Inside Urban Green

Netherlands » A Future Farm in a Sunless, Rainless Room Indoors

Important urban food production research is going on in the Netherlands and elsewhere around the world.

Meanwhile in New York City, we are dumping dirt in a park to lead school kids down a garden path to nowhere.

Instead of science and technology we have leaders like our parks commissioner and others who preach a curriculum of "get your hands dirty" as if this was some holy endeavor.

New York has the means to be a leader in urban food production. Instead, we have a highly vocal but relatively small mob of farmer wannabees trying to make the Big Apple into a fantasy farm.

This is simply the wrong place and the wrong time.

via www.npr.org

DEN BOSCH, Netherlands April 11, 2011, 09:05 am ET

Farming is moving indoors, where the sun never shines, where rainfall is irrelevant and where the climate is always right.

The perfect crop field could be inside a windowless building with meticulously controlled light, temperature, humidity, air quality and nutrition. It could be in a New York high-rise, a Siberian bunker, or a sprawling complex in the Saudi desert.

A Misguided Vegetable Gardening Guide From the Extension Program

This following is just one example of a gardening guide with not one word about the possibility of urban soil contamination, the need for a toxic metal soil test or the safe and productive option of growing in portable micro gardens (aka sub-irrigated planters - SIPs).

It is a publication of the U. of Illinois extension program. There are hundreds of outdated vegetable gardening guides like this on the web. It is particularly deplorable when public funds are used to publish incomplete information like this.

via web.extension.illinois.edu

Collective Roots « An Intelligent and Safe Urban Gardening Solution

Collective Roots is a non-profit located in East Palo Alto, California that advocates local food production.

They have discovered the safe and productive benefits of portable micro gardens (aka sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like the EarthBox.

One good example of safe gardening is the nearby Google headquarters (aka Googleplex) garden. It is a joint project of Google and The Growing Connection, a UN organization. They chose to plant the garden in EarthBoxes, one of many portable micro garden options.

With safety as the primary goal, the first intelligent step is to have your soil tested for toxic metals contamination before growing any edible plants in the ground.

NYTimes » Pay Teachers More

Finland, the home country of my parents, was selected recently as the number one country in the world. 

Part of the reason is their education system.

They pick teachers from the top third of their college classes and then pay them well. We do pretty much the opposite and it shows.

Since moving back to NYC in 2007, I have much first hand experience with public school science teachers, urban agriculture, foodie movement and horticulture educators. The level of science education in this demographic is not very good to put it mildly. Simple principals of physics like capillary action and osmosis are akin to rocket science.

Unless we change our education priorities, the U.S. will not likely regain the top of the world status it had when I was a young man.

Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren’t open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America’s children.

These days, brilliant women become surgeons and investment bankers — and 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores). The figure is from a study by McKinsey & Company, “Closing the Talent Gap.”

via www.nytimes.com

Alberta, Canada » Earthbox Kids Project

These kids in Alberta will learn a lot more about growing plants and producing food with their EarthBoxes than if they grow in traditional in-ground gardening.

Thanks to a lack of leadership and education here in NYC we have well-intentioned school principals and parents who think they need to dig up school yards to have a kids garden. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Read the following article and you will see that Alberta gets it. They started over 12 EarthBox type portable school micro gardens (aka sub-irrigated planters -SIPs) last year and are adding 30 more gardens this year.

These portable and productive gardens can be used outdoors and indoors the year-round regardless of weather. They will produce more food per square foot than in-ground gardens, save water and teach plant science up-close and personal.

What is your school doing this year? Jack-hammer, roto-tiller or a smart and portable kids garden?

via gfsa.wordpress.com

In 2009 Alberta Agriculture with Growing Forward funds started the EarthBox® Kids project. An EarthBox® is a scientifically engineered gardening kit which comes with a specialized aeration screen and watering system allowing for excellent yields with less water, less fertilizer and less work. This system works perfect for the school setting for both outdoor and indoor growing.

Florida » Simplified Hydroponics Workshops

 

 

The University of Florida IFAS has two simplified hydroponics workshops scheduled. One of is for homeowners on Saturday, March 26, 2011 from 8:30 a.m. to 1215 p.m. Details PDF file. 

The other is for master gardeners on Friday, March 25, 2011 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Details PDF file.

EarthBox Education » Florida County Extension Office Teaching With EarthBoxes

Yes, I have agreed with Mark Bittman to break up the USDA. I now need to modify that position. Break it up except for Florida.

This is one state that has an extension program that is in tune with the ultimate boss and that is the taxpaying consumer.

Florida is first in indoor plant production and in the top ten in terms of total agricultural receipts. California is at the top of the agriclutural receipts list with Texas a distant second. You would logically think that Californing would be the national leader in the use of modern urban food production methods based on science and technology.

The First of Twenty Rooftop Hydroponic Greenhouses Opens in Chicago

Humboldt Park is a predominantly Puerto Rican-American neighborhood in Chicago. It has a storied tradition.

This article is about the opening of the first of twenty hydroponic rooftop gardens. As a result, all of the people in this section of Chicgo, young and old, are going to learn some good stuff about biology, botany, plant growing technology and urban food production.

This is obviously a significant financial undertaking and I wonder about the funding. I will try to find out.

Fantastic FARM:shop » FARM:London

This rundown storefront happens to be in London but it could be right here in Brooklyn or most any city in the U.S.

It also happens to be the coolest urban food-growing project I have found on the web in a very long time. If not for my pending knee surgeries, I would fly to London to see it with my own eyes.

The FARM:shop evokes for me the spirit of two of my favorite urban food growing projects; the Rooftop Garden Project and McGill Edible Campus in Montreal.

The following is from the FARM:shop website. It is now open and there is much new information to blog about. It is all about local food, community and modern methods of growing such as hydroponics and aquaponics. Stay tuned.

via farmlondon.weebly.com

How much food can we grow in this shop?

Mark Bittman » Break up the USDA!

Mark Bittman's Food Manifesto calls for breaking up the USDA. I agree!

The USDA is a powerhouse agency of agricultural production support as defined by corn, soy and wheat. It is the friendly big brother of large corporate farming.

However, as an agency of consumer gardening education it is a total flop. The USDA propagandizes the consumer gardening market with growing advice that is glaringly out of date. All they seem to know is dig, dig, dig.

Their educators appear to know very little about modern urban food production methods such as portable micro gardens, sub-irrigation, simplified hydroponics, aquaponics and hydroculture. As a result, dollar a day people in emerging economies know more about these methods than we do. They get their information from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

It is an egregious situation that we not only pay USDA educator salaries but we also pay for out of date information. It is time to call it what it is and that is a gross waste of taxpayer money and harmful to urbanized society.

Mark Bittman is an American food journalist and author. He wrote a weekly column for The New York Times dining section called The Minimalist. The final The Minimalist column was published on January 26, 2011. Bittman will continue writing as a columnist for the New York Times Magazine, and he will have a column in the paper's Opinion section; he will also be blogging.

about him: en.wikipedia.org
his website: content.markbittman.com

A Food Manifesto for the Future - NYTimes.com