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Post by nathanp on Mar 6, 2016 19:04:39 GMT -5
Metropolis Vegan Vertical FarmI posted this in a facebook gardening group a few minutes ago, but I would be curious to know the thoughts of others here on this. I hear several things in this that seem enormously misleading, plus have questions about just what they claim to be doing. I do want to give them credit for trying to farm more locally and eliminating a long supply chain. Aside from my questions below, there is little that is sustainable about this. There are a bunch of things in this that raise my B.S. meter... "no pesticides, herbicides, animal manure and animal bi-products." So does this mean they are fertilizing with chemical fertilizers? Not exactly progress, in my opinion. "about 120,000 plants in only 36 square feet" and “We can grow more food in less space using less energy and water. The result is that I can replace 44,000 square feet with 36 square feet" This is absolute fiction. Are they pretending that cubic feet and square feet are the same thing? Very poor comparison, and although it sounds impressive, how much land and water area outside this building is required to sustain this? And less energy? Are they kidding? Less energy than the sun provides? “According to the CDC, green leafy vegetables grown in manure is one of the top sources of food poisoning,” This would be very poor practice indeed, if people are doing this, but composted manure would have very little impact on food poisoning. Hardly a reason to avoid manure. I get the vegan thing, and wanting to avoid it for that reason, but to claim that it avoids food poisoning? The CDC must be referring in a general sense, to a practice done by large scale farms, and a result that you would likely only ever see in the same large scale farms. Thoughts?
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Post by steev on Mar 6, 2016 20:52:04 GMT -5
There's a lot of BS about manure, mostly from people who don't know shit from apple-butter.
I strongly believe that in most agribusiness, the manure used is from feed-lots, dairies, and factory-farms, where there can be large quantities available, the impulse is to move it ASAP, and the critters producing the poo are commonly medicated "prophylactically", leading to nasty "bugs". Manure doesn't cause food poisoning; lousy agricultural practices do.
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Post by billw on Mar 7, 2016 2:35:45 GMT -5
I find most of the news about indoor and vertical growing to be pie-in-the-sky dreaming by reporters who don't know anything about growing. Sure, you can grow a lot of greens in a basement under light produced usually by some extractive energy source, but good luck producing any calorie crops.
The farther one takes veganism, the more high-tech and disconnected it becomes from the natural world. Growing without animal-produced inputs is cutting out a large of the system that plants have evolved to take part in.
Investment bankers may disagree.
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Post by reed on Mar 7, 2016 7:59:56 GMT -5
Looks like they got em some quality snake oil, always a good market for that.
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Post by Walk on Mar 7, 2016 9:28:08 GMT -5
I don't think that vegan thinking is at fault but rather urban, disconnected from the real world, fantasy. I'm a 4 decade vegan and I use composted manure from our 2 pet Shetland sheep, 4 pet chickens, and 2 humans. I suppose I flunk at being vegan since I eat the non-fertilized eggs from said chickens, although they are mostly kept for insect control in our orchard (I don't eat eggs from commercial sources - I know how our hens our cared for). Anyway, I think that Will Bonsall's recent book has good points on being able to produce staple crops without the need for animal inputs, while keeping the soil in good condition. It seems that we need more of that approach as there probably isn't enough manure to go around, even assuming that we all use our own contribution. In our garden we use the composted manures on the heavy feeding crops (about 1/4 of our planting areas) and use other fertility sources for the rest. I do think that plants should be grown on soil in sunshine, but do think there's a place for off-season greens produced locally since they are highly perishable (to minimize refrigeration and shipping) and do grow well in indoor environments. But to me they are mostly a supplement, for nutritional and cooking needs, to long-keeping, field-grown staple crops. A well designed solar greenhouse works even in Minnesota and for home production, a south-facing window is as high tech as one needs to go.
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Post by flowerweaver on Mar 7, 2016 13:16:07 GMT -5
I am also basically a long time vegan, eating my own eggs only in baked goods, and avoiding dairy almost entirely. Like Walk I fertilize fields where the heavy feeders are growing with composted manure from my pet donkey, sheep, and chickens. I don't use blood or bone meals. I think there are two schools of veganism, one uber-philosophical/righteous, the other more practical: the PETA people who don't wear leather or use any animal products, and those who basically like animals, don't judge others, and do it for their own health and the environment.
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Post by Walk on Mar 7, 2016 16:56:08 GMT -5
I am also basically a long time vegan, eating my own eggs only in baked goods, and avoiding dairy almost entirely. Like Walk I fertilize fields where the heavy feeders are growing with composted manure from my pet donkey, sheep, and chickens. I don't use blood or bone meals. I think there are two schools of veganism, one uber-philosophical/righteous, the other more practical: the PETA people who don't wear leather or use any animal products, and those who basically like animals, don't judge others, and do it for their own health and the environment. Nice to meet a kindred spirit. We don't fit most anywhere, especially on the food spectrum. We aren't raw foodies, we don't do gluten or dairy because of the casein protein which neither my husband or I tolerate. We do eat whole, organic foods. Just being vegetarian is a bit easier without the other concerns. And then there are the ethics questions. We don't use blood or bone meal either. Part of our decision making involves what is sustainable and non-abusive or extractive. A bit of the Fair Trade mentality for humans as well as animals. My husband is a philosophy major. I don't have an excuse for thinking this way ;>).
