Agroinnovations.com

Railroads

Posted on February 11, 2008 by frank

My Dad is a train fanatic, he loves trains, has loved them since he was a kid. Lately he has been telling me about the incredible value of transporting things by rail, not just goods (which remains a ubiquitous service in the United States), but also people. He argues that its pretty crazy for us to let our rail infrastructure go into disrepair. Why? Because transporting things by rail is extremely energy efficient, and efficiency means cheaper goods, heftier bottom lines, and mitigated climate change.

Granted, currently we use diesel fuel or other relatively heavy polluters to power our freight, and diesel means pollution, which means more forced warming. But the proposition that a diesel train engine, pulling hundreds of freight or passenger cars, could feasibly use a less polluting, carbon neutral fuel like cellulose-based ethanol seems a much more feasible than the concept of putting corn-based fuels in the tanks of Hummers. I won’t dwell on the thermodynamics of it, not that I’ve done any calculations, but intuitively it feels right.

So, Bolivia is a worst case scenario of a country that has allowed its rail infrastructure to go into disrepair. In the photo above, a track running through the heart of Cochabamba’s productive valleys is used to send a small, bus sized passenger train one-way the first day, and then back again on the second; rinse and repeat. And this is a rebirth of these tracks, after improved roads came along the trains were abandoned altogether, the tracks fell into disrepair, and just recently the tracks were fixed and put back into use. From analysis of aerial photos of these tracks, I know that they have been there since at least the early 1960′s.

Let’s analyze this for a moment. Here is a country, bitterly patriotic over a historical wrong that robbed them of access to the sea, that has allowed hundreds of miles of train tracks, tracks that pass through some of the most agriculturally productive areas in the country, to go into disuse and disrepair. Here is a country desperate for ways to transport products cheaply and cost-effectively, with the agricultural capacity to export the tons of surplus lost just because of poor post-harvest management, moving a bus-sized train across the tracks in one direction every other day. Here is a country, suffering from a huge competitive disadvantage because of mountainous roads, incessant rains washing out those mountainous roads during certain times of the year, and the inevitable result is product inflation and enormously high transportation costs. And while the politicians fight over this today and that tomorrow, a big part of the solution to the transportation problem is staring them in the face, in the form of miles of driven steel and railroad ties. Once again, Bolivia defies logic.

Posted in Agriculture, Bolivia, Development | Tagged Agriculture, Bolivia, export, Global Warming, railroads | Leave a comment

The Nature of the Crisis

Posted on January 10, 2008 by frank

Bill Mollison has said: “A crisis is brought on by people who don’t want to do something for themselves…and people who want to control others talk about Peak Oil and crisis because everyone else is panicking”.

This is a nice definition of crisis. Undoubtedly, crisis is a human-made phenomenon. In Bolivia, “crisis” is a constant state of affairs. Is the crisis over-blown, a manufactured and malformed instrument designed to control the population and empower the politicians? Probably. But the true nature of the crisis does not escape me.

Not long ago, Al Gore spoke of the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons as a result of climate change. Perhaps the word of the year for 2008 will be “climate refugee”. Doubtful that the climate refugees of the world exceed the war refugees, yet, but soon enough it will be difficult to tell the difference between one and the other.

In Bolivia, I don’t know if the mass migrants should be considered refugees or not. But the nature of the crisis is without question (yet hardly debated in the public sphere): the deterioration of the natural resource base. Erosion is perhaps the most critical and undiscussed problem facing the nation. It is a bitter topic indeed, because it is difficult to pinpoint the perpetrator. As Franklin D. Roosevelt so wisely said many years ago: A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.

And so, Bolivia is destroying itself, and not so slowly as we might believe. Healthy soils generate economic activity: they make possible a variety of management options, from beekeeping to mushroom farming and integrated agroforestry plantations. But, these activities also build healthy soils. So let me be clear: what Bolivia suffers from is a lack of resource management skills. Good management alone, and as Mollison suggests, a willingness to do something for oneself, will rebuild soils, productivity will sky-rocket, and local economies will be revitalized.

Posted in Bolivia, Global Warming | Tagged Bolivia, climate-change, crisis, Global Warming, refugees, soil-management | Leave a comment

The Imperial Mind

Posted on January 8, 2008 by frank

It is a maxim of history that empire justifies its actions with eloquent and moving rhetoric. From the earliest, most blatantly smash-mouth empires, to the subtle but more invasive American empire of the modern age, appeals have always been made to the public to justify the military and diplomatic adventures of empire.

These appeals take many forms: to subdue the barbarian tribes and secure the borders of civilization, to spread the true word of God to the savages of the world, to ennoble and purify the spirit, to spread democracy and freedom. Despite the ahistorical nature of the American mind, such messianic language is not new.

My observation is not a novel discovery. Meticulous historians and political analysts like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky have carefully documented this manipulation of language to further the aims of empire.

What does elude me however, is the extent to which the imperialist believes in his own demagoguery. And here the problem becomes more complex, delegated to the dark and mysterious realm of gray matter and human psychology. Is Empire an inexorable, extra-human force? Does it impose its will upon the pawns of history, making them too believe in the noble purpose of its now all too familiar march?

Biographical accounts of George W. Bush emphasize a fatalistic certainty and a grandiose sense of historical purpose. A man like Bush, sheltered as he is from the brutal, daily realities of imperial conquest, may indeed have the inclination and the imagination to speculate on the veracity of his regurgitated truisms. And so, as dangerous as it may seem (and it is dangerous), the messenger of Empire begins to believe in his own message.

So George Bush believes in his rhetoric about democracy and freedom. But the Empire is indifferent to it; the Empire kicks in teeth, devours land and resources, rises like the sun and burns fire into the eyes and hearts of the enslaved, and inevitably is pulled down again by the forces of Time and Anger.

It is, then, as Juan Cole has suggested. Historians will never be able attribute a single motive to the invasion of Iraq. When the oft repeated list of motives is mentioned on a history test, the answer will be D. All of the Above.

Posted in Politics | Tagged George-Bush, imperialism, Iraq, Juan-Cole | Leave a comment

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) in Bolivia

Posted on January 7, 2008 by frank

Last Friday Bolivian President Evo Morales, accompanied by Marcelo Claure CEO of Brightstar Corporation, announced that Bolivia would provide a laptop for every child in the country. With Bolivia’s entrance into the One Laptop Per Child Project, I’ve started to think seriously about some of the limitations of this initiative.

On the very same night, and on the very same newscast announcing the OLPC Bolivia project, two other news segments contributed to my misgivings. One segment showed video footage of schools in the rural areas of the Department of Santa Cruz. These buildings had no doors; in one instance the roof was caving in, and in another there weren’t even desks for the students to sit down at. The television station interviewed students, parents and teachers about the situation. They said local government officials had arrived in the community promising to fix the crumbling building, but then they never returned. In Bolivia, classes are set to begin early next month. It is doubtful that these problems will be fixed by that time. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Crumbling schools are the rule in rural Bolivia, and probably throughout the Third World.

The second segment showed a long line of mothers and students camping out in front of a school building, waiting to sign their students up for classes. Let me first mention, I am far from an expert on the organizational structure of Bolivia’s educational system. It was explained to me that these schools with the longest lines are semi-private. That is, the parents pay a small fee per month (between $5 and $10), so that their children can attend the school. Not all families can afford this modest sum, but for those that can, the school is somewhat protected from the socio-political upheaval that constantly afflicts the free schools. You see, the teachers at the public schools are constantly striking for higher wages, which is reasonable considering they sometimes only earn about $50 per month. But these strikes cause an interruption in classes, which can go on for weeks at a time.

Which brings me back to the OLPC project. In principle, I don’t believe anybody is against the idea that children everywhere should have access to educational technologies. But desks and doors, and roofs in tropical rainforests, should take precedence over laptop computers. And, what good is the laptop computer as an educational tool if the teachers are too busy striking for higher wages? Without looking at any official statistics, I estimate there are about 1 million school age children in the country. When we take into consideration the costs of logistics, training, and distribution on top of the costs of manufacture, we can assume that the project will cost about half a billion dollars.

I am well aware that these criticisms are far from novel, but seeing all of the news so conveniently stacked up like that, it was impossible not to notice the paradoxes. And, even though I know the machine was designed to survive in harsh conditions, and that the parts have been designed in a modular fashion, having been around kids in the campo, I sometimes wonder if they won’t find inventive ways to destroy them. Is it too rhetorical to ask: Wouldn’t the money be better spent on better schools and higher wages?

Posted in Appropriate Technology, Bolivia | Tagged Appropriate Technology, Bolivia, Evo-Morales, OLPC | Leave a comment

The latest from Bolivia

Posted on December 29, 2007 by frank

It has been too long since I have posted in this blog. Not that I haven’t thought about the issues that are confronting us…but it does get too overwhelming at times.

I am writing this from Bolivia, South America, where I have been for over a month now. Last year I wrote a long series of blog posts about the political climate in this remote and impoverished country. At the end of my 4 month stay, I wrote the following:

The social movements that toppled Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada are giving [President Evo] Morales the time and the support that he needs to govern. Two or three years from now, if his promises fail to materialize, it is difficult to predict what the political environment in Bolivia will be like. But, for the time being at least, Bolivia enjoys the political stability that it has craved for so long.

Now the situation has deteriorated palpably. The list of problems seems almost endless. The prices of all consumer products, especially the basics, like rice, sugar, and meat, have doubled, and even tripled in some cases. Yet wages have remained stagnant. Lines of transport vehicles and heavy trucks, often extending for several blocks from the gas station, can be seen along the edges of the roads, as diesel fuel has mysteriously become a scarce commodity (I have heard many reasons why diesel is scarce, but none of them has been extraordinarily convincing). Emigration remains an intractable problem, with some sources claiming that approximately 25% of the country’s population can be found in other countries, namely Argentina, Spain, the United States, and Brazil. The Constitutional Assembly has torn the country apart, with different political and social groups battling for regional autonomy and greater control over natural resources like oil and gas.

But, far beyond the very concrete examples of long lines, stagnant wages, and skyrocketing prices, is the overall malaise that one senses in the general population: despair, hopelessness…and complacency, an acceptance of conflict and impending disaster. Perhaps a fitting microcosm of the early 21st century, in a world that seems ever closer to spiraling out of control.

In many ways, I suppose the current state of Bolivia could have been easily predicted by an astute observer. I personally chose to focus on the continuity of Bolivia’s socio-political progression, rather than any dramatic breaks with the past. Corruption is still rampant, the mayor still arrives to work late and drunk, and people fight over petty personal differences in search of individual gain instead of looking for solutions that are of interest to the nation at large.

A simple, libertarian platform for Bolivia wouldn’t be all the hard to devise. One does not need to travel far to realize that the lack of good roads, from the vantage point of infrastructure alone, is costing Bolivia millions of dollars a year in unnecessary car maintenance, tragic deaths, and high transportation costs. And investments in schools and education always pay off in the long run.

I would like to see a Bolivian politician say this: “Yes, we have a lot of problems. There’s racism and discrimination and a historical tragedy that won’t leave us alone. But for the most part, government can’t do much about that. Let’s make an effort to be on time to meetings. Let’s stop stealing from the public treasury. Let’s focus all of our efforts as a nation on building the best road system in South America…well, err, okay, let’s focus on building the best road system in the Andes. For the WHOLE country, no exceptions. And let’s invest the rest in schools and education, for the WHOLE country, no exceptions.”

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?

Posted in Bolivia, Politics | Tagged Bolivia, Development, Evo-Morales | Leave a comment

We Should Be Frightened

Posted on October 31, 2007 by frank

We are constantly on the verge of another breakthrough. An information revolution. A nano-world. We transformed. We are on the verge of colonizing space. We shall go to Mars, we shall go beyond, we shall conquer the universe, or we shall go extinct trying. It seems irresponsible that we should do so without first understanding how to live in harmony with the natural world. We still have not realized that money can’t be eaten.

The signs are clear. Our oceans are being overfished. Our wild-lands are surrounded by urban sprawl, forever becoming smaller fragments of wilderness against the pressing human need. A great extinction has begun. The holes in our knowledge are blinding. It is possible that we are losing thousands of species a day. We tinker foolishly and inanely, oblivious to the possible impact of our actions.

Currently, the building blocks of civilization are in jeopardy: forests, wildlife, rivers, soils, and mountains. In this statement it is difficult to point fingers; difficult because humanity itself is at fault: rich nations and poor, capitalists and communists, black and white. Everywhere our democracies are failing us, serving the oligarchs and squeezing the people dry. Poor nations are crippled by ineptitude, poverty, and corruption.

Americans are apathetic towards their communities. That’s why we pay so much in taxes. We let the government try to take care of it for us. A feeling of service towards the community is lacking. More alarming still, is the lack of awareness about how our lifestyle affects the rest of the world. We should be frightened. But we are not.

90% of human calories come from 15 crops, yet we have documented there are thousands of crops that have been domesticated through the course of human civilization. Industrial agriculture, with its myopic approach to ecosystem management, has begun to threaten the agricultural biodiversity that sustains millions of people around the world. We burn enormous amounts of carbon. We rely on carbon based fuels to power our very existence. And tomorrow if there were no more oil? Chaos. We should be frightened. But we are not.

Posted in Environment | Tagged community, Environment, extinction, Global Warming | Leave a comment

Bean Harvest ’07

Posted on October 30, 2007 by frank

It’s a modest harvest, to be sure, but the significance for us as a family is still profound. And this is for a few reasons. First, this is a variety of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) native to the State of New Mexico, known as New Mexico bolitas in the northern part of the State. I purchased just few dozen seeds from Native Seeds/SEARCH early in the season with the intent of growing more seed for subsequent years. So from a dozen and half plants or so, we produced enough seed to really have abundant harvests of native beans for years to come, and I don’t know about anybody else, but the restoration of our agricultural heritage is an exciting prospect for me.

This particular variety performed well, exhibited high tolerance to heat and drought, and intercropped nicely with tomato and eggplant. The tomato cages provided a nice niche for the beans to climb and grow on. I would have liked a variety that produces in under 70 days, as this plant took 90 to 100 days to produce. However, we enjoyed high germination rates and a fairly abundant harvest considering these were planted in a rather limited surface area. This plant will make for an excellent companion to its natural allies: solanaceous crops, maize, and curcubits.

Posted in Microfarm | Tagged beans, gardening, Microfarm, New-Mexico | Leave a comment

Identifying Shrimp

Posted on October 29, 2007 by frank

This is a species of freshwater shrimp (Macrobrachium sp.) from the tropical Chapare region of Cochabamba, Bolivia. This specimen was given to me over a year a go by young researcher and innovator. He believes that this species of prawn has economic potential, as they grow fast and endure a variety of conditions. However, he knows little of its reproductive behavior and requirements, and unfortunately he is unable to identify the Latin name of this specimen at the species level. So he recruited my help to see if I could link up with University researchers in the States and pinpoint the identity of this little critter.

Given that the United States government has invested millions, if not billions, of dollars into this geographic region that is notorious for illicit coca production, you would think more resources would be available for researching economic development alternatives and supporting innovation. Nevertheless, I welcome his initiative in bringing me the specimens, and although it has taken me a little while to get on it, I’ve finally made some contacts at different universities who will hopefully be able to help me.

In fact, the folks at the Florida Institute of Technology have offered to do DNA testing on the samples. This is pretty awesome! So for those of you reading this blog who are interested in taxonomy of freshwater tropical shrimp, or just aquaculture in general, stay tuned, I’ll have more updates on this as information comes.

Posted in Bolivia, Development | Tagged aquaculture, Bolivia, Chapare, shrimp | 1 Comment

Open Source AT: What’s Next?

Posted on October 18, 2007 by frank

It has been almost two years since I first began advocating for adapting an Open Source model to the development of Appropriate Technology. Naturally, my ideas did not develop in a vacuum, and a number of other groups were already working on the same concept, thinking the same thoughts, and in many cases, implementing them. A few online communities come to mind: Instructables.com, the Honeybee Network, Appropedia, and Howtopedia.

In the short time of two years, the somewhat nebulous concept of Open Source AT is now becoming a reality. Just take a look at any one of the aforementioned online communities; they are vibrant and growing, and within the context of each community their exist subcommunities around a specific project or idea, like the Hexayurt. So yes, great progress has been made. But as we move forward, there are still a lot of questions to be answered, and more obstacles to be overcome.

First, is the question of accessibility. It is true, the information is out there, but the online communities that contain the information make it somewhat more difficult to access than is ideal. The notion of having to filter through at least four different online sites looking for a specific solution is a daunting task, and becomes almost impractical for all but the most dedicated. Consider that the Honeybee Network has thousands of different innovations; to date, their user interface is not advanced enough to provide information with a couple of mouse clicks.

Anybody with the the initiative to include their information on these websites would be somewhat deterred by the prospect of having to reproduce the information four, five, six…times to give it full coverage on all of the different existing communities. What is becoming evident, is that a wiki is a very blunt instrument indeed for the much more detailed process of collaborative technology development. Open Source software is leaps and bounds ahead of the OSAT community. Linus Torvalds no longer submits much code to the kernel; by his own admission most of his time is spent tracking submissions from the community, and coding a sophisticated tool he has developed to keep track of those contributions.

Similar tools for the OSAT community are conspicuously lacking. To move forward, we cannot continue to believe that simple tools like wikis and community forums will be sufficient to get full leverage out of the technology development, validation, and deployment process. After all, we want these tools to be deployed in the field, as quickly as possible, and we want to create viable business models around the technologies in question. Why should we continue to drive screws with a hammer? To do this right, we need the right tools.

The first step is to take a page from the FOSS community, and make a call for the development of a software package that is specifically designed to design, document, and track technology development. What might such a tool look like? Before I attempt a description, I should note I’m not a software engineer. I do, however, have a great deal of experience as a Linux Sys Admin, so I have a general feel for how these types of systems work and how they are configured, though very little experience with actual software design and coding.

Immediately, it occurs to me that such a system may require a backend and a frontend. The backend would be some kind of server-based database that keeps track of changes to the information, then serves up those changes to the community of users who are running the frontend GUI on their client machines. Also, the backend would serve data to a web interface where general users/browsers could access the information without any real need for getting into the meat and potatoes of development. The description is very similar to something like Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress.

In the case of a frontend running on the client machine, WordPress provides a compelling example. The Qumana blog editor provides a nice analog for a front end OSAT development tool. Qumana interfaces with a number of blogging engines, including the GPL WordPress CMS, and allows bloggers to edit and post blog and photo entries to a WordPress blog through a very accessible and powerful GUI interface.

Now, let’s imagine for a moment a similar setup, specifically designed not for blogging, but for appropriate technology development. Through the frontend, users could manage a number of related products during the development process. Documentation could be written and updated on the fly, as the database is updated, changes would ripple through the community instantly. A photo manager would help users to categorize and tag photos. Business opportunities could be created in niche areas, much in the same way developers have taken advantage of the opportunities around SugarCRM. Programmers could write plugins for an ArcGIS bridge, or an AutoCAD bridge, tools that the whole community may not need, but certain types of people would surely benefit from. These plugins could allow a user to import all emails with a certain tag or subject line into the database, or could update changes made to a CAD file and immediately post them to the server backend. The frontend would allow for the management of licenses, contact information, and well…any other information that the community felt needed management and organization.

Online communities like Instructables and Howtopedia may fall to the wayside when anybody with a LAMP server and an Internet connection can setup an entire OSAT development kit on their network. This doesn’t mean that these groups wouldn’t have a stake in the development of such a software package. I would imagine that their role would shift from central organizer to more of a tracking role, keeping tabs of changes in different projects and providing a searchable index of different information, much like the shift we have seen in the past 4 years from Kazaa to the Pirate Bay as the primary tool for file sharing. And, they could also provide an already configured backend for those people who don’t have the bandwidth, the technical know-how, or the time (or any combination thereof) to setup their own LAMP server.

It is not far-fetched to think that this tool does not need to be built from the ground up. Perhaps an already existing CMS like WordPress or Joomla could be forked, or a detailed Joomla component could be developed for this purpose. All of these are possibilites that I put out there to the community to debate and consider.

Posted in Appropriate Technology | Tagged Appropriate Technology, free-software, open-source | 3 Comments

Open Source as Politics

Posted on October 17, 2007 by frank

Is Open Source a political statement? Many would argue yes, and just as many would argue no. Linux Torvalds, with his pragmatic and non-ideological approach to kernel development, stands in stark contrast to the uncompromising idealist Richard Stallman. Yet Linus, despite his pragmatism, is as much a revolutionary as Stallman, an accidental revolutionary to be sure, but a revolutionary nonetheless. Torvalds represents a revolution in process and organizational structure.

And what is emerging from this process is, what Prof. Anil Gupta describes as a “polycentric network”; in such a network there are no leaders or subordinates. There may exist hierarchies within the network, but each node represents a discrete unit that is not critical to the functioning of the network as a whole. The emergence of horizontal, network-centric groups is one of the primary forces driving the current trajectory of human history. This phenomenon can be observed everywhere, and it is not constrained by ideological considerations or philosophy. Though clearly their world-view, their goals, and their methods can be diametrically opposed, The Honeybee Network, Al Qaeda, the FOSS groups, and the global indigenous movement all share similar organizational characteristics: non-centralized, non-governmental, and network-centric. Slowly but surely, networks are proving themselves a force to be reckoned with.

For most people that follow this story, from security analysts to software geeks, none of this is news. Polycentric networks certainly threaten the established order. Look at the United States government’s irrational and disproportionate response to Al Qaeda, or Microsoft’s fear campaign against GNU/Linux. To be clear, I reject any and all institutions or organizations that resort to unmitigated violence as a first response to a changing world order. And to be clearer, I also reject any attempts to lie and misinform merely to protect the interests of the powerful.

Open Source communities, by their very nature, reject the centralization of big government and big business; they have proven that a dedicated legion of soft-core geeks can slowly and inexorably pull the rug out from beneath the feet of even the largest behemoth, without the need for firing a single shot. And, from a historical perspective, this is a critical point. Revolution has almost always been characterized by violence; the rallying cries of freedom and democracy have galvanized communities time and again, only to have the reality fall far short of their expectations. For centuries, the struggle for true democratization has been bloody and slow: the French revolution culminated in Napoleon crowning himself Emperor, the Haitian revolution degraded into unending chaos, the American revolution forged a paradoxical slave Republic.

Not so long ago, to be a Liberal was a very enlightening prospect. Our early American liberals were those who celebrated the unencumbered intellectual, political and spiritual freedoms of the individual: Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, James Madison, Walt Whitman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Only much later did the term become polluted by media spin machines and power mongers, to the point where now, liberalism means very little, and in almost all of its guises (a bleeding heart or a neo-liberal) it is undoubtedly pejorative.

Politically, the true inheritors of Liberalism’s stately mantle are the Libertarians, and Congressman Ron Paul, though marginalized by a corporatocracy threatened lest he take away their access to our legislative process and billions of dollars in government subsidies, has brought to his loyal cadre of political activists a message that resonates deeply with our genuine American political traditions.

The relevance of the Libertarian message is not lost on the Open Source community, for as we dismantle and decommission the war machine and the welfare state, we must now demonstrate real alternatives to replace it with. Open source, decentralized models that can effectively integrate their activities with the initiatives of local governments, non-governmental organizations, and local communities are the recipe for success in the 21st century. We are a world community invigorated by the prospects of our empowerment, capable of solving our own problems more effectively, more efficiently, and more profitably than any large and cumbersome institution. And so, the democratic revolution continues, quite differently than ever before in our history as a species, and peace, even against the backdrop of war, becomes a true possibility.

Posted in Politics | Tagged liberalism, libertarianism, open-source, Ron-Paul | Leave a comment

Summer Break

Posted on September 24, 2007 by frank

I’ve been out of the blogging world for way too long now. I go through those periods where I just don’t feel like blogging much, but inevitably I start to miss it, and so back again.

And though I haven’t blogged in a while, I’ve been busy gardening all summer long; I’ve wanted to post a bunch of stuff on the blog but have been lazy with the digital camera. No longer. I plan to just take lots of photos of this year’s garden, before the first frost comes and just wipes everything out.

I’ve also been talking with a lot of local gardeners and farmers, and have been sharing some tricks of the trade. I’m especially attracted to winter gardening. I recently met a gentleman who has identified over 30 species and varieties of leafy green vegetables that do exceptionally well in the winter climate of the high desert. This is niche agriculture at its finest, and demonstrates nicely the concept of design intensive food production systems. He’s willing to share his information on the subject, and I plan on open sourcing it.

In the meantime, have a look at the Agroinnovations Podcast if you haven’t done so lately. There’s some great shows that have been published recently. And stay tuned for some great photos and garden tips in the very near future.

Posted in Albuquerque, Microfarm | Leave a comment

Corporatizing Information

Posted on August 17, 2007 by frank

Last year an article in the Economist pointed out some of the complexities and contradictions within the organic, Fair Trade, local food movement. The article is well written and provocative, but is it accurate? My attention was particularly drawn to statements made my Norman Borlaug, father of the Green revolution:

[Borlaug] claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food…The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.

Unfortunately Borlaug produces no evidence to backup his claim. Does organic farming produce lower yields? In this case, there is little evidence to either refute or corroborate his claim.

Research that I have personally conducted has shown that chemically intensive agriculture shows yields across the board. The best explanation for variability in yields is rational management of critical farm inputs, like fertilizers, labor, and pesticides. A chemically intensive farm may yield as much as 35 to 40 tons of onions per hectare, or as little as 12 tons per hectare. It isn’t the use of chemicals that makes the difference, it is the capability and intelligence of the farmer.

I suspect that this is the case in organic agriculture as well. But with several important caveats. Organic agricultural is, by its nature, a greater mental challenge, so that the farmer is forced to think harder, be more observant, and get better leverage from other resources like local extension agents, researchers, and organic consultants. So organic agriculture creates the mindset that is, as I have mentioned, conducive to higher yields.

Moreover, monoculture is in fact wasteful of space, as it doesn’t take full advantage of the synergistic relationships that can exist between different species of plants, and other organisms like insects, fungi, and birds. This year I have mixed beans into the spaces between my tomato plants; the beans benefit from the climbing space provided by the foliage and tomato cages, while the tomatoes benefit from the added nitrogen fixed by the beans. And Paul Stamets has just begun to open our eyes to the possibilities that mushroom species like Stropharia rugoso annulata and Hypsizygus ulmaris may increase the yield of grain and vegetable crops.

And what about Borlaug’s second point? Do fertilizers save rainforests? Funny that as fertilizer use has increased, so too have deforestation rates, erosion and siltation rates, and eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems. If there is indeed a direct correlation between fertilizer use and rainforest preservation, it sure doesn’t seem like it.

The author, further weighing the criticisms against local food production, goes on to say:

a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being traveled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.

The sentence is carefully crafted to raise doubt, while at the same time leaving room for ambiguity (“might actually increase”). The fact that we have yet to develop highly efficient mechanisms for local delivery of food doesn’t mean that we can’t or that we won’t. The local food movement is in its infancy; and by nature it is decentralized and non-hierarchical; just like every other emerging industry, local food must learn to crawl before it can walk, to speak before it can write. What is revealed here is a subconscious contempt for small business and local entrepreneurship, and an almost religious zeal for corporate efficiency.

A paucity of comparative research in yield, cost of production, and carbon footprints leaves many of us, aware of the Rumsfeldian “known unknowns”, scratching our heads at statements like those made by Borlaug and the Economist. A blog post on liam’s ruminations offers a more insidious explanation, suggesting that this is a case of “corporate knowledge production”.

f that is the case, then the tactic is a simple one, and in fact they’ve taken a page right out of Microsoft’s playbook. Using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) is an easy tactic here, because it is well known that making a lifestyle change is much more difficult than following the status quo. By creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt, the awakening consumer is once again jolted into a sense of despair and impotence. At its core, FUD is an attempt to prolong inertia.

Posted in Agriculture, Organic | Tagged Agriculture, Fair-Trade, food, Organic | Leave a comment

Agriculture Spurs Warming

Posted on August 15, 2007 by frank

A quick technorati search this morning gave me a general idea of an issue that is on many people’s minds: agriculture is responsible for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. Just have a look here, here, here or here…four different bloggers posting independently of one another, on the same day, raising the same concern.

It’s true, industrial agriculture produces an enormous amount of waste. Fertilizers run off into waterways, feedlots produce unspeakable amounts of methane, and industrial chemicals require absurd amounts of petrochemical inputs. We don’t really need to debate this; this is well known. In fact, our federal government’s policies encourage it; combine poor policy with a very active agrochemical industry and a farm economy built almost entirely on subsidies, and we’ve created a global warming monster.

From a purely technical perspective, there is no reason why our farm systems need to be this way. It is true, our knowledge of agroecological design is, to say the least, limited. True designers, like Bill Mollison, have multiplied their acreage by a factor of eight just by using sound design principles. Mind you, this is without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or any other “cide” that does nothing more than sterilize the landscape and stave off economic and ecological ruin.

So let’s challenge ourselves a bit here, instead of asking, does agriculture induce global warming? (the answer, invariably, is yes), let’s ask some more compelling questions: How is it possible that agriculture can destroy our landscape and atmosphere when there is no logical reason or necessity for it? And more importantly, what must I do to make the shift from consumer to producer?

Posted in Agriculture, Environment, Global Warming | Tagged Agriculture, climate-change, Global Warming, permaculture | 1 Comment

Paralyzed

Posted on August 9, 2007 by frank

Reading over Chris Lydon’s musings from the Symi Symposium in Greece left me feeling melancholy and despairing; and a thought that has been crystallizing in my mind just started running over and over again in my internal dialogue: our institutions are paralyzed by egotism, self-interest, and inefficiency.

Lydon gives a lucid description of the air of hopelessness hanging over the Symposium, as innovative thinkers and leaders gather to discuss “the near impossibility of rescuing the human habitat from earthly ruin”, and this from yesterday’s Democracy Now! headlines:

The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization has warned that record-breaking weather extremes have been recorded in almost every continent this year, with global land temperatures reaching their highest levels since records began in 1800. The WMO said it tracked an alarming incidence of unusually adverse weather from Europe and Asia to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. In South Asia monsoons have killed more than 500 people and displaced more than 10 million others. In the Middle East, the first documented cyclone in the Arabian Sea was reported in June. In China heavy rains affected more than 13 million people. England and Wales had their wettest May and June since records began in 1766, resulting in extensive flooding and more than $6 billion in damage. Germany swung from its driest April since 1901 to its wettest May on record. Argentina and Chile saw unusually cold winter temperatures in July while South Africa had its first significant snowfall since 1981 in June.

We know what to do, and it isn’t so difficult really. Reforestation need not be complicated. But it takes commitment, and capital investment, and yes, leadership. We have no recourse to stave off this disaster. Our institutions are paralyzed. And we as individuals are left to fight as hard as we can for as long as we can, loosely allied with our communities, more strongly so with our families; and we will also be called upon to pick up the pieces as the biosphere inevitably shakes apart.

Posted in Global Warming, Politics | Tagged climate-change, Global Warming, Politics | Leave a comment

Living on the Edge

Posted on August 2, 2007 by frank

The Third World farmer lives constantly on the precipice of disaster. They are not blessed with many of the things we take for granted: a steady job, stable income, an economy fairly free from inflation, and a social services network that helps to mitigate the effects of natural disaster.

For the Third World farmer, every day is a potential disaster waiting to happen. A good day, in fact, is when nothing too terribly bad occurs. Take Candido Soto, a young, landless, Bolivian sharecropper with a wife and three children, struggling to make ends meet from one day to the next. One day, unexpectedly, while on a trip to bring produce into the city, as he was changing a flat tire at the behest of the driver, it exploded, throwing him 20 meters into the air, leaving his body a mangled, lifeless mess. Disaster. He was a good man, sober and hard-working, who only desired the best for his family. I hope to honor his memory by writing of him here.

Other disasters are more subtle, but the effect on poor families can be just as devastating. Inflation can drive entire demographic swathes of a population to desperation. It was, after all, after a particularly vicious bout with inflation that Germans were seduced by the allure of Adolf Hitler’s fanatical brand of xenophobic nationalism. Something like inflation, or the influx of cheap corn onto the market from trade deals like NAFTA, can be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back.

These are the forces that drive the waves of immigration to Europe and North America. Despite the rantings of demagogues like Lou Dobbs, immigrants don’t risk everything for the sake of hijacking other people’s government, or to recolonize lands they believe are rightfully theirs. The vast majority come purely for economic reasons…it is safe to say out of economic desperation.

So now, let’s be real about the immigration debate. There is nothing wrong with hard-working families migrating to the United States, but everything wrong with how it is taking place. These families need to be given a realistic framework in which they can work and be welcomed into local communities. They need time to learn new skills, and they need training to be able to take the capital they earn while here, and reinvest it into productive enterprises in their home countries.

Clearly, we need well developed programs whereby small businesses can absorb immigrant labor for the short to medium term, provide guidance and training, and planning to help them reinvest wisely. As we move towards sustainable communities, there exists great potential to take advantage of their knowledge and skills in agriculture and construction.

Unfortunately, the obstacles are great. From a moderately xenophobic society to a government that is incapable of providing lean, service-based programs for small businesses and community initiatives, it’s no wonder we are so mired in a meaningless and polarizing debate about nothing.

Posted in Bolivia, Development, Politics | Tagged immigration, inflation, Lou-Dobbs, NAFTA | Leave a comment

Agrotherapy for the Disabled

Posted on July 29, 2007 by frank

After hearing story after story about the therapeutic and life-changing effects of gardening on the mentally challenged, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern. It’s more like the pattern noticed me, and asked me to write about it.

On a recent broadcast of This American Life, Veronica Chater tells the story of her developmentally disabled brother Vincent, who after 12 years of working the same job, decided to quit, and suddenly, alarmingly, quit everything else. To the great concern of his family, he took to sleeping up to 18 hours a day. Finally, his family came up with a suggestion that Vinnie agreed to: chicken farming. Chater details Vinnie’s reaction to the newly constructed chicken farm:

Vinnie took to every aspect of chicken farming. He was painstakingly mindful of the chicken’s daily schedule of free range feeding and lockup. And he was especially fastidious about coop hygiene. But more than that, to everyone’s surprise, he started participating in activities again. He started basketball practice, and he’s training again for the Special Olympics.

Pretty much at anytime of the day, you can see that he’s standing as still as a marble sculpture in the backyard beside the coop. His eyes half closed, and his palms cupping the breeze, thinking, or just listening to the sounds of his hens. He named them after old friends, and talks to them like children.

Other anecdotal evidence supports the notion that agricultural activities have a therapeutic effect on the mentally disabled. A friend of mine is a guidance counselor for at risk youth. Once we were talking about the kids that she works with, and she began to tell me the story of a young man who had especially aroused her sympathy and concern.

The young man in question was mentally challenged, some might say retarded. He grew up in a broken family, and his parents gave him very little of the love and attention that all children require. As he grew up in a poverty-stricken community, he became a large and imposing young man, and as is often the case, he fell in with the wrong crowd. Because of his large physique and his slow mind, local thugs used him to deliver drugs and for other risky criminal errands.

The young woman who was his guidance counselor saw in him a gentle and misguided soul, analogous to Steinbeck’s Lennie, and she wracked her brain to try and help him find a way out of his path of destruction. He had no interest in school, couldn’t even understand what school was for or why he should be interested in attending.

Then, perhaps by chance, he discovered gardening. He was given tools, seeds, water, and a small plot of land to work. He took to it with a level of interest and dedication that was shocking to his counselor. It turns out, that this young man absolutely loved to work with seeds and plants, even though he had little exposure to it during his childhood. He demonstrated an exceptional level of understanding and ability when it came to working soils and tending seedlings.

Her discovery of his salvation may have come too late. Around this same time, a local thug, for whatever past vendetta or grudge, came at him with a knife at a gas station. The young man, physically powerful as he was, reacted with all instinct and no thought, turning the wrist of his attacker, and plunging the knife into his gut. The attacker died shortly thereafter. The whole incident was caught on the gas station’s security cameras, and now the young man is facing criminal charges in a court of law.

In Bolivia, I knew a young mentally disabled man from a rural farming family who had found his niche in life with little trouble. Everybody in the village knew he was mentally disabled, but he was generally accepted as such, and nobody seemed to give him too much trouble over it. And he was, at heart, a sheep herder. He loved to take care of his sheep, and he would herd them from here to there joyfully and with earnest attention to detail. When one of his sheep went missing, he would worry endlessly until he found it. For him, the job was both a joy and a challenge, and he performed it ably and with enthusiasm.

Though all of the evidence presented in the post is purely anecdotal, I feel it is compelling enough to warrant further, more serious research. A wealth of data sources already exists. A great place to start would be Red Wiggler Farms, a CSA in Montgomery County Maryland dedicated to providing meaningful employment for adults with disabilities. Fountain House is also an organization that provides access to a large garden area for its occupationally engaged disabled adults.

Psychologists and sociologists, slow as they are to pick up on innovative trends in the field, have yet to touch this issue with the tools of their trade. I am quite certain if they did, they could develop a compelling body of research with the potential to influence policy initiatives and community development programs around the country, in the process revolutionizing our concept of “meaningful employment” for the disabled and creating therapy programs for at-risk disabled youth long before they are indicted for murder charges.

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged agrotherapy, disabled-Americans, gardening | 1 Comment

Kleckner Speaks Out…and Gets it Wrong

Posted on July 27, 2007 by frank

In an article today on Truth About Trade & Technology, Chairman Dean Kleckner criticizes former UN chief Kofi Annan for his rejection of the use of GMO crops by his organization the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

According to Kleckner:

What African farmers need more than anything else, however, are better seeds…In the 21st century, that means unfettered access to GM seeds while continuing to work with old technologies.

Kleckner continues:

The biotech option, without question, has helped farmers all over the world–so much so, in fact, that they’ve planted and harvested well over one and a half billion acres of GM crops.

But a more serious analysis of the GM situation reveals a much more nuanced and, to say the least, ambiguous portrait of GM adoption around the world. I don’t know why Dean Kleckner is so sanguine in his advocacy for GM crops. For my part, aside from the dubious track record of GM crops in the field, there are a number of reasons why focusing our attention on genetic modification is misguided.

First, we have barely scratched the surface of naturally occurring genetic variability within the genotypes of our existing crop resources. Numerous studies indicate the inevitable decline in biodiversity with the adoption of “modern” agricultural practices. As this agricultural biodiversity declines, we lose access to hundreds, even thousands of varieties with resistance to pests, drought, and cold.

Along these lines, it is important to keep in mind that genetic engineering is an extremely new technology, especially when we contrast it with an agrarian tradition of selective breeding that goes back millenia. Agricultural biodiversity, much like the many languages of the world, is our global heritage. To learn more, I encourage the reader to listen to the Agroinnovations Podcast series on agricultural biodiversity. A theme that recurs throughout these podcasts, with experts on different crops from around the world, is how little we actually know, how much is being lost, and how minuscule the effort is to put the genetic resources of the world to work for improving our lives and eliminating poverty.

Genetic engineering is more than a technophilic distraction from the real work that lays ahead of us; it presents a significant risk of contaminating our ancient strains of rice, corn, soy, cotton and others with foreign genes, in some cases biologically suicidal genes (e.g. “terminator”).

Paul Stamets notes, quite astutely, that he has found ways to combat diesel contamination in soil, small pox viruses, and carpenter ant infestations by putting to best use the highly evolved and diverse nature of mushroom mycelium. And he is quick to point out that he has not had to resort to genetic modification, but has merely opened his mind and practice to the incomprehensible diversity of the natural world.

I am not against the development of Africa. From my perspective, I believe in economic development more than Kleckner or Annan. And I will be the first advocate for genetic engineering once we have effectively and demonstrably exhausted all of the possible agro-ecological configurations that natural selection and traditional breeding have to offer. Given our limited imaginations, and considering that pioneers like Stamets and Mollison have admittedly only just scratched the surface in the realm of possibility, it is safe to say that the need for genetic engineering is centuries, if not millenia, into the future. By then, if we make it that far, it is quite possible that our mindful approach towards the natural world may have taught us the wisdom of using what nature has to give.

Posted in Agriculture, Environment | Tagged Africa, agricultural-biodiversity, Dean-Kleckner, gmo, green-revolution, Kofi-Annan | Leave a comment

Monsanto Defeated

Posted on July 26, 2007 by frank

As reported by the Public Patent Foundation, four of Monsanto’s key patents related to genetically modified (GM) crops have been rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. After dozens of cases against North American farmers, the most well-known being Monsanto v Percy Schmeiser, the US Patent Office has finally shown some sense, and sided for the age-old, agrarian tradition of seed-saving.

We should take a moment to remember the hard-fought battles of community leaders like Percy Schmeiser, keeping in mind that though this single battle may be a victory, the war is far from over, and Monsanto will come back harder than ever. If any single issue requires civil disobedience on the part of citizens the world over, it is this one, and any other issue regarding patents being placed on genetic material, which is the blueprint of life itself.

I have noticed that representatives of Monsanto are quick to pounce on any news or opinion in the blogosphere that relates to their company. So if you’re reading this, remember: we will always save seed, farmers, gardeners, scientists and naturalists. We will resist any attempts to curtail our inalienable rights to preserve our cultural traditions and our natural heritage, and we will defy any law, court, or government agency that attempts to restrict these rights. Our resistance will be simple and timeless, for we will do what humans have always done since the dawn of civilization: plant a seed, water it, and watch it grow.

Posted in Agriculture, Environment, Politics | Tagged civil-disobedience, genetic-engineering, gmo, Monsanto, Percy-Schmeiser | Leave a comment

The Farm Bill

Posted on July 23, 2007 by frank

As the debate in Congress heats up over the revision and passage of the Farm Bill, the Democratic Congress is trying to find ways to pander and pork-barrel their way to re-election by keeping open the floodgate of subsidies to the farmers in their districts. And as the Democratic Congress asks itself “What changes should we make to the bill?”, I find myself asking: What changes shouldn’t they make to the bill.

The farm bill is one of the best examples of American hypocrisy and pork-barrel politics. It eschews the free market by paying out billions in subsidies, mostly to corporate farms, and depresses the price of everything from corn to soy by allowing farmers to sell their product for less than the cost of production. The farm bill, originally designed to bail out small farmers during the Great Depression, has morphed into a corporate welfare program responsible for converting our once fertile farmlands into toxic monocultures.

So I wonder, is it the votes that Democrats are worried about, or is it the campaign contributions? These days, campaign contributions are the horse before the cart, meaning that a campaign can’t move forward without them. Votes are no longer earned, they are purchased with countless hours of political ads and sloganeering.

If subsidies were so effective, then why has our population of small farmers continued to dwindle over the past 50 years? And why do organizations like the National Family Farm Coalition continue to clamor for a change in policy to protect the family farm, make the market free and fair, and protect the small farmer from the risks of GMO crops?

In general terms, the solution can be distilled in simple terms: sending payouts to small farms has the potential to be beneficial, while channeling subsidies into corporate farms is nothing less than the corruption of our democratic system. Subsidies for family farms shouldn’t be simple government pay-outs, they should instead be public investments in some of the most difficult aspects of small-scale farming. Farmers that make a commitment to diversify their production, get certified organic, and dedicate areas of the farm to wildlife corridors should be given monetary incentives, research grants, and technical assistance.

I can guarantee right now that this simple but effective approach (short on details, to be sure, but with an underlying philosophy diametrically opposed to the current one), won’t receive any recognition, or even lip-service, in the current Congressional debate. Reforming our agriculture may very well require a revolution of sorts.

Posted in Agriculture, Politics | Tagged Agriculture, Congress, Farm-Bill, Politics | 1 Comment

Mycelium Running

Posted on July 20, 2007 by frank

In a recent interview on the Agroinnovations Podcast, Paul Stamets, mycologist and ecological pioneer, had this to say:

“There’s a form of biological racism, unfortunately, that I have been confronting all of my life. And, people are prejudiced against mushrooms. You say mushrooms and people think of either portobellos or magic mushrooms. But very few people have any clue that we evolved from fungi, and fungi are our ancestors.”

In his revolutionary new book, Mycelium Running, Paul gives us an example of mycophobia in action:

This issue was exemplified when a friend tried to introduce the woodlover (Hypholoma capnoides) to wood chips in a decommissioned road reclamation project in northern Arizona…a forester threatened to fight his plan plan because she incorrectly claimed that this woodlover was not native and had parasitic potential…her mycophobia clouded her rationality as this woodlover is natural resident of the forests she helps manage.

But, according to Stamets, mycophobia is not only irrational, it may also prevent us from taking serious action to mitigate the damaging effects we humans are having on our environment. Mycelium Running is not just beautifully illustrated book full of field tested methods accessible to almost anyone, it is more than that. It is nothing less than an attempt to reinvent our imagination, and to reengage humanity with an entire kingdom of our evolutionary ancestry that has been all but forgotten by contemporary civilization.

Stamets lays out in clear detail the five pillars of what he calls mycorestoration: mycofiltration, mycoforestry, mycogardening, mycopesticides, and mycoremediation. In fact, to some degree or other, we are all gardeners and foresters within the scope of our everyday lives, and the mycelium is calling us to run with it. So, pick up a copy of Mycelium Running, get your hands on some mushroom mycelium, and, as Paul says “become embedded into the mind-set of this matrix and use its connections for running with mycelium.”

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged Agroinnovations-Podcast, mushrooms, mycelium, Mycelium-Running, Paul-Stamets | Leave a comment

Closing the Gap

Posted on June 13, 2007 by frank

As we push towards a truly green and sustainable revolution, business people and ecologists are increasingly forced to learn one another’s language. Since the inception of environmentalism as a movement, business and economic activity was implicitly viewed as anathema, cruel and unresponsive, and responsible for the destruction of the natural world.

Now, as climate change pushes us closer to the edge, and consumers are demanding accountability on the part of business leaders, both sides are being forced to come to the table and search for a way out of our global environmental crisis. The most clear-headed environmentalists have realized that only by cooperating with industry do we have any hope keeping our fragile civilization intact. And many of the business leaders of the world have been forced to accept the inevitable conclusions of an overwhelming body of scientific evidence. They too realize that change is a necessity.

This is not to say that the transition is a painless one. For centuries business leaders have only been concerned with turning a profit. Issues of social and environmental responsibility were generally taken into account by only the most enlightened merchants. Now that they are forced to consider the ecological impact of their actions, they apply the same logic of business to the world of biology. Where, they demand to know, is the cost-benefit analysis of a reforestation scheme, or sustainable pasture management?

Ecologists and environmentalists have always thought in different terms: hectares of critical habitat preserved, ecosystem productivity, and conversation of biodiversity. Though these variables are measurable, they tell us very little about the economic value of ecosystem services.

To be sure, some scientists have measured the monetary value of our ecosystem services, putting hefty price tags on the importance of the clean air provided by trees, the critical agricultural services provided by bees and other pollinators, and the aesthetic value of bird song and open space. Die-hard environmentalists cringe when bioeconomists put a monetary value on the things that they consider priceless, but here it is important to remember the wise words of the Prophet Muhammad: “Speak to people according to their understanding”.

And so, for environmentalism to become a viable model for our future, it must fuse with the language of business and become a core value of our important economic and social institutions. Business leaders too must learn to broaden their horizons, sometimes investing in activities and projects that are risky and innovative, but also hold the promise of increased sales, enhanced consumer confidence, and long-term sustainable growth.

No, we cannot buy our way to sustainability, but rethinking consumerism does not mean we must abandon capitalism. We see the emergence of a new economic order in the form of carbon trading schemes, alternative energy, Fair Trade coffee, and green building. The extent to which these initiatives will have a true and lasting impact on the future trajectory of our civilization remains to be seen, time will be the judge of that, but we must make every effort to close the self-defeating gap between the world of commerce and the world of environmental sustainability.

Posted in Environment | Tagged capitalism, economy, environmentalism, globalization, green | Leave a comment

Ecological Authoritarianism

Posted on May 21, 2007 by frank

The authoritarian mind boxes itself into a corner. Knowing the world as it is supposed to be, it views everything, Nature, society, and culture, through the prism of pre-defined rules and conditions, forcing the facts to conform to its concept of reality. In all of us there is the streak of the authoritarian, though we hardly recognize it as such, and if we were to deconstruct our daily lives and thoughts, we might find ourselves shocked by how much we assume and how little we actually know.

This dilemma is characteristic of the American political sphere, poisoned at it is by ideologues and culture wars, with both sides twisting and shaping the world to fit within the narrow boundaries of their ideological world view. But the authoritarian mind is coming back to bite us in new and unexpected ways. For now, our authoritarianism is the seed of our destruction. Only recently has the full extent of our ecological authoritarianism come to light.

Yes, it has always been the human tendency to alter the environment, to change it and shape it for our well-being and comfort. The innate human desire of Man the Maker, Homo faber, cannot be described as good or bad. For better or for worse, it is what we are. But when we begin to force Nature to tell the story that we want it to tell, or to be the landscape that we want it to be, it is then that we begin to reap the consequences of our poorly understood concept of the natural world.

It need not be abstract. The lawn is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous and curious examples of ecological authoritarianism that I can think of. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the American suburbanite insists on maintaining his green patch of bucolic bliss, come rain or come drought. The desert Southwest of New Mexico is the last place you would expect to find such an improbable, and impractical, monoculture. Yet there it is, adorning so many of the homes in affluent neighborhoods.

As a thought experiment, I’ve often pondered what I would have to do to create the perfect suburban lawn. Mowing, yes, that’s okay I suppose. And aeration and fertilization, not particularly harmful. And then the indelible image, and the unforgettable smells, of the Chem-Lawn truck appear in my mind. Yes, the Chem-Lawn truck would be an absolute requirement. I would need copious amounts of liquid nitrogen for robust growth, and in particular I would need herbicides, to keep out the nasty combinations of dandelions, crab-grass, and leguminous clover that would inevitably invade my all too hospitable green paradise.

The ecological authoritarian does not pause to consider the implications or the consequences of this. Her mind is too rigid, too circumscribed into a fixed sense of natural place and beauty to entertain the notion that Nature is more diverse, more chaotic and integrated than she can tolerate or comprehend. But how much different would the world be, I wonder, if instead of trying to force Nature to tell our story, we realize that we ourselves ARE Nature’s story, and only by listening closely can we hope to tell the story that is running through the marrow of our bones.

Posted in Environment | Tagged authoritarianism, ecology, Environment | 1 Comment

The Food Revolution

Posted on May 8, 2007 by frank

Talk of a food revolution often obscures the very serious challenges that we face as we attempt to reinvent our agricultural systems. Here in New Mexico, we have the highest rating of all US states in food insecurity. Without a doubt, water is the primary resource responsible for our alarming lack of food security.

References to indigenous farming systems as idealized models gloss over some very important facts. Though it is true that pre-Colombian farm systems were, for the most part, stable and ecologically benign, they were still subject to changes in climate and an over-exploited resource base. After all, the Anasazi disappeared because of drought and deforestation around 1300 AD.

If their civilization, characterized as it was by a robust agricultural model and a relatively low population density, was unable to survive in the harsh climate of the Southwest, then how much more vulnerable is ours? We rely on massive imports of food and energy, and our profligate use of water is anything but responsible or sustainable.

So when we talk of a food revolution, it is not necessarily very interesting to start with what is possible, but instead to look at what we don’t know. We don’t know, for instance, what percentage of food we are capable of producing locally. Governor Richardson has called for achieving 35% local food production, but this number is arbitrary, and the consequences of achieving it are poorly understood. Monty Skarsgaard of Los Poblanos Organics, a local CSA in Albuquerque, has stated that his farm is capable of producing 20% of its members’ needs locally. Granted, this number skyrockets to over 80% during the harvest months of September and October, but year round local production of fresh food is at best a huge ecological challenge.

We don’t know how increased food production will affect our aquifer or our treaty obligations, nor do we have a firm grasp on how exactly we will design our farm systems to achieve these ambitious goals. The debate is one that is sociopolitical in nature, but achieving political will is merely the first step.

The fact is, we need to construct farming systems with unprecedented levels of ecological efficiency. Converting tired and marginal alfalfa fields to drip irrigated vegetable production isn’t enough. We need to squeeze every potential source of renewable energy to maximum benefit. The design process must be iterative and modular, and the results must be scalable and profitable. System components will be added as different players get involved in the act. Fast pyrolysis, wind and solar, mycoculture, bio-diesel and aquaculture will all be important elements in fomenting the revolution. Business opportunities abound in the murky and nascent realm of the food revolution.

Posted in Agriculture, Albuquerque | Tagged Agriculture, Albuquerque, food-revolution, New-Mexico | 2 Comments

The Photosynthetic Ceiling

Posted on April 27, 2007 by frank

The concept of a “photosynthetic ceiling” was first introduced in Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. Though Diamond certainly did not pioneer the idea, as far as I can tell he was the first to use the easily digestible term “photosynthetic ceiling”, often referred to in other studies as human appropriation of terrestrial net primary production (HANPP). Such terms highlight Diamond’s genius as a popularizer of difficult scientific concepts.

In an interview last year, Diamond explains his notion of the photosynthetic ceiling:

One might think, in fact I thought 30 years ago, there’s no limit on the energy that can be fixed by sunlight because the sun is there and there’s nothing that we humans will do to diminish the energy falling on the earth from the sun. But the limit is that the energy falling on earth from the sun falls on a certain area of earth and how much plants can grow per year on an acre depends on temperature and rainfall. At present we humans are utilising something like 70% of all the energy from the sun falling on the earth converted by photosynthesis, we are using about 70% of that energy for photosynthesis of human-related plants namely our crops and our golf courses and then caving over natural habitats with cement. So that’s 70%. But if the world’s consumption doubles because China and India achieve their goals then that would mean that we are using more than 100% of the energy from sunlight which we can’t do. So the photosynthetic ceiling simply means humans appropriating energy from the sun fixed in photosynthesis, all for our purposes leaving no sun energy over for natural habitats including coral reefs and rainforests and eucalyptus and natural vegetation.

Yet the peer reviewed article Diamond references in his own book paints a much more nuanced picture. According to Imhoff et al., humans are currently using between 14 and 26 percent of total net primary production (NPP) for our consumption; namely, we are using photosynthesis to produce and consume vegetal food, meat, milk, eggs, paper, fibre, and wood (both as fuel and material).

What makes their analysis particularly compelling is its focus on geographic variability of HANPP. Their maps clearly demonstrate the unequal use and consumption of photosynthetic material, with large swaths of India and China clearly reliant on imports to sustain a landscape that is currently at capacity. A further breakdown of consumption patterns of HANPP by per capita numbers reveals both expected and unexpected results: North America is first, followed by South America (!), Europe, Africa, and Asia. But South America only uses about 6% of its total photosynthetic capacity, while Europe and Asia average in somewhere around 70%.

The implications of this research go far beyond unequal resource distribution and stressed ecosystem services. To start, the research does not take into account fossil fuel consumption, which is a key point to emphasize. Per capita fossil fuel consumption follows a very similar pattern to HANPP, the difference being that we are dealing with a non-renewable resource now widely considered responsible for potentially catastrophic changes in our global climate.

The concept of the photosynthetic ceiling calls into question the ecological feasibility of renewables as an alternative source of energy. If North America is currently using about 23% of all available sunlight for human consumption, what would that percentage look like when we take into account the solar energy stored in a tank of gas or a lump of coal? And what are the ecological implications of converting to an ethanol economy, or a switchgrass economy, or a solar economy? It is possible that the wholesale destruction of our terrestrial ecosystems as a result of our ravenous hunger for renewable energy will exacerbate global ecosystem collapse, thereby accelerating mass species extinction and destroying the complex web of ecosystem services that act as the foundation of our civilization.

If all this seems like too much gloom and doom for the average urbanite…well, I don’t think this added complexity makes renewables an untenable proposition. But, renewable energy must be accompanied by some other very serious measures. To start, we’ve got to find ways to increase biological efficiency; we need to get more from less. Agricultural waste should become a relic of a forgotten era; we should become like the mythological Native Americans of the mid-Western tall grass prairies, using every single piece of the buffalo lest a single tooth or drop of blood go to waste. Paul Stamets takes this concept to new heights in his new book Mycelium Running. The use of mushroom mycelium as a means of ecological restoration is a new and exciting concept with profound implications.

And of course, we have to become true conservatives, learning to conserve energy in every and any way possible. Gains in conservation and efficiency can be achieved through technological innovation (Third World sawmills, as Imhoff et al. point out, are grossly inefficient), but also through conscientious living. Time to roll up our sleeves folks, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

Posted in Alternative Energy, Environment, Global Warming | Tagged Alternative Energy, Environment, Jared-Diamond, Paul-Stamets, photosynthetic-ceiling | 1 Comment

Institutionalizing Innovation

Posted on April 26, 2007 by frank

Innovation, by its very nature, is difficult to institutionalize. Innovation requires free and open environments where people can be creative, explore their own interests, and leverage available resources. Institutions rely on predictable processes so that when someone flips a switch or makes a phone call, they get the expected results.

To be sure, technological discovery and innovation are not necessarily the same thing. From a historical perspective, Edison’s greatest innovation was not the light bulb or the phonograph, but a system of invention. Edison was one of the first inventors to realize the great creative potential of collaborative, applied research. His fusion of the lab-workshop environment led to what we now know as the industrial laboratory.

But as Edison’s innovation became subsumed by the military-industrial complex, true innovation fell to the wayside. The industrial lab became a place where existing technologies were refined and improved upon, but real innovation continued to happen on the margins, by small communities of people enthusiastic about a particular idea or innovation. The pioneers of the Internet developed it in the course of their “real” jobs, eager to find ways to get their desktop computers to talk to each other.

The same can be said about GNU/Linux, or its progeny Ubuntu, which was built by a core team of professionals and an invisible army of enthusiasts and hobbyists working on different coding projects during their free time.

Likewise, the true revolutions in energy supply, food production, and green building are happening on the margins. As connectivity increases the possibilities of collaboration, institutions are increasingly proving too cumbersome and bulky to adapt quickly enough; too boxed in by bureaucratic procedure to make the connections and move the ball further along the green tracks.

It’s true, some institutions have started to jump on the innovation band wagon. Google is a prime example, followed by the less likely but equally compelling example of Texas Instruments. But the fact remains, small is beautiful. The smaller the institution, the more agile and resource efficient. But the question remains, can a swarm-like mass of smaller entities act quickly enough to make the drastic changes that are needed to mitigate the effects of global warming?

Posted in Development, Global Warming | Tagged climate-change, Global Warming, innovation, small-business | Leave a comment

Green Is Common Sense

Posted on April 23, 2007 by frank

Right-wing media outlets often portray those of us who advocate for the greening of the globe as "liberal" big-government wackos whose ideas have no place in the hard-nosed scrabble of policy debate. Their portrayal notwithstanding, the green movement is in fact one of the most common sense, community-oriented and self-reliant philosophies in the world today.

A few days ago I heard Rush Limbaugh mocking an environmental group whose solar-oven potluck had been sabotaged by cloudy weather. His description of this group evoked images of an ideologically intransigent community determined to slowly starve itself to death during extended periods of cloudy weather rather than make use of fossil fuels.

Yet those of use who advocate for green practices know that this is political propaganda at its finest. People who are seriously committed to the principles of a greener future are advocates of a common sense approach in our building, our agricultural production, and our manufacturing, and we try to base our decisions on the best available science. We are empiricists: children of the Enlightenment.

If this sounds too abstract to be common-sense, then I suggest you take a look at the National Association of Home Builders Green Home Building Guidelines. Though we often associate green homes with composting toilets, expensive photovoltaic arrays, and odd shaped homes reminiscent of a circus contortionist, a quick perusal of the guidelines reveals a different picture altogether.

In fact, green building is much more about common sense than it is about life in a hippie commune. Many of the practices described in the guidelines, like raised heel trusses and air sealing packages, are simply good design principles and solid craftsmanship. Ten or fifteen years from now, much of what is considered "green" will simply be standard business practice. Very soon consumers and regulators will demand more from an industry that has focused too much on volume, square footage, and turn over instead of focusing on the fundamentals that make a home healthy and livable.

Right of center pundits like Thomas Friedman have begun describing green in nationalistic and patriotic terms ("the new red, white and blue"), and religious leaders are now articulating their own form of environmentalism ("Creation Care"). Common sense and practical innovation are pillars of the American experience, and any assault on these values by the likes of Limbaugh and other right-wing pundits undermines their credibility as conservatives. Personally, I don’t care what we call it. If expanding our green vocabulary helps to get more Americans back on the common sense express, then by all means continue.

Posted in Appropriate Technology, Environment | Tagged common-sense, green, green-building | Leave a comment

Pyrolysis

Posted on April 10, 2007 by frank

Continuing on the idea of agricultural wastes, we move to pyrolysis, a term used to describe the conversion of biomass (and non-biological waste products, as well) into constituent elements by exposing it to moderate temperatures (~500ºC) in the absence of oxygen for short periods of time (fast pyrolysis). Though general research on pyrolysis has been going on for some time now, efforts to harness this natural phenomenon for energy production are just getting underway.

Agri-Therm, a Canadian company, has developed a machine of particular interest for farmers and foresters, both in the industrial and developing world. Their mobile pyrolysis machine can be used to process agricultural and forestry waste products, with minimal CO² emissions, into three constituent elements: gas, bio-oil, and solid residue. Bio-oil can be used as a fuel in tractors, automobiles, and any other combustion based machinery, while the solid residue could be used as a fertilizer/soil amendment, or possibly as a substrate for mycoculture. The gas byproduct is useful for drying out agricultural wastes as they are prepared for pyrolysis. Integration with greenhouse technology is another possibility.

The small size of the pyrolysis machine makes it suitable for Third World applications, and the fact that its mobile leaves room for innovative entrepreneurs to develop service-based businesses where farmers are given the opportunity to process their wastes into fuel for a small fee, or fuel can be sold to other interested parties. Thus far, serious economic studies of small-scale pyrolysis have yet to materialize. But, the best way to find out this type of information is to try it out in real world situations.

As I’m beginning to discover, commercial applications in renewable energy are lagging far behind our scientific and engineering capabilities as a global civilization. The United States is far behind Europe, China and even Brazil in this regard, and short of a political miracle and unequivocal voter outrage, we will surely be surpassed by other nations in our ability to develop and deploy renewable, carbon-neutral energy solutions. That said, the problems and promises of renewables are moving well beyond the increasingly arbitrary borders of the nation-state as the world tries to find a unified and global solution to the very global problem of climate change.

Posted in Agriculture, Alternative Energy, Global Warming | Tagged Agri-Therm, Agriculture, climate-change, Global Warming, pyrolysis | 3 Comments

Mycoculture

Posted on April 5, 2007 by frank

Agricultural technologies that turn waste products into something useful have been absent from farming systems for too long now. Weeds, manure, bagasse, corn cobs, shells and husks…these are a few of the waste products from a list of many. Yet just as intensive outside inputs are a sign of a failing system in a state of decline, so too is the existence of agricultural “waste”.

After all, Nature produces no waste, and the gold star for healthy farm systems should be measured by their ability to mimic, indeed to surpass, the efficiencies we observe daily in the natural world. One innovative and perfectly logical way to deal with waste is through the use of edible mushrooms. By inoculating things like tree stumps, wheat straw or corn cobs with mushroom mycelium, innovative farmers like Paul Stamets have been able to achieve massive gains in biological efficiency. What’s left of the substrate can be used for compost, animal feed, mulch, or pyrolysis (more on pyrolysis soon).

This type of solution is eco-capitalism at its finest. Organic oyster mushrooms are sold for as much as $10.00/lb. at specialty markets like Whole Foods and Wild Oats. Fungi are a whole kingdom unto themselves, and the number of species being exploited commercially is at a fraction of what exists within the realm of possibility, even for species that have already been domesticated by intrepid visionaries like Stamets.

It is not an exaggeration to say that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of edible species with commercial potential are being lost as humanity continues to destroy the planet’s tropical rainforests. Sadder still is the fact that these mushrooms could be part of the key to preserving the forests, since sustainable forestry integrates nicely with mycoculture. Tropical countries stand to benefit the most from identifying, sampling, and experimenting with the fungal germplasm that exists with staggering diversity within their national borders.

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged Agriculture, fungi, mycoculture, Paul-Stamets | Leave a comment

GMOs Provoke Outrage

Posted on March 31, 2007 by frank

I’ve been awful at keeping up on my commitment to blogging. Its difficult as I try to work full time to pay the bills, but I suppose there are many amateur bloggers out there who manage to keep up with all of the different things they are juggling. I will be the first to admit, it requires commitment and hard work.

From emails and comments I’ve received on the blog, it is clear that one of the topics that provokes the most response in people is GMOs. The vast majority I have come across are against GMOs, and with good reason. This massive experiment with our bodies and our ecosystems in happening under the radar, as transnational corporations (primarily Monsanto) surreptitiously contaminate our farm fields and our food supply with genetically altered products.

Clearly the media is doing about as terrible a job as can be imagined in covering this debate as it rages across North America and the world. Articles on the risks of GMOs may slip into newspapers and NPR broadcasts from time to time, but corporate television has done very little, in fact almost nothing, to make consumers aware of the perils we now face with GMO contamination.

I have heard some people suggest that we boycott GMOs altogether. This argument serves as a perfect example to expose the fallacy of the "intelligent" market: an intangible force that miraculously delivers freedom and democracy to the consumer’s doorstep. The corporate supply chain suppresses the freedom of choice. In the case of GMOs, this has been achieved by vehemently protesting mandatory labeling requirements, and by engaging in propaganda and information suppression to keep the facts out of the hands of consumers.

The fact is, we cannot boycott GMOs when they are mixed in with almost every element of our food supply. Today I purchased a bottle of canola oil. I try to buy organic whenever possible, and in the case of products that I know are genetically modified, like canola, I make an extra effort. But, my local grocery store doesn’t have organic canola oil, and thus far I have yet to see a bottle of organic canola. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t exist, but it isn’t realistic to believe that I can search town for a bottle of organic canola oil when I have 10 other important things that I need to take care of within the next eight hours or so.

And this is the conundrum all Americans are faced with. Some products are available organically (though even then contamination through cross pollination remains a possibility), while the vast majority are not. Furthermore, corn is so ubiquitous in the American diet, that one must become a literal food Nazi to avoid consuming it. Yes, I do have a garden, and quite a sizeable one at that; but even maintaining a garden isn’t enough. So now I am resigned to participate in this gross human experiment that we have all, wittingly or not, undertaken as we consume genetically modified foods. I am acutely aware of my participation, and I anticipate the future consequences of it with trepidation, and I look on as children consume foods that are of dubious quality…foods that could even be described as a biological monstrosity.

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged genetic-engineering, gmo, Monsanto | Leave a comment

Fair Trade in a Global Economy

Posted on March 6, 2007 by frank

The Agroinnovations Podcast is turning to the issue of Fair Trade, focusing on fairly traded coffee to address some of the issues that the Fair Trade movement now faces. It has been almost 20 years since Fair Trade pioneers and social justice advocates started with an idea. And surely, after many long hours worked and many battles won and lost, Fair Trade has started to hit the mainstream in a big way.

In 2002 Fair Trade coffee hit a market share of $400 million, and since then it has been enjoying a growth rate of around 37% worldwide. But in a global commodity market dominated by a few big players, some people are now concerned that Fair Trade will be a victim of its own success. Since the explosive market growth of Fair Trade coffee, big companies like Starbucks, Proctor and Gamble, and Nestle jumped on the Fair Trade bandwagon.

In 2005 Nestle introduced its Fair Trade Partners Blend® product to the UK market, causing an uproar amongst Fair Trade advocates around the world. Close observers of Nestle’s worldwide activities noted that Partners Blend only accounted for 1/10th of 1% of Nestle’s total coffee imports. Accusations of corporate greenwashing ensued (for more on greenwashing and Fair trade, see here and here).

To summarize the argument, according to Rodney North of Equal Exchange, Nestle’s move was

the latest in a long line of actions by the world’s largest food businesses to make small gestures that look good in isolation, but ultimately forestall real change for impoverished small farmers, and instead offer marketing, PR, and token efforts in its place.

Essentially, greenwashing can be seen as a mega-company offering a single Fair Trade product, while ignoring the social justice concerns associated with 99.99% of their other products. By surrounding the Fair Trade product with gleaming press releases and stellar marketing campaigns, the company can deflect criticism and create confusion around the concept of Fair Trade, a concept that is rather nebulous and ill-defined for all but the most discerning and educated consumers. North concludes:

At the inception of the Fair Trade movement 20 years ago it was intended to be an alternative approach to international trade that addressed the endemic poverty, economic vulnerability, and isolation of the millions of small-scale farmers who grow most of the world’s tropical agricultural commodities, and as such challenge the status quo. It was not designed as a marketing device.

It seems to me that the evolution of Fair Trade into a marketing device, for better or for worse, is a somewhat inevitable process. But what does this mean? Do the standards need to be revised? Can a group like Transfair USA, that depends on income from certification, be relied on to blow the whistle when companies like Nestle and Starbucks are pushing the Fair Trade envelope? Does this call into question the entire system of Fair Trade?

And, how fair is a certified product that relies on scores of middlemen, food processors and retailers who take full advantage of all the value added to a raw material as it moves through the supply chain? Is it possible to certify something as fair within the context of a supply chain that wasn’t designed with fairness (or even unfairness for that matter), in mind?

These are some of the questions that will be addressed on the next series of shows on the Agroinnovations Podcast. So if you care about Fair Trade, be sure to listen.

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged Agroinnovations-Podcast, coffee, Fair-Trade, podcast | 1 Comment