Hank
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Poster: Hank @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 1:49 pm
Here's Nicholas DiBiase from Hepnova (@Hepnova) laying down th' rap on urban agronomy and food security at Ignite Phoenix 4 :
Transcript :
Food security : what does it mean?
Food security is regular, reliable, daily access to sufficient quantities of
nutritious food.
It affects everybody, and it has to do with income, access, and
information.
Let me tell you a story about access. In the late 90s when I was at ASU and
they shut down Stabler's Market, suddenly I was left without a grocery store within a
mile of where I lived. So, I started eating a lot of ramen and fast food --
how many students hear that?
Now, at the grocery store, you can get produce, but a lot of
the stuff we find there is grown with chemicals that we don't necessarily
want to put in our body.
Now, we can look for food that's labeled by the USDA as "Organic." But there are a couple of
problems there, too : 1) it's hella expensive, right? And 2) there are over 2 dozen chemical approved by the USDA for use in foods labeled as organic.
On top of that, most of this stuff comes from far away, other states or
other countries, so it spends a lot of time on container ships, in planes, and in trucks,
using up a lot of energy and fuel just to get to our supermarket and losing
nutritional value every day it's on the road.
The solution is urban agronomy : the scientific approach to gardening in
the urban environment. It's efficient,
because we get a lot for what we put in, there's little waste, and we save
on all those transportation costs. It's edible : we get the food at the
peak of its perfection and the peak of its nutritive value.
It's all about community -- this is what makes it work. This is a grassroots movement that's growing every day. Here's
Ryan and Ericka Cero Wood showing 70 interested people around their house
and garden.
As much as this is about nutrition and supply security, it's also about
taste. Fresh food tastes amazing! I never liked squash until I had one that
was raised here in Phoenix. It was like I was eating wax before. It's a revolutionary experience to taste food as it's really meant to taste.
We can do this stuff without changing our lifestyle tat much -- we can keep our urban identity. This is a simple approach that yields real results.
For the apartment dweller and those living in small spaces, we use
containers to grow delicious leafy greens, and other good
stuff.
Those who have some yardspace can design sunken planting beds with raised
paths that conserve our precious water and conserve resources.
Vital to success is the use of native plants. We live in the desert, we exist in the desert, and so we eat in the desert. Foods that we eat in the desert should grow naturally in the desert.
Native foods like corn, beans, and squash are designed by nature to thrive
and be easy to grow in the desert -- and I don't know about you, but I don't like to work any harder than I have to -- especially when it comes to food!
You can enhance your system by using biodegradeable soaps and recapturing
the water you use for washing at home -- this is called greywater, and it
can be as simple as a bucket!
You can also add chickens to the setup, I love these guys! They're
cute as all-get-out, they're great at controlling pests, they eat scorpions - that's true --, and
they give us eggs at a fraction of the cost of organic eggs from the store!
The most important thing here is to share your surplus! This is what makes this work at a scale that's a the community level. When you produce
more than you can eat fresh during the season, share it with someone who has
something you want! Or better yet, share it with someone who may not
have anything.
Food insecurity is disturbingly prevalent in America and in our
community. If we use some of our extra space and resources to grow some
food for these folks, everybody will benefit.
The inspiration and the information that brought me here here came from the Phoenix Permaculture
Guild. These folks are full of energy, have a wealth of knowledge and are eager to help
anyone interested in exploring this stuff.
We can shred up a guitar neck; we can rev an engine -- I wanna grow up
this landscape, take back our food supply, and have a rockin' fun time doing
it!
Thank you!
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