A Call for Urban Farmers

Increasing Efficiencies & Rad Decentralization

The world we live in today is rapidly developing, and our global population is growing exponentially. Not only are there more people on earth than ever before, but for the first time in history, more people live in cities than in rural environments. This new urban landscape has allowed incredible increases in productivity and output, but this rapidly increasing population density poses a serious challenge to harmonious cohabitation with our natural environment.

The city is an interesting place. On the surface, we’re exposed to flashing lights, gourmet meals, and 5 star fast living. But take away a person’s ability to feed themselves, and I guarantee you would quickly see the veil of order fall to chaos. There is incredible fragility and inefficiency in the urban food supply chain. Most cities are lucky if they have a 3 day supply for their entire populace, and 50% of all food produced goes to waste. By giving apartment dwellers and urban inhabitants efficient tools to cultivate edible and medicinal plants, we can reduce waste while easing the stress on centralized distribution systems.

How do we do this?

Thankfully, visionary ecologists and engineers have already provided the building blocks to a sustainable future (I’ve linked to a few of them at the bottom of this article). We just need to help put their theories into practice.

The combination of advanced technologies, new material sciences, and age old soil-based cultivation techniques can provide real solutions to the problems of food security and sustainable production.

After all, industrialization is a new phenomenon, one which is still evolving as new evidence of its impact on our environment is brought to light. If we can sustain the lives of astronauts living in the most inhospitable environment, we can surely feed ourselves here on earth.

Resources

Carolyn Herriot – The Zero Mile Diet
Allan Savory – Reversing Desertification
William McDonough – Cradle to Cradle Production
Marcin Jakubowski – The Global Village Construction Set

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Clark Skocilich

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