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Foodie Underground: Truck Farm

Anna Brones — Mon, 30 May 2011 21:25:29 +0000

ColumnThe film “Truck Farm” proves that small scale urban farming efforts are part of the solution.

I’ve seen Truck Farm pop up around the web over the last year, in fact I remember when it was up for a NAU’s 2nd annual Grant for Change. But beyond some cool looking photos of a garden in the back of an old, black, Dodge truck – the kind of photos that make their way onto green and design blogs and give you a general feeling of goodness – I didn’t really have a grasp of what Truck Farm was. Until last week.

Packed into an auditorium with hundreds of other people at Mountainfilm in Telluride, I didn’t know what to expect. Can you really make a 48 minute film about growing a garden in the bed of a truck?

After a presentation on food the day before by the film’s directors, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, I knew that it would be smart and funny and most likely touch on some of the things in which I believe strongly. What transpired was one of the best films I have seen in awhile. Sewn into the story of a Brooklynite transforming the bed of his truck into a garden are glimpses into how we start changing our food policy, from the ground up.

Watch the trailer for Truck Farm here.

Truck Farm is quirky and humorous, yet it hits on the themes that we so often discuss when it comes to food: thinking about where our food comes from, the importance of reconnecting to what we eat, building community and being part of an underground movement that feels empowered to make change.

Along the way, the acclaimed Marion Nestle takes a bite of the Truck Farm‘s salad and smiles, gourmet chefs pay for truck grown herbs, even if the bounty is small, teens at a community garden donate a pepper plant to be put in the bed, and after taking the truck on a school tour, children are inspired to start building gardens in whatever objects they can find.

But Truck Farm itself is only the beginning.

There’s a point in the film when one of the chefs interviewed points out that he loves the concept, but he’s still not sure if it’s part of the global solution to food issues.

But what if it is the solution?

Since the success of the Brooklyn Truck Farm, individuals around the country have started their own versions. Even strolling through Telluride I saw one parked downtown, and in Denver you can buy Truck Farm produce at the farmers market. The number of urban farms and their capacity have increased exponentially. We may not be solving the problems of the global food supply with these efforts, but they’re certainly heartening.

Efforts like these prove that there is a group of people out there that are truly concerned with where their food comes from and honoring the connection to what they eat. Above that, they’re willing to think creatively about what it’s going to take to encourage entire communities to move in that direction.

Cheney and Ellis remind us that the demand is there; that in urban spaces, restaurants want locally grown goods, be it from a rooftop farm or the back of a truck. And if the demand is there, we need to start thinking about increasing the supply, from window gardens to planters of herbs.

With two food related films under their belts (Cheney and Ellis are also the brains behind King Corn), the duo knows the importance of educating and empowering food leaders. Enter their FoodCorps national service program, an initiative with visionary “volunteers for a yearlong term of public service in school food systems,” a place that we know desperately needs help. Run as an AmeriCorps program, in its first year Food Corps has placed leaders in ten states to start seriously working on building gardens, connecting kids to farmers and more.

As Ellis says, when it comes to changing the food movement, “gardens are such a powerful place to start.” Makes you want to go build a garden in your truck doesn’t it?

If we all take the steps to grow some of our own food, even if it’s a small amount, then we become part of the solution, and the more of us that do it, the bigger our movement becomes. And maybe then, we can start talking about this as being part of a global solution. After all, couldn’t we all use a little more “think globally, act locally”?

Images: The Tasty Buzz, Truck Farm

The Friday Five: Vol. 5

Amy DuFault — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:22:36 +0000

A weekly roundup of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Places & Spaces: Canvas Hotel is a visual vacation, never mind a cyclist’s dream hideaway. Based in Southern Norway, the adventure starts the moment you arrive.

Lady Gaga on EcoSalon? In Shade Grown Hollywood: The Conscious Mind Of Lady Gaga, writer Kathie Butler says “Lady Gaga is on the way to becoming an icon of post-feminist sexuality. But is she a confident cultural attaché to our own fantastical fantasies? Or she is more of a mouthpiece of modern times, a voice raging against homophobia and discrimination?” We explore Lady Gaga, aka Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta’s level of consciousness.

With Japan still reeling in the wake of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake that sent a 30-foot wall of ocean water onto the Fukushima-Daiichi plant on the coast of Japan, we find ourselves asking if there are more viable options than nuclear as we watch radiation leaking from core reactors. In The Nuclear Option, writer Stephanie Rogers reviews the pros and cons.

