Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
Small Farm Rising is a one-hour documentary film inspired by first generation farmers who are redefining agriculture in America.
Filmed in the Champlain Valley and Adirondack Mountains of New York State, the documentary follows a group of farmers from three unique farms as they carry plants, animals and soils through a growing season. These modern small farms have robust business models, sustainable practices and deep connections to the communities they serve: a goat farm that produces award-winning cheeses; a horse-powered, CSA (community supported agriculture) farm which provides 100 members with a full diet year round; and a vegetable farm run by two youthful entrepreneurs.
"Making charcoal may sound like a strange way to boost crop production, but the concept was proven more than 2,000 years ago in South America, where native farmers added charcoal to the poor soils of the Amazon rainforest to create a rich, fertile soil known by the Portuguese name "terra preta," or black earth."
“When it’s done right, adding biochar to soil can improve hydrology and make more nutrients available to plants,” says Rice University biogeochemist Caroline Masiello, the lead researcher. To make the soil additive biochar, charcoal must reach at least 450 degrees Celsius to ensure that water and nutrients get to plants.
Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov (Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Вави́лов) (November 25 [O.S. November 13] 1887 – January 26, 1943) was a prominent Russian and Soviet botanist and geneticist best known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants. He devoted his life to the study and improvement of wheat, corn, and other cereal crops that sustain the global population.
"Each year, the United Kingdom raises and kills around 800 million broiler chickens for their meat. These creatures are grown in vast sheds with no natural light over the course of six to seven weeks. They are bred to grow particularly quickly and often die because their hearts and lungs cannot keep up with their body’s rapid growth.
Architecture student André Ford has proposed a new system for the mass production of chickens that removes the birds’ cerebral cortex so that they don’t experience the horrors of being packed together tightly in vertical farms.
After this “desensitization,” the chickens could then be stacked into huge urban farms with around 1,000 chickens hooked up to large vertical frames — a little like the network of pods the humans are connected to in The Matrix. The feet of the chickens would also be removed in order to pack more in. There could be dozens of these frames in the vertical farming system, which Ford refers to as the Centre for Unconscious Farming . Food, water and air would be delivered via a network of tubes and excrement would be removed in the same way. This technique could achieve a density of around 11.7 chickens per cubic meter instead of the current 3.2 chickens achieved in broiler houses."
Building a Vertical Farm in an Old Chicago Meatpacking Plant
The Plant is Chicago's first vertical farm. This claim depends on your definition of vertical farm, of course, because The Plant isn't the sort of futuristic vegetation-filled skyscraper you might expect, and it isn't solely agricultural. While food will be grown there, the space will also house small food-related businesses, breweries and bakeries and the like, so it might be more accurate to classify it as a “food business incubator.” Whatever you call it, The Plant is definitely an example of innovative green food production, with the ambitious goal of being net-zero energy and net-zero waste by 2015.
"This Executive Summary focuses on the 2011 biotech crop highlights, which are presented and discussed in detail in ISAAA Brief 43, Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011.
Biotech crops, fastest adopted crop technology ...
Biotech crops reached 160 million hectares (395 368 000 acres), up 12 million hectares on 8% growth, from 2010, as the global population reached a historical milestone of 7 billion on 31 October 2011
2011 was the 16th year of commercialization of biotech crops, 1996-2011, when growth continued after a remarkable 15 consecutive years of increases; a double-digit increase of 12 million hectares, at a growth rate of 8%, reaching a record 160 million hectares.
A 94-fold increase in hectarage from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 160 million hectares in 2011 makes biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.
Millions of farmers globally elect to adopt biotech crops due to the benefits they offer."
"The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) is a non-profit, industry and government funded international organization that promotes the use of agricultural biotechnology, with a special focus on resource-poor farmers in developing countries. The ISAAA facilitates the transfer and delivery of proprietary biotechnology products by involving partner organisations from public and private sectors in the research and development continuum. Aside from technology transfer, ISAAA is also involved in biotechnology-focused knowledge sharing and capacity building, and produces annual reports on the use and benefits of biotech crops.
The ISAAA receives funding from both public and private donors. Some of the ISAAA's funding agencies include the USDA, US Grains Council, Monsanto, Bayer, two banks - Fondazione Bussolera in Italy and Ibercaja in Spain, USAID and the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project" Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
