Where is the invention in American consumer horticulture?

Where is the invention in American consumer horticulture? Other than a plethora of poorly thought out green wash gadgets, it isn't very visible. 

Tom Friedman wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times titled Invent, Invent, Invent. The piece spoke to me and I hope it speaks to you as well. Not to worry, it’s only a matter of our future economic welfare, food supply and careers. 

Consumer horticulture hasn’t gotten to the first invent, no less the second and third. What of significance is there beyond the AeroGarden and the EarthBox invented by Blake Whisenant? 

We can thank Blake for the EarthBox (prior posts) but where is American ingenuity hiding relative to the field of horticulture? Is everything horticultural cast in stone or in a bronze plaque from the past? From what I read on a daily basis, it seems that way. 

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Invent, Invent, Invent

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: June 27, 2009

I was at a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, a few weeks ago and interviewed Craig Barrett, the former chairman of Intel, about how America should get out of its current economic crisis. His first proposal was this: Any American kid who wants to get a driver’s license has to finish high school. No diploma — no license. Hey, why would we want to put a kid who can barely add, read or write behind the wheel of a car?

Now what does that have to do with pulling us out of the Great Recession? A lot. Historically, recessions have been a time when new companies, like Microsoft, get born, and good companies separate themselves from their competition. It makes sense. When times are tight, people look for new, less expensive ways to do old things. Necessity breeds invention.

Therefore, the country that uses this crisis to make its population smarter and more innovative — and endows its people with more tools and basic research to invent new goods and services — is the one that will not just survive but thrive down the road.

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Comments

[anomynous]

One VERY good book on the step-by-step process of innovation is:

Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want

http://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Five-Disciplines-Creating-Customers/dp/B0029LHWGI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246295552&sr=8-1 They explain that you should ask customers for feedback as you go rather than creating a product and then pushing it to market that doesn't want what you've made.

I agree with you, I think that our country has become stale with innovation, and it is my theory that the government is largely to blame. GM is a great example, they make cars that nobody wants and then the government has to give incentives to get people to buy.

Cable TV is another example. Each company has a territory that they control and they are allowed to set their prices/services as they please. Suddenly Verizon comes along with FIOS and everyone panic's. Rather than trying to innovate their services to compete, the cable companies use the government to create more red tape for Verizon to cut through.

I think the same concept is true of agriculture in our country. The government continues to subsidize farmers and nothing changes. If the government did not do this, in theory: more farmers would close shop, prices of produce would rise, other people would see the profit potential and begin to innovate to get a piece of the market while lowering their own costs and capturing the spread.

My conclusion: the government blocks competition, and therefore prevents innovation, while feeding fat cats that are too out-of-shape to survive in an evolutionary environment. Find a problem, solve it, and you will be rewarded.

[Diane]

Many high schoolers aren't just joyriding but actually contribute to the family's income and need to drive to work. The education one gets in the public school system isn't worth the paper used to print the diploma. Kids need life skills and as you champion here, growing food is one of them.