In her weekly Green Plate, writer Vanessa Barrington’s column Is Urban Farming The Next Green Cottage Industry? asks if urban farming is a viable career for our younger generation and a dependable source of food for city dwellers.

This week, our editor’s column The Insider’s Guide To Life: Bite Me dives into female bullying, giving important tools to empower one to bite back. Ost writes: “Who on earth are these people? Tina Fey called them Mean Girls, and they are everywhere, no matter how grown up we get. Naively, I had approached my very first bully with the plucky optimism of a community fundraiser. Soon, she needed me and my reliable niceness, and when you get to that point it’s a short trip to toast. I was but the earnest wheat germ, she, the flaring toaster.”

EcoSalon was just nominated for Best Style Twitter Feed! Like us enough to cast a vote? Then go here!

The Friday Five, Vol. 4

Amy DuFault — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:12:38 +0000

A weekly roundup of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Ruin porn is a nasty thing and yet our objectification of all thing crumbling and abandoned is strong. Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan is the American automobile industry’s main squeeze. How can the home of Motown music legacies and Motor City mechanics be in such decay? You Know It When You See It takes a closer look.

Mobile social platforms are hot right now and a sustainable fashion app? Right up our alley. Writer Rowena Ritchie interviews GreenGlamGo founder, Clarissa Nicola, about her company’s new green fashion finder app in Sustainable Fashion? There’s An App For That.

We’ve seen too much of Charlie Sheen of late, but when it comes to celebrity consciousness, a star can take a cause a long way. George Clooney – who is certainly easier on the eyes – has a long and storied list of social activism. “Despite his involvement in bringing the Darfur genocide to light, he considers it ‘the greatest failure of my life’ – because little changed after he and his father smuggled cameras into a refugee camp to bring to light the horrors committed against an entire nation.” In Katherine Butler’s column, George Clooney Vs. Charlie Sheen: Welcome To Shade Grown Hollywood, we look at Hollywood without the rose-colored sunglasses.

We launched the new series Places & Spaces this week, and they all depict amazing representations of those idyllic places we all dream of and hope to go to. Shelter editor Leigha Oaks takes us on a visual vacation, first stop: Juvet Landscape Hotel.

The Hyde Amendment was passed in 1976. If you’ve never heard of it, Hyde ensures that federal money is not used to fund abortions on military bases, in Planned Parenthood facilities or anyplace else. “Anti-choice politicians and activists have spent a lot of time over the last few months making sure that there’s confusion about how government dollars are used to fund abortions. Here’s the quick answer: they’re not,” explains Libby Lowe. In Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…And Don’t You Dare Get Pregnant, we learn the most intrusive employer of all might just be the U.S. government.

All right, we can’t resist one more…

Has your gardening habit yielded yet another bumper crop of squash or greens you can’t give away fast enough? Plenty of people have the same problem and they’re turning the veggie surplus into a profitable cottage industry. In The Green Plate: Is Urban Farming The Next Green Cottage Industry? we get the update on how the urban farming legalization trend is sweeping the country, and putting green not just in our mouths, but in our wallets.

Image: Michael Ruiz

The Green Plate: Is Urban Farming the Next Green Cottage Industry?

Vanessa Barrington — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:54:03 +0000

ColumnAn urban farming legalization trend sweeps the country.

Looking for a work-at-home green job? You might consider tilling the backyard and planting a few crops.

No more fossil fuel burning commute, no need for professional attire purchased from sweatshop supporting retailers, no more disposable containers from the workaday desktop lunch, and no driving to the gym to counteract your sedentary lifestyle.

Not to mention, you’ll be helping the soil, planting oxygen-producing plants, not fertilizing (and mowing) a lawn, producing local food that doesn’t have to travel far, and building your own little food shed.

The urban farming trend has blossomed over the past few years, but most of the people growing food are only doing it for themselves and maybe some friends and neighbors. While commendable, imagine if urban farming were a viable career and a dependable source of food for city dwellers? We need more people producing food in this country. The average age of farmers is mid-50s and only one percent of people in the U.S. list farming as their occupation. Urban farming can benefit communities by serving as a cushion against recession, a safety net during times of disruption in services, and can also increase urban self-reliance, foster a sense of community and shared purpose, not to mention bring urban dwellers closer to the cycles of nature.

