Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

I just have to ask, when food shortages appear - which seems to be the 
driving force behind the whole skyfarm thing - what "city wastes" will they 
have to feed those frankenhogs? And isn't using land or wastes to feed hogs a 
terribly inefficient way to use land or wastes, compared to using them to 
produce human food directly? I'm not even going to ask where you'd put this 
stinking methane factory, hopefully not in the middle of the city unless you 
want to depopulate it.

And now cold water on rooftop gardens. Nice story for coffee table magazines 
or waiting rooms, but impractical. Who among us has a flat roof with support 
engineered to hold up that much weight? Lightweight soilless medium? Not when 
it's wet. And we could go on to compare the high cost of rooftop growing with 
the cost of simply growing on the ground. Further, who among us has a big 
enough roof (assuming it was engineered for heavy support in advance) to make 
even a small dent in our food budget?


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/4/2010 at 2:28 PM Dan Conine wrote:

>Jumping in:
>I could go both ways on this. A book I read recently was "Metatropolis",
>and they covered the vertical farms very well. With genetically enhanced
>hogs used to handle city wastes, then methane to produce electricity to
>run the lights and power needs, and some other fancy tricks. Not a
>simple hydroponics plan, but an integrated system. Complexity and
>bureaucracy, though.
>
>I think rooftop gardens are very important, as well as any urban
>agriculture. As cities become more depopulated, this is more available.
>As suburbs become less and less viable, small plots will get more common
>and larger nearer to cities.
>
>The key right now is to keep hammering away at the wall of ignorance
>about food, and the urbanites are more willing to try new ideas than the
>suburbanites and rural bedroom communities are. Those without a castle
>are able to take more risks and do things differently than those trying
>to protect their status quo. People in cities know they are dependents,
>and it can make them nervous enough to do some physical work.
>The demise of every empire has come when they found ways to get someone
>or something to do their hard work for them. The right half of the brain
>atrophies and they start to believe their own 'logical' education
>bullshit. With Rome, it was the easy life using slaves. With Spain, it
>was the easy life of 'free' gold. With England, it was the easy life
>brought by sea power. With America, it has been slaves, then immigrant
>labor, then cheap oil which made our backs weak and our minds mush.
>
>The Bureaucracy Bubble always preceeds the demise.
>
>Dan C.
>
>
>
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