OK, let me put an ecological slant on my aprium tree, since ecology is the them of this blog (see how I neatly avoided using the plural?). I’ve posted before on how backyard food production differs from commercial production. Instead of monocropping with massive amounts of just one or a few crops, backyard production is best served by having small amounts of a large variety of crops. My aprium has served me well in this regard this year. After a large crop of apricots last year, I thinned my apricots aggressively this year. About a week later, we had another spring storm that knocked most of the remaining blossoms off the tree. Net result: I have two apricots on my tree this summer. But, having let my aprium produce some fruit this year for the first time has paid off. I’ve had a small but good harvest of aprii this year (ooops, had to use the plural). They’ve filled in nicely for the “missing” apricots. The point? Crop diversity is very important if you want to have a regular supply of food.

There’s certainly a lesson here for industrial agriculture, since loss of a single crop that is the only crop, means losing lots of money. Just as biodiversity in an ecosystem means a more stable ecosystem, crop diversity means a more stable farm income. That’s the way it used to be on family farms, but industrial-scale agriculture has changed that.

So, you might still be wondering: What does an aprium taste like? Apriums are a bit less tart than an apricot and a bit sweeter. (There, I’ve given equal time to both plural forms.)

We can take a guess by looking first at existing non-urban industrial agriculture. It is characterized as:

1. Capital intensive, energy intensive, and highly automated (ie, not labor intensive). This is typically described as productive when measured on an output per unit of labor or an output per acre basis.
2. Based on reductionist sciences, not systems sciences. That is, it uses monocropping to produce a single output given a set of inputs and does not use integrated plant or plant/animal cropping systems (polycropping). It is not concerned about systemic level ecological or human relationships that are part of the food chain.
3. Uses industrially produced chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides.
4. Large scale (ie, not human know-your-local-farmer scale).
5. Subsidized by taxpayers via regulations that favor factory farms, cheap water from government projects or direct subsidies.
6. Marketed with hyperbole about how its alleged benefits will save the world from environmental catastrophe and/or future increases in population, while ignoring or downplaying its problems.

When we look at current proposals for urban agriculture, there is one set of proposals that fits the above characteristics. These proposals are focused around intensive production using hydroponics. Hydroponics has been around for quite a while, but large-scale proposals have been popping up in the past few years, more frequently as urban agriculture (and the trends towards local and sustainable agriculture) have accelerated.

First, some background. Hydroponics is a technology that grows plants in water-based nutrient solutions instead of soil. It is well-documented that hydroponics is a highly productive method of growing plants. For maximum production, hydroponic techniques require highly controlled growing conditions, controlling temperature, humidity and lighting. Because of this, hydroponics is almost always practiced indoors. These highly controlled conditions allow production to be done year-round. Hydroponic operations can recycle water, so they offer the benefit of efficient water usage. Hydroponics is by no means, however, ecological. As generally practiced, it requires industrial chemicals and large capital outlays for equipment to maintain necessary growing conditions. It does not integrate with local ecosystems, but excludes them to create its own closed system.

The first article I saw proposing large-scale urban hydroponics was a theoretical proposal in the Science section of the New York Times, in July 2008. The article presented the possibility of “vertical farms” powered by alternative energy (wind and solar). The article was short on economic and production details and heavy on “pie-in-the-sky” speculation. The estimates provided, however, are suggestive. Professor Dickson Despommier, of Columbia University, believed that a 30-story vertical farm capable of feeding 50,000 people would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Despommier acknowledged that this idea needs more research

By August 2009, just 13 months later, the topic had moved to the Op-Ed pages of the Times. No longer being interviewed, the piece was written by Professor Despommier. He was forthright in disclosing that he has a financial stake in vertical farms, since he has started a company to build them. So, it isn’t surprising that the piece was typically Op-Ed, opening with the assertion that

If climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It’s called vertical farming.

That’s certainly attention-getting. After a little finger-pointing at climate change, topsoil loss, voluminous water use and polluted runoff in traditional agriculture,  and expected population growth, he moves on to the hard sell. Sky-scraper agriculture will save us all, especially if we live where water is in short supply.

He claims that “Vertical farms are now feasible, in large part because of a robust global greenhouse initiative that has enjoyed considerable commercial success over the last 10 years.” It’s unclear what this means or what it has to do with vertical farms. He also claims that vertical farms would “revolutionize and improve urban life,” but doesn’t explain how. In a flash of Arcadian vision, he claims that vertical farms would also “revitalize land that was damaged by traditional farming.” Farms would be abandoned as every indoor farming acre replaced 10-20 acres of existing farmland, which would revert to a natural ecological state.  Vertical farms would act as ecosystems by recycling waste and water.

The availability of fresh food would improve diets and reduce Type II diabetes and obesity. Reduced transportation costs would reduce fossil fuel use. Crops damaged by weather would be a thing of the past. Pollution from agricultural runoff would end. Jobs would be created. Buildings would be “things of beauty and grace.” There would be less carbon dioxide and more oxygen in the air. Gawd, what’s not to like? (I did warn you of the marketing hyperbole in these proposals!)

Finally, he gets to the main point. In order to prove that this concept works, he needs money. In particular, he needs a massive handout from the City of New York to build a prototype. Once the prototype (subsidized by taxpayers, of course) demonstrates the economic viability of high-rise agriculture, venture capitalists will rush into the market. Apparently, however, the benefits aren’t so obvious that private investors are willing to risk their capital on the prototype. Venture capitalists will take risks, but they’re not stupid.

Looking at this proposal, we see that it meets all the above criteria for industrialized agriculture. A more critical look would raise some key questions that might explain the dearth of private capital. The proposed  systems are heavily energy-dependent, so I’ll focus on energy, although other issues could be raised. Protecting crops from the weather in high-rise buildings and producing food year-round would require massive investments of energy to construct the buildings and the internal production systems. Operationally, temperatures would have to be maintained at crop-determined levels, ie, heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. We already know that commercial buildings are massive users of energy, so maintaining the proposed vertical farms would have similar energy requirements. (What would happen, incidentally, to the crops–not to mention the people dependent upon them–when a major power outage occured? The requisite backup systems to prevent total crop loss would likely be prohibitively expensive.) Finally, energy costs associated with the production and transport of industrial chemicals used in hydroponic operations need to be considered.

I am, to say the least, skeptical. Most of the proposals I’ve seen so far appear to be sky-scraping pies in the sky. That’s not to say that large-scale hydrop0nic operations won’t find a place. But, that place is likely to be a small, niche market, where such projects have particular benefits dovetailing with local factors. In particular, in locations where temperatures are moderate year-round and water is in short supply, the energy requirements for structures would be low and savings in water would be valuable.

I do believe we need more experimentation with these systems. Although they are definitely industrial and not ecological, the lines between the two systems can and will be blurred, with some features of sustainable systems moderating the negative features of hydroponic systems. Basically, we’re in the process of reinventing urban agriculture and we need to experiment wildly to find ways of producing food in cities in ways that are sustainable. It’s possible that hybrid systems will be developed for economic and/or ecological reasons, depending on local circumstances.

For example, aquaponics is similar to hydroponics, but instead of industrial chemicals, it uses waste from fish to grow food, providing both plant and animal products. (Of course, where does the fish food come from?) See this discussion of a possible commercial aquaponics operation. A recent New York Times blog post discussed a variety of urban agriculture developments taking place, including a hydroponics production test facility on the Hudson River that uses alternative energy sources. A fellow blogger recently sent me a link to an article about an aspiring entrepreneur in the hydroponics field. You know the topic has hit the collective consciousness when bloggers begin to promote the approach. The important point here is that people are exploring possible ways of producing food in urban settings. While I believe the best ways of doing this will be ecologically sound, we won’t know what those ways are without experimenting. In the end, I believe that agroecological systems will be more viable, as they integrate with local social and natural systems using time-tested production methods.

Pisgah View Community Peace Garden now includes a productive vegetable area, a small orchard and a greenhouse, complete with chickens. I didn’t make a complete inventory of crops that they grow, but here are the ones I noted: collards, cabbage, asparagus, garlic, potatoes, figs, apples, kiwis, persimmons, grapes, blueberries, Asian pears and raspberries.  The garden now provides fresh food to garden participants and surpluses are sold at market. Robert has recruited neighbors to help with the garden, using it as an educational opportunity for everyone, himself included. One of the ladies pictured above is now teaching nutrition classes in the neighborhood.

In addition to the neighbors, others from the wider Asheville community have been supportive with both their time and money. The garden has grown rapidly in just a few years and has received grant monies to aid in its development. This is a powerful example of what motivated people can do in a very short time, converting underused urban lands into productive farmland.

Robert’s efforts are part of a larger trend in this country to convert urban lands to use in food production. This trend is partly a result of recognizing the benefits of local food production, and partly due to recognition that our current food production system is not sustainable and that growing our own food will become more of a necessity in the future. I admire Robert for making this a community effort. Community gardens provide one way for people to obtain access to land for growing food when private land may not be available. Community gardens also provide ways to teach others, to improve garden security and to simply have fun working together. Robert has clearly tapped into a need with the Pisgah View garden, underscoring what people are discovering everywhere about underused urban lands: Unbuild it and they will come.

But, my circumstances were that I had high test scores and a Federal government that wanted my body in Vietnam if it wasn’t in school. So, I went to college. But, what my heart yearned to do was to work, to be out of school and to learn about the real world. It’s anyone’s guess–and I’ve certainly wondered about it a lot over the years–where my life would have gone had I been able to work instead of going to school. I’m certain I eventually would have gone to school if I had followed my heart; I’m equally certain my academic path would have been different.

What I do know is that the first class I took after college graduation was in furniture upholstery, my next ones were in photography. Both involved working with my hands and both involved creativity. So, it should have come as no surprise to me decades later to realize that the things that have given me the most joy the past few years almost always have involved working with my hands in some creative pursuit: building kayaks, weaving, landscaping, gardening, dancing (well, that’s working with my feet), playing music and photography. There are a few things that are mostly just physical (kayaking & canoeing) and some that are mostly just creative (writing). But, I now know what I wanted to learn those many years ago: I’m a physical and creative creature.

I mention all of this because working with my hands and my heart are the two primary reasons I grow food. Sure, there are other reasons. But gardening provides a chance to physically connect with nature–in fact, to BE a natural man–and to be creative. I know this because being physical and being creative bring me great joy.

So, I mention these things to encourage others, especially my younger friends who are beginning their careers, to follow their heart if it leads them to working with their hands. This may be to become a farmer, rural or urban. This is, of course, what many of them are doing. I see it with some of my new friends in the gardening world. I also know it’s happening on a larger scale when the New York Times writes about it, too. In short, if your heart leads you to a career in farming, your hands and head will figure out a way to make it happen. Do it.