Could urban farming be a burgeoning green business allowing more eager, young farmers to build a career?

If this all sounds a little pie-in-the-sky, it might soon be a reality in many parts of the country.

Energetic young urban farmers all over the U.S. have been working hard to raise awareness and lobby for laws that will let them grow (and sell) food in their own neighborhoods, and they’ve been making progress.

The San Francisco planning commission unanimously supported a proposal to simplify permitting to allow home gardeners to sell their produce. The measure now goes before the Board of Supervisors. This is great news for Little City Gardens, the only urban farming business I know of. The garden provides salad greens and culinary herbs from its 3/4 acre spread to a few restaurants and caterers. Little City Gardens was the trailblazer, but I imagine many more gardeners would start such businesses if only there was legal framework.

Here’s a look at what’s happening on the urban gardening front:

- In Berkeley, the City Council is working with the planning commission to get home-based gardens added into the city code as a legal home-based business.

- In Vancouver, WA, urban farmers teamed up to form a co-op and open their own farmers market to sell home-grown produce.

- Last summer, Seattle changed the city zoning codes to allow for more urban farms, increased the number of chickens residents could legally keep, and made it legal for growers to sell backyard produce.

- Also last summer, Los Angeles made it legal to farm within the city limits and to sell home-grown produce through the Food and Flowers Freedom Act.

- The town of Sedgewick ME, just last week passed The Local Food and Self Governance Ordinance, which not only exempts direct farm sales from state and federal licensing and inspection, but goes even further to also allow the sale of foods made in the home kitchen.

- Last summer, Kansas City passed an ordinance allowing home gardeners to sell their harvest.

- Similarly, Michigan’s Cottage Food Law allows the sale of certain approved foods produced in residential kitchens from homes, farm markets, or roadside stands, county fairs, festivals, and other events, provided the food is labeled as coming from an un-inspected home kitchen.

- Detroit, being perhaps the nation’s epicenter of urban farming, hopefully won’t have long to wait to achieve official recognition of its many urban farms currently operating without the proper zoning to legitimize them.

All over the country, citizens are working with their local governments to take back the production of their own food. The names of some of the new laws are telling: “freedom act,” “self governance ordinance,” this is the language of change, maybe even revolution.

People are ready to wrest control of what they eat out of the hands of big food. Though these movements may seem tiny, looked at together they represent a mighty wave of people taking up hoes to make real change in their neighborhoods.

Do you have an urban farmer inside of you? Maybe you want to get ahead of the competition. Try these 5 ideas for transforming your own backyard.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Christine Paulus

5 Urban Farming Ideas for Your Own Backyard

Heather Brubaker — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 00:22:48 +0000

Growing your own food has gone beyond the hippie counter-culture of the ’60s. With the advent of books by the likes of Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, people are taking a hard look at what they’re eating. Sadly (and not always surprisingly), the more we learn, the less we want to eat commercial, processed, packaged food or even fruits, vegetables or meat from big corporate aggie farms. What better way to take control and eat locally by producing food in your very own backyard?

It seems more and more people are doing just that, and even in urban areas. Let’s take a look at some growing trends.

Fruit/veggie/herb gardens

People are really digging into the idea of growing their own produce. Why settle for a boring lawn or shrubbery when you can walk a few steps to your backyard into an edible forest of fresh onions, chard, spinach, lettuce and squash? As one recent article in the Denver Post put it, “soil is the new oil,” and last year seed sales seriously sprouted, according to USA Today. Because let’s face it – with the growing uncertainty of our times with tech, financial, and housing bubbles crashing left and right, oil prices rising and the value of the dollar falling, self-sufficiency is sounding better and better.

And yet, why only rely on your own garden? In an interesting interview with Carol Deppe about her new book The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, Carol mentions humans’ need to be both self-reliant and interdependent. By sharing ideas and tools, we all become more self-reliant and better survivors. It is in just this way that urban citizens are joining together to trade excess fruit and vegetables from each other’s yards. Numerous trading hubs are popping up in the Bay Area, for one. Check out VeggieTrader, a “classifieds” website for easy produce trading!

Thinking about starting your own garden? For inspiration, consider these 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow at Home or perhaps start small with an herb garden.

