Urban Farming in Hungry City LA

Posted on October 24, 2010 by quest

As more and more attention is being paid to the slow food movement, home food gardens, urban farming and yes vertical farms; here comes: Why is LA a Hungry City? The meeting is sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The interest in urban agriculture in a city such as Los Angeles is interesting particularly given its unique assets with respect to sunshine and it’s transportation problems. In part the meeting will deal with what laws and policies interface with the possibility for growing food in Los Angeles and what are the constraints of moving food, distributing food, and accessing food?

Like other major metropolitan areas Los Angeles is already stressing from population, water, transportation and energy issues: So an increased awareness of the relationship between food and health issues along with the proliferation of fast food venues have added to the urgency for solutions.

On hand for the Thursday, October 28 7pm meeting are Micheal Pinto, Shelley Marks, and Nicola Twilley; each discussing various perspectives on food production in the city of Angels. For example, Shelley Marks who has been a life-long community activist and volunteer, working on local and global issues pulled together a small group of like-minded friends and neighbors and formed Urban Farming Advocates (UFA) in 2009. The purpose of the group is to change laws in Los Angeles that restricted urban farming in residential zones. UFA created the Food & Flowers Freedom Act and worked with Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti to get these zoning changes adopted. The meeting will be held at AIA Los Angeles 3780 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 800 Los Angeles. For more information co RSVP to WILL WRIGHT at will@aialosangeles.org.

Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change

Future organic farmer

Posted on October 16, 2010 by quest

The green movement is coming at us from all directions and from some unexpected sources. Googles’ investment in wind power is a sign; as is the US Department of the Interior’s plan to build a major solar power plant on public lands. Not long ago I reported a story about a 14 year old Ontario student who converted is grandfathers old Volkswagen into an electric vehicle. Even more recently there was the story of a college student from Purdue who has designed a functioning solar motorcycle…You know he’s probably getting more dates now that he’s getting all this attention. So now from North Carolina here’s 11 year old Birke Baehr who recently spoke a TED X conference.TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Seems Birke has been studying how Americas’ food structure is working and has some very clear ideas on how it can be transformed into a more effective and healthy system.

At 11 years old Birke has changed his goal of being a football player and has decided he wants to be a an organic farmer instead, because as he said, “I can make a greater impact on the world.” The problem as he sees it is that 70 percent of processed foods on the market today are genetically modified. The other part of that is that genetically modified foods have been proven to cause cancer in lab animals.

TEDXCHANGE – BIRKE BAEHR

Now that our agribusiness systems are being looked at differently; organic, urban and vertical farmers are providing new solutions to address healthy eating and reduction in C02 emissions. And a child shall lead them.

Sleek eco friendly designs for urban vertical farms

Posted on October 5, 2010 by quest

IBM’s recent rollout of CItyOne should be a wake up call that business as usual just isn’t going to cut it. CiyOne is IBM’s new interactive ecosystems game. CityOne is an innovative way to create collaboration among all the participants of our cities. Maybe it’s wishful thinking to hope our political representatives will figure that out and start working on a national renewable energy plan that includes solar and wind power that can transform the nation to new prosperity. But than again it’s our job to tell them that green jobs is what we want and need.

When you think green though it’s important to recognize its impact effects every aspect of daily life. That includes the idea of vertical farming as a method to meet increased food demand and reduce co2 emissions. We as a nation have a tremendous about of knowledge that has to be shared in order for us to move ahead.

No where is this more apparent than in agribussiness. Recently Richard Keller, AgProfessional editor writing about two agribusiness conference the Farm Progress Show and Agriculture 2.0 Global Investments Conference wrote” Both glass building farming systems were outlined at the New York City Agriculture 2.0 Global Investments Conference for agricultural innovators and investors. The attendees of the conference in September were quite different than those attending the Farm Progress Show at Boone, Iowa, at the end of August.

ITALIAN DESIGNED VERTICAL FARM

At one conference, most attendees thought global warning is a make believe concept, and at the other conference, attendees were positive that changes in global weather are obvious and not a theory. At the farm show, tripling the yield per acre by 2050 was a typical discussion goal, and at the conference, two speakers outlined the goal to find financing for multiple-story greenhouse-type building for growing food crops by 2050 in the middle of cities.” In Vancouver,BC Terrashere Systems is already operating a small scale vertical facility. Vertical farming and TerraSphere Systems

Sustainable vertical urban farms

Posted on September 25, 2010 by quest

Talk about keeping your head to the sky. Vertical farm visionary Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier sees a future where skyscrapers in urban cities like New York, Hong Kong or London will serve as skyfarms. Those urban farms could use renewable energy such as solar and wind and will use less space and waste fewer resources. In his upcoming book “The Vertical Farm“Despommier says that fifteen thousand years ago, there was probably not a single farm on the planet.

Today, farms occupy a landmass the size of South America. Dickson Despommier’s work on vertical farms has been featured on such top national media as CNN, “The Colbert Report,” and “The Tonight Show,” as well as in full-length articles in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Scientific American, and The Washington Post. At Columbia, he has won the Teacher of the Year Award eight times for his work in public health and environmental health sciences.

VERTICAL VISIONARY – DICKSON DESPOMMIER

Urban planners are paying attention to Despommier and others as they recognize population projections will squeeze already dwindling natural resources. According to the United States Census Bureau the world’s current population is estimated to be close to 6.8 billion. The world’s population is expected to reach between 8 and 10.5 billion between the year 2040 and 2050. That’s alot of hungry mouths to feed.