permaculture

[Alia Tsang <alia@dietrick.org>]

Vertical farms might not be -the- solution to urban food problems, but
anything that brings more agriculture/horticulture to areas where people
aren't exposed to it and increases food diversity in those areas can't be a
bad thing. The more chances people have to come across food growing, the
more likely they'll get interested in the process and looking at
alternatives like permaculture. And hey, maybe someone will come up with a
really innovative way to use it as a recycling system. If we're already
spraying "biosolids" on crops, why not just keep all that shit in the city?

Alia

On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 10:54 AM, Linda Ray <lindaray@att.net> wrote:

> Well, I guess the author/s of that article is entitled to his/their
> opinion, and I emphatically disagree with it.
>
> It might not work if one's head is stuck in the "profit-driven factory
> farm" mindset, but it *definitely* can improve the health landscape if one
> is living in an urban food desert and needs to feed themselves/family an
> improved and health-augmented diet...
>
> I mean, local, seasonal, Organic if you want it, the producer and his/her
> methods are certainly known to you- How does "whatever you can find
> somewhere else" compete with that?
>
> Get real, authors. Or open up those tightly-closed eyes.
>
> BTW ==> This would be a great course of experiment and study for
> homeschoolers :-).
>
> Namaste,
>
> Linda
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> --- On Fri, 11/30/12, Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't
> Make Sense
> To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Friday, November 30, 2012, 7:01 AM
>
>
> I know someone who is doing vertical farming in Hong Kong in a 37 story
> building. He is using lighting powered by solar and doing intensive
> hydroponics using a device which aligns protons in plants and allegedly
> creates double or triple the growth (no comment on how or whether this
> device works or what it does to plants - I haven't observed the results
> personally, this is just what I've been told - it supposedly works on
> similar principles to what Masaru Emoto has been studying). I'm not
> convinced that with high tech approaches, vertical farming cannot be
> profitable. Whether it is as healthy as it possibly could be is yet another
> question, but I would need to see numbers proving that it can't work. It
> can't possibly be more expensive than conventional "green revolution" ag -
> with its $300,000 nitrogen injection machines, oil imported from Iraq, etc!
>  And hydroponically raised food, cannot possibly be any worse, life cycle
> wise, and is probably quite a
> bit better than food grown in fields where soil is being depleted, water
> poisoned with nitrogen and pesticides, and huge inputs of more crap are
> going in every year, while we create super bugs and super viruses because
> of monocropping and our war against nature. Not to mention all the fuel
> used and the extraction process for that... And it can't possibly be more
> unhealthy than food grown conventionally with GMO crops, ever stronger
> pesticides, etc!
>
> Realistically, hydroponics is going to continue to grow in popularity and
> some people are going to try it in a vertical farm setting. If it results
> in a chance for ecosystems to recover, less carbon pollution, and less of
> the other problems created by conventional ag, then it is a step in the
> right direction. Is it a full permaculture design? No, but it's an
> improvement. If we end up subsidizing some or all of the building costs
> with play money created by the Federal Reserve, that may also prove to be a
> better Life Cycle choice than conventional ag.
>
> I think Toby made a really important point about the life cycle stressors
> of adding more people. It isn't just food, it is everything that people
> use. We need to address all of it to create truly sustainable human
> systems.
>
> People are either in the camp that humans are never going to do that
> (cynical) or that it is possible that humans could change and wake up and
> start being more ethical (optimistic). I tend to flip from one camp to the
> other, but I try to stay optimistic, because, why not? Life is more
> enjoyable that way. And when I see people who are introduced to
> permaculture - no matter what walk of life they come from - time after time
> become more ethical and aware and sometimes drastically change their
> lifestyles almost overnight, it helps give me hope. I know what the odds
> are, and the challenges, but I think all of us are in there pitching in
> order to change the odds in our favor and the favor of Mother Earth.
>
> Koreen Brennan
>
> www.growpermaculture.com
> www.facebook.com/growpermaculturenow
> www.meetup.com/sustainable-urban-agriculture-coalition
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
> To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:10 PM
> Subject: [permaculture] Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't Make
> Sense
>
> Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't Make Sense
> http://ecogeek.org/agriculture/2984
> "
> Written by Philip Proefrock and Hank Green on 26/10/09
>
> The inside of a skyscraper is, literally, the most expensive "land" in the
> world. So it probably isn't the best place to grow our food.
>
> The idea of vertical farming <http://ecogeek.org/agriculture/988> (growing
> food in high-rise buildings in the middle of cities instead of out on
> farms) has been gaining a lot of interest lately. Most recetly, it showed
> up on BoingBoing<
> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/12/farms-as-skyscrapers.html>,
> one of our favorite blogs. We've seen a few of these proposals, and we've
> been following the concept for some time. It seems EcoGeeky enough, but a
> quick glance at the actual economics of farming shows that this isn't ever
> going to work.
>
> At first, it seems to make all the sense in the world. Moving production of
> food into population centers to eliminate shipping. Creating highly
> efficient "food factories" that allow land elsewhere to be freed from
> cultivation. But when you look at some of the practicalities behind
> constructing buildings like these, vertical farms make no sense. As the
> Vertical farm Project itself notes: "The Vertical Farm must be efficient
> (cheap to construct and safe to operate)." And a vertical farm is the
> opposite of efficiency."
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