Worms

As people become more experienced in the ways of gardening, it’s natural to take it to the next level. In fact, rumor has it that “vericomposting,” aka. worm composting to create your own rich compost or “black gold” is becoming a popular new trend. Earthworms are our friends. They break down the soil, helping it breath and stay loose so plants’ roots can better grow.

I was dually impressed by a friend’s earthworm “collection” when I was visiting out in Colorado. Healthy soil translates into healthy plants – no doubt – as said friend proved with an incredible tomato and squash garden. My favorite was hearing Will Allen, an urban farming genius from Milwaukee, speak at a PopTech conference in Maine. His slide show included images of worm composting that were mind-blowing. Yes, even worms can knock your socks off. Or maybe it was the resulting “black gold” that I really wanted to sink my hands into.

Bees

Beekeeping has been gaining popularity, most surprisingly in urban areas. In March of this year, New York lifted a ban on beekeeping and the city of Toronto boasts an impressive urban rooftop beehive haven atop the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. The hotel then provides its very own fresh honey harvested from its roof to satisfy restaurant diners. Genius!

Urbanites, such as Cameo Wood in the Bay Area, have turned keeping hives into a profit, selling fresh local honey to the community at Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper. Occasionally, beekeeping can cause conflict in city neighborhoods, as when a small urban farm in San Francisco had their beehives attacked.

Many beekeepers are simply gardeners who want bees to pollinate their flowers and vegetables. Worried about bee population declines, they’ve decided to take nature into their own hands. For more buzz on backyard beekeeping for beginners read on here.

Chickens

There has been a lot of backyard chicken talk over the years. It seems in certain circles, chickens are all the rage. Sadly, my neighbors recently decided to end their urban chicken care-taking, so I no longer sip my morning coffee to the sound of the birds murmuring and ruffling their feathers. While most homeowners would consider the maintenance required for keeping chickens more work than its worth, those who have them beg to differ. For example, chickens can be fed just about any old scrap from the kitchen table, and in fact, the more variety in their diet, the more nutritious the eggs they lay.

Nobody seems to have exact numbers, but Backyard Poultry, a Wisconsin based magazine, boasts upward of 80,000 current subscribers (up from 15,000 four years prior) and numerous chicken websites are gaining surprising traffic, such as backyardchickens.com and urbanchickens.org.

Let’s face it, nobody refutes the superiority of a fresh egg to the alternative, and considering that recently Wright County Egg, an Iowa company, had to recall 380 million eggs in August for salmonella issues, keeping your own chickens just might be worth looking into.

Given the level of interest, I’m surprised that we haven’t seen any urban Chicken Coop Co-ops sprouting up. Seems like a perfect way to share in the labor and the egg-bounty. Any community organizers out there up for the challenge?

Aquaculture

Why stop at chickens? Considering the sad state of our oceans and declining and poisoned fish populations, it makes sense to take a shot at farming your own fish. Sound fishy? Not to Will Allen (if I might reference the genius one last time) who has barrels of tilapia and perch at his Growing Power green houses, making aquaponics look easy. But could you do it at home? Apparently, fish farming in the backyard is a indeed a growing trend, although, I have yet to hear of anyone I know delving this deep. Let us know if you have encountered any local, urban (or suburban) fishmongers!

Be it a few herbs on the back deck, chickens or a full-fledged aquaponic system, may you too find the optimal self-sufficient gardening option for your very own backyard.

Images: Sbocaj, Salvadonica, Chianti, Tuscany, PopTech, fishermansdaughter, Svadilfari, grifray

5 Urban Farming Ideas for Your Own Backyard

Heather Brubaker — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:47:03 +0000

It seems more and more people are doing just that, and even in urban areas. Let’s take a look at some growing trends.

Fruit/veggie/herb gardens

Thinking about starting your own garden? For inspiration, consider these 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow at Home or perhaps start small with an herb garden.

Worms

Bees

Chickens

Aquaculture

Be it a few herbs on the back deck, chickens or a full-fledged aquaponic system, may you too find the optimal self-sufficient gardening option for your very own backyard.

