The Daily Croissant

"Vertical farming is a method for growing crops in multistory buildings. Few consider it a bad idea, but the vertical farming industry continues to progress from an abstract dream to concrete designs, with engineering projects in Sweden and Canada bringing food closer to urban dwellers.

Farmlands may have turned into suburbs near cities, but sky farms allow urbanites to reconnect to their agricultural roots.

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.

"Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? This week, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to weigh in on the question. The Court is pondering an appeals court decision saying that such planting can, in fact, infringe patents."

via arstechnica.com

"Self-Replicating Inventions : Supreme Court asks for Government’s Views in Monsanto Patent Exhaustion Case 
By Dennis Crouch 

Bowman v. Monsanto (Supreme Court Docket No. 11-796, 2012)

In 2011, the Federal Circuit again affirmed that Monsanto's genetically modified seeds patents can be used to stop farmers from saving and replanting the GM seeds. The farmer, Vernon Bowman, then petitioned the Supreme Court asking for a writ of certