Green Communities

Chongqing, one of the fastest-growing and biggest cities on earth, with a population of 29 million. The old buildings under the high-rises are destined for demolition in the near future. Photo by Justin Jin. See slideshow here. Almost every province has large-scale programs to move farmers into housing towers, with the farmers’ plots then given to corporations or municipalities to manage. By Ian Johnson New York Times June 15, 2013 Excerpt: Beijing — China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years — a transformative event that could set off a new wave of growth or saddle the country with problems for generations to come. The government, often by fiat, is replacing small rural homes with high-rises, paving over vast swaths of farmland and drastically altering the lives of rural dwellers. So large is the scale that the number of brand-new Chinese city dwellers will approach the total urban population of the United States — in a country already bursting with megacities. This will decisively change the character of China, where the Communist Party insisted for decades that most peasants, even those working in cities, remain tied to their tiny plots of land to ensure political and economic stability. Now, the party has shifted priorities, mainly to find a new source of growth for a slowing economy that depends increasingly on a consuming class of city dwellers. The shift is occurring so quickly, and the potential costs are so high, that some fear rural China is once again the site of radical social engineering. Over the past decades, the Communist Party has flip-flopped on peasants’ rights to use land: giving small plots to farm during 1950s land reform, collectivizing a few years later, restoring rights at the start of the reform era and now trying to obliterate small landholders. Read the complete article here. See photo slideshow here.

Francesco Papa, a prisoner on penal colony, is pictured on winemaker Marquise Lamberto Frescobaldi’s vineyard in Gorgona island. Gorgona, the smallest of the Tuscan archipelago that also includes Elba, where Napoleon was incarcerated, is home to a project to rehabilitate hardened criminals through agriculture. Photo by REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi. See complete slideshow here. (19 photos) Italy’s prison vineyards: “Work in the fields is an escape valve … If you are locked up in a cell you just watch TV and become an idiot,” By Barry Moody Reuters June 14, 2013 Excerpt: Gorgona Island, Italy – High on a hillside overlooking the azure sea on a small Mediterranean island, two brawny men toil under the sun in a vineyard that has just released a 50-euro ($66) wine destined for the tables of top restaurants. This is not an exclusive wine estate or secluded retreat for the rich, despite the tranquil beauty. It is, rather, the residence of men serving long sentences for some of Italy’s most notorious and brutal crimes, on an island named after monstrous sisters in Greek mythology with snakes for hair. Gorgona, the smallest of the Tuscan archipelago that also includes Elba, where Napoleon was incarcerated, is home to a project to rehabilitate hardened criminals through agriculture. The island, an isolated refuge for monks for 1,500 years and a penal colony since 1869, has just produced 2,700 bottles of a crisp white wine called Gorgona with the help of a 700-year-old Italian wine dynasty. Among the buyers is a Michelin three-star restaurant in Florence. Gorgona’s 40 inmates, many of them convicted of murder, including a notorious contract killing, also produce high quality pork, vegetables, chickens, olive oil and cheese. Read the complete article here. Link to slideshow here.

Remember how cute they used to be? By popular demand, here’s an update on our chicks. As you can see from the photo above, our 30 Rhode Island Reds are no longer cute little balls of fluff, but after four weeks of furious eating have grown into near-adulthood and the reptilian version of a chicken they were meant to be. And they have a surprise in store. If you’ve been reading this blog on a daily basis, you might have thought my days consisted of occasionally moving the sheep around, taking photos and eating bons-bons. Au contraire, mes amis. In my spare hours I have also been working on a chicken coop. And not just any chicken coop. This one has wheels. I’ll tell more about that anon. Today, finishing the mobile coop has moved to the top of the agenda and here to help is my brother-in-law Steve, who flew in last night from Chicago to be my farm slave for a week. Steve booked a late flight and the plane was delayed an hour because of a storm. So we didn’t get back from the airport in Albany until nearly three in the morning. For some reason, I’m awake at 5 a.m. no matter what time I go to bed. So I’ve already finished my morning chores–including leading the sheep to a new, electrified paddock–and now I have to take our pickup truck into the shop to find out why it has all of a sudden developed a sputter. Check back tomorrow for exciting developments in our chicken coop construction and find out whether we’ve freed the chicks from their basement enclosure and finally put them out on pasture.

Keep up-to-date with the biggest news stories in agriculture from around the web! What are the journalists at the major media outlets penning… or typing… these days? In the past few weeks, we saw: Continued coverage of the Farm Bill (the Senate passed its version) and we reported on this in greater detail yesterday here; [...]

Viet Village Urban Farm, New Orleans, Louisiana, by Mossop + Michaels. There are 8,000 Vietnamese concentrated in a one-mile radius in New Orleans East. J. Green The Dirt 06/10/2013 Excerpt: The development corporation found a trainer who could teach aquaculture, the practice of raising fish on land. A two-day session brought up new ways to create more sustainable systems. In a pilot phase, workshop attendees tested out growing koi, bluefish, and catfish. Some then experimented with “aquaponics,” which uses the waste from fish as fertilizer to grow produce. “This is more sustainable growth,” as the fish byproduct isn’t simply dumped into waterways. Now, the VEGGI Farmer’s Cooperative, a massively scaled-up aquaponics operation for the community, sells fresh produce to local restaurants and stores. Amazingly, the fisherman who lost their livelihoods with the oil spill have “supplemented 100 percent of their earlier incomes,” said Bui. Taking out marketing and transportation costs, some “80 cents of each dollar goes back to the cooperative members.” While there are a few aquaponics plots at around an acre, the group has finally been able to purchase a 8-acre urban farm site. Bui said “4 acres are under development now.” Read the complete article here.

Space that could be used for people to live near high-frequency transit should not be permanently preserved for agriculture, says Zane Selvans. Photo by Flat Iron Bike. There’s a proposal on the table in Boulder, Colorado, to preserve 25 acres in the heart of the city for agricultural purposes in perpetuity. By Angie Schmitt Streets Blog Network June 12, 2013 Excerpts: The problem, says Zane Selvans at Flat Iron Bike, is that from a sustainability perspective there are better uses for such a big parcel of urban land. Selvans says the proposal — on a property known as Long’s Garden in North Boulder — is at odds with the city’s goal to become more walkable and livable for people. The proposal is problematic on a number of levels, he says: Long’s Garden is right in the center of North Boulder. By far the best use of that land, in the context of Boulder’s sustainability, is to ensure that it is eventually made into good city — city that is accessible to people on foot, by bike, and via transit, and that is a joy to inhabit as a human being. Preserving it in perpetuity in an undeveloped state only serves to unnecessarily separate destinations in one of the most centrally located portions of the city. Good cities — cities that embrace their urban state and form themselves around human beings rather than automobiles — are the most powerful platform on which to build a sustainable civilization. Read the complete article here.

This SCLA will help you and your team advance and improve efforts to promote urban agriculture and foster sustainable food systems by exposing you to the best available information, expertise and thinking in the field September 18-20, 2013, Memphis, Tn Excerpt: Overview Of The Opportunity The Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) invites teams of five senior officials and/or key stakeholders from up to 12 U.S. cities and metropolitan regions to participate in this unique training and peer-learning opportunity, focused on improving, expanding and accelerating cities’ efforts to support urban agriculture and build more sustainable food systems. Increasingly, cities and regions across the United States are seeing – and seizing – significant opportunities to improve their communities’ economic, environmental and social health by developing robust urban agriculture initiatives, and working to transform the broader system(s) by which food in their communities is produced, distributed and consumed, and food waste is managed. The resulting initiatives are increasing the sustainability of agriculture, enhancing social equity, keeping money circulating in local economies, creating new business opportunities and jobs, building connections between rural and urban communities, enhancing community resilience, improving public health and contributing to the vibrancy and livability of urban areas. In this national Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy (SCLA) on Urban Agriculture & Sustainable Food Systems, we will explore how cities are effectively assessing their food systems to identify interventions and uncover barriers to local food production. We will showcase innovative policies and programs that cities are using to support urban agriculture, including creative land leasing programs. We will also look at how cities are helping to build connections within the food supply chain: strengthening ties between rural and urban areas, ensuring access to fresh, healthy food in underserved communities, and creating programs that engage schools and other anchor institutions. This workshop is part of ISC’s broader Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy (SCLA), a program that builds the capacity of communities – cities, towns, counties, metropolitan regions and rural areas – to advance, accelerate and scale-up local solutions to the global challenges of climate protection and sustainable development. See more here.

Senate Passes 2013 Farm Bill; House Appropriations Committee approves 2014 Ag Appropriations Bill One week ago today, the Senate passed its version of the 2013 Farm Bill, which received strong bipartisan support, though 25 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the bill in a vote of 66-27. The bill, which finances a wide array of [...]

Sunday afternoon was supposed to present the first concert in the park of a summer series in Cambridge, but with rain a certainty, the program was moved inside to the town’s old train depot. On the bill: three young cellists playing selections from Baroque to Michael Jackson. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because all three of the musicians are alumni of the Music from Salem Cello Seminar, which performed at Cambridge’s Hubbard Hall two weeks ago. They are also graduates of the Boston Conservatory. Notice the giant radiator sitting in the middle of everything. I’m guessing this used to be the waiting room. Recorded here is part of a cello duo by Italian Classical composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini. Give a listen.

Nat Turner is the founder of Our School at Blair Grocery, a youth education center in the Katrina-ravaged 9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. Meet Nat Turner, who drove a school bus to New Orleans with a dream of healing the Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina. He gained national attention for transforming an abandoned grocery store into a community youth education center, Our School Blair Grocery, where he teaches kids to sell vegetables instead of crack. Most of his students come from within the Ninth Ward, and for some it’s is not just a classroom; it’s a sanctuary. Meet Dr. Marcin Jakubowski, who lives on a remote farm in rural Missouri. His world is one of mud and machines, and most nights he can be found welding in the back of his earthen brick workshop. Elsewhere engines rumble and sparks fly. This is Factor E Farm, ground zero of the Open Source Ecology movement. Their mission is to re-design the world’s most important machines using common tools and materials. Marcin’s team of engineers design and test these machines day and night, and then release the plans over the internet… for free. While Marcin tackles world issues, Turner works locally. What happens when these two projects collide? Film director Ian Midgley travelled across the country for a year and a half, filming underground activists. He was granted exclusive access to these and other projects, often the first camera to be granted a behind-the-scenes look. His feature documentary,The Spark, is about transforming from passive observer to participant in the world around us. Ian’s camera linked these two projects together, and with the release of The Spark, will continue bridging connections through sharing information between pro-active organizations worldwide. The Spark is not just a film; It’s a social action campaign. At the dawn of the 21st century, America’s spiraling energy consumption hijacks our democracy and gambles our planet’s future. Meanwhile, 50 million Americans live in poverty, while our government stalls behind party lines. How can we break the cycle? The Spark shows a blueprint for realistic, immediate solutions. We follow two rogue pioneers —Dr. Marcin Jakubowski and Nat Turner—whose audacious thinking and radical community empowerment may raise the scaffold of a new American evolution: a healthy, fair, honest culture. See their site here.