Images: Sbocaj, Salvadonica, Chianti, Tuscany, PopTech, fishermansdaughter, Svadilfari, grifray

Growing Their Own: Restaurant to Farm Its Own Dining Room

Scott Adelson — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:36:15 +0000

Dubai, Kwait, Qatar, et al: a Disneyworld of senseless “innovation.” Don’t they have the world’s tallest buildings over there now? Or was it the largest? Neon aquatic hotels? Indoor skiing in the outdoor desert? I suppose the fact Kuwait is about to get a new restaurant that grows its own produce in its dining room shouldn’t be mind-blowing news. But it is a delightful idea, sitting down on the farm in the Arabian Desert, dining in an organic oasis. (Is it also not absurdly ironic that the world’s largest oil-producing countries are leaders in so many things green?)

Dubai-based restaurant consultancy, Thomas Klein International and its Chicago architectural office, PS Studio, have been contracted by Prime & Toast to adapt the vertical farming concept for its new outlet in Kuwait. The release attributes the idea to American professor Dr. Dickson Despommier, who has brought some cred to the idea of farming in crowded urban areas (see our story, “Encouraging City Growth: Urban Farming Grows Up“).

The Prime and Toast’s farm is pretty green for its desert venue. It will be watered with condensation from the restaurant’s air conditioning system. (I suppose if you require a cooling system that has to be fired up pretty much around the clock, you might as well get some offset benefit.) The hyperlocal organic herbs and vegetables will be used to feed what’s promised to be a healthy menu “based on the fresh produce available on a particular day.”

The “farming section” (and the kitchen, as well) will do more than actually feed patrons; it will also be designed into the place so that diners will have a true eating out experience with “direct views into the production area.” In keeping with the sustainable approach, all wood used the restaurant’s furniture will come from sustainable forests.

While hardly a true urban farm benefiting a local community, or a back-to-the-land movement for desert dwellers, the restaurant is good example of how the approach’s novelty can actually fit into a marketing scheme. Says Daniel During, TKI Managing Partner, “The main feature of the restaurant is … the vertical farming section, and the rest of the restaurant was designed around this unique and innovative concept.”

Need Wind In Your Sails? 3 Hip Jobs You Can Cultivate

Luanne Bradley — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:58:28 +0000

Green jobs are energizing us in almost all fields – from gentle dry cleaning to sustainable urban farming, city planning and specialized recycling. And when you can’t locate the right opening, Go Green, Live Rich author David Bach strongly recommends the entrepreneurial path: “Pause in whatever you’re doing today and ask yourself whether there’s a smarter, better, greener way to do it. You might just come up with a million-dollar idea.”

Not all green job seekers equate success with great wealth. In fact, many purists eschew the notion that a revitalized economy means red bullish consumerism – three cars in every garage and fully booked far-off resorts. No, you can surely locate or create the kind of pro-active eco career that meets your ethical standards – ones that pay back in a way you deem responsible. Here are a few to consider:

Farming

Fictional Oliver Douglas of Green Acres sitcom fame had the right idea when he abandoned the urban jungle for the urban garden. Fifty years later, trained geologist Catherine Gockley found her own plot, and according to Uprooted, she will soon be able to support herself completely on the land and bees she has cultivated at her Fire Mountain farm and Apiary.

Today, the country has two million farmers whose average age is 55. Food guru Michael Pollan emphasizes that there is a growing demand for new age farmers and small-scale, local and organic methods to replace the widespread, petroleum-based industry. Being adept as a small businessperson is an advantage. Related jobs in this field include food producing, cheese making, farmers markets and communal farms and markets.

Tips on how to get started: Catherine Gockley, Owner of fire Mountain Farm and Apiary

Recycling

Specialized companies are needed to meet new laws and regulations for recycling and repurposing construction waste, clothing, plastic storage and many other materials that could be useful. There are more than one million recycling jobs around, including scrap metal recycling as our need for steel increases (most steel comes from U.S. recycling). Recycled steel makes up some 35 percent of total steel output and saves up to 75 percent of the energy required for producing virgin steel. This is a growth industry worldwide. Pacific Steel and Recycling is an employee-owned corporation with 38 branch offices in the Northwest. It is developing green technology for industrial salvaging, including the Shredder, a machine that is 99 percent accurate at separating out materials reducing the need for mining for additional virgin metals and saving energy and other natural resources.