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Post by steev on Mar 7, 2016 20:36:24 GMT -5
I'm certainly no vegan, but fail to see why anyone's food choices aren't their own business. Farming where I do, the locals are all raising range-fed critters, no confinement nor feedlots. My plants produce so much potential waste, I'd prefer to feed it to poultry or pigs (the birds, bees, and wasps damage ~75% of my stone fruit, for example; although the other 25% is still more than I can currently use; I can't seem to get the locals to come pick some produce and I don't have time to pick and deliver to them; I think they live on meat and potatoes, but that's their business; anyway, I look forward to raddled-stone-fruit-fed pork products and eggs with yolks darker than my pee).
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Post by khoomeizhi on Mar 7, 2016 21:49:59 GMT -5
^ staying well hydrated will help in that last goal.
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Post by steev on Mar 7, 2016 22:20:33 GMT -5
I'd rather not lower the bar to make factory eggs seem more relatively acceptable.
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Post by templeton on Mar 8, 2016 0:56:00 GMT -5
nathanp, an interesting article. Without a bit more info it's a bit hard to judge the merits of this process. There seems to be a bit of shallow thinking. While the economics and nutrients might stack - I can't really judge one way or the other - its the intangibles that worry me - the increasing distance between humans and the other than human world - these meet in farming, and I think they are almost more important than the other arguments. Mechanising food production in this way seems one further step in distancing people (metaphorically) from natural systems, and the more disconnected we become the worse I feel the plante may become. T
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Post by prairiegarden on Mar 8, 2016 19:34:13 GMT -5
What do they feed the carnivorous plants that they put in to catch bugs, once there are no bugs? Or do they just let them starve to death and then get more if the bugs come back? What if a bug dies on a planting bed and not conveniently in the maw of a Jack in the Pulpit, do they carefully pick it out so it doesn't inadvertently decompose and create some non plant fertility?
Also, aside from the real question about how they are going to maintain fertility and therefore any food value in their products, to be growing in towers undoubtedly means lots and lots of plastic, and they are talking about their goal is to use robots..neither of which seem very human oriented to me. It seems to me that the PETA vegans are often just like the chem ag people; both are sure that they know better than eons of evolution on earth and can therefor insist that everyone not only can but should disregard natural systems. It gives those of us who eat meat but are trying to get rid of CAFOs etc. a much harder job of it.
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Post by prairiegarden on Mar 8, 2016 19:59:33 GMT -5
How much vertical gardening do people here do? I am tending now to crops that can be trellised so as to make harvesting easier (I have an uncooperative back and knees) as well as maximize space, trying to work out how to do that so they don't all shade each other. Haven't done much of this other than pole beans before so not sure of the best way to go about it, this year will be a learning one for sure.
Odd come to think of it, trying to find lovely tall plants for the summer outside and mini versions for the same species for growing inside under lights over winter.
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Post by steev on Mar 8, 2016 20:39:46 GMT -5
So many people are estranged from Nature and non-commercial food, failing to grasp that the less they are involved in the production/preparation of the food they eat, the less they experience the wondrous complexity of our world; it's encouraging, here in the SF Bay Area, that there is blooming a robust foodie culture that supports numerous farmer's markets, classes in canning, fermenting, butchering, cheese-making, sausage, whatever; backyard poultry and gardening are more popular than since I was a kid. I need to remember to go to the UCB Entomology insect dinner, where they serve dishes made with crickets, meal-worms, and other nutritious critters they raise; after all, when we venture to space colonies (which I'm sure we will, if we don't stupid ourselves to death), I think we'll be eating more crickets than beef.
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Post by prairiegarden on Mar 8, 2016 23:45:28 GMT -5
Calgary in Alberta Canada is running a survey now re the freeing up of urban land currently not being used for anything, for the production of food, including such things as chickens. It wasn't so many years ago that there was a tremendous fuss in the same city about someone with three chickens, not sure if it went to court but it seemed to be heading that way when I moved and lost track of what was going on. So things may be starting to look up... the infamous and highly negative Food Safety Act passed here and in the US at the instigation of Monsanto et al is a serious impediment though. A lot of people think they don't really have options. Lots of people who should know better think there's no difference between GMO and hybrid. Others think that they couldn't grow a tomato if their lives depended on it,that it's like some sort of arcane science like alchemy. I think it is almost time to start working on the new government to make some changes; especially since the new PM said the other day something about in diversity lies strength..he was talking about people from diverse backgrounds not gardens but his words are definitely going to come back to haunt him.
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