled
to home food production. SPROUTS! Grow sprouts in trays and recycle
the
growing medium and stubble. Wheatgrass, barley grass, alfalfa,
sunflower
(black oil seed), buckwheat (buckwheat lettuce) are gourmet food. I
have
eaten all of them except barley grass. I think sprouts could become a
major source of plant-based nutrition when depending on soilless
growth
medium. Very many vegetable seeds can be sprouted for human
consumption.
Next, consider the potential for soilless growth of certain wild,
exotic, heirloom, international foods, including some fruits. What
about fruit; how could one do without that. Quality meat grown in a
Petri dish sounds like future food. Google "future food" and see
pfaf.org, Plants For A Future. I think cultured meat product could be
made to taste great. "Seed" or starter tissue could be frozen for
years
to ensure a supply for future use.

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