Tips on joining the industry: Pacific Steel and Recycling Blog; Careerbuilder Job Posts

Wind Turbine Fabricating

China is a huge producer of steel as well as one of the biggest markets for wind turbines, and the need in the U.S. continues to grow as well. The fastest-growing source of alternative energy, wind employs some 300,000 workers worldwide, including 50,000 Americans. Since turbines are mostly metal by weight, fabricating is a good way to redirect autoworkers and other manufacturers in hurting industries. However, the U.S. government needs to get on board to protect this important industry. Wind energy advocates are now pushing for a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) in the U.S. Senate energy bill, noting that wind power installations are dropping from 2008 and 2009 levels because there has not been enough government support.

For tips on jobs and to see the kinds of positions available, visit the American Wind Energy Association Job Board.

Images: Lara604, New Bedford 360

Not Cool! Bees at Hayes Valley Farm in San Francisco Attacked

Heather Brubaker — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:06:09 +0000

Why would a person maliciously kill bees on an urban farm? The Hayes Valley Farm in San Francisco had its bee farm attacked last week. Someone deliberately sprayed pesticide into the vent holes of their honey bee colonies. The result? Over 60 percent of the bees in the colony were killed. More than the money lost, the emotional affect is difficult. The HVF is working hard to create a better urban community only to have a local resident turn on them. It seems there’s been some misunderstanding about bees.

Many farms are focused as much on education, as growing and selling produce. If anything good can come out of this, perhaps it can help raise awareness about the importance of bees in our environment. Bees are an essential part of the ecosystem, pollinating as much as one sixth of the flowering plants in the world and over 100 agricultural crops in the U.S.

Scientists have long noticed that bee populations have been dwindling. Numerous theories abound as to why that’s the case. Be it overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, air pollution from carbon dioxide or cell phone radiation, our bees have been affected. It seems that urban beekeeping has made a significant impact on increasing bee numbers. Let’s hope that urban punks won’t destroy these efforts.

Image: wolfpix

Encouraging City Growth: Urban Farming Grows Up

Scott Adelson — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:43:37 +0000

When I first started hearing the term “urban farming,” I’d think about either my grandparents’ stories about war-time “victory gardens” or of some crumbling dystopian city full of hungry citizens doing whatever they could to endure society’s epic demise. The former image was one of coming together for the cause, growing cukes in city lots to support “our boys” “over there.” The latter was all sci-fi survival, doing what you can with what you got, staving off impending doom.

Turns out, the advent of today’s urban farming movement is in very much in response to both of these veins. Consider that by mid-century, the human population will increase by about three billion people and nearly 80 percent of us will live in urban centers. It’s been estimated that if farming practices continue as they are, the amount of “new” land needed to grow food to feed all these people would have to be 20 percent larger than the size of Brazil. Already, parts of the developing world are facing of water and land shortages, so we’re talking pretty high stakes here. As we recently pointed out, the push for urban farming is here, and it’s here to stay. And the movement continues to grow up. Literally.

The idea for “vertical farming” resulted from a classroom challenge made to students by a Columbia University teacher of environmental sciences and microbiology. Professor Dickson Despommier asked his class to figure out how many Manhattanites they could feed a 2,000-calorie daily diet to – growing food on the island’s 13 acres of usable rooftops. When the answer came back to be about two percent of the 50,000 city dwellers, Despommier posited growing food vertically, inside multi-story and high-rise buildings. The students took it from there, eventually creating Verticalfarm to spread the idea.

Though the project began in 2000 (we actually gave it some coverage a couple years back), the concept’s finding some new traction in the media, at least, with a recent piece in Smithsonian magazine’s 40th Anniversary issue, and Despommier’s new book, The Vertical Farm: The World Grows Up, soon to be released.

There are many advantages to this approach, according to Despommier and his team. For starters, there’s year-round crop production, no weather-related failures, all food can be grown hydroponically with no herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers, and you get the elimination of agricultural runoff by recycling black water. As for its impact on regular old “horizontal” farming, the method would provide for the return of existing farmland to nature, which is always a plus. Add fossil fuel-free food production and even feeding methane from composting back into a city’s electrical grid and, well, maybe they have something here.

Not everyone’s convinced that such an approach makes sense, and some say that cost and resource issues make the efficiency of such grand-scale endeavors to be no more than pie in the sky thinking. But the facts on the ground remain regarding populations, pollution and climate issues being on a collision course scheduled to meet up sometime in the not-too-distant future. It’s never too early for creative thinking. Especially when we’re going to need some unique solutions to, perhaps, get us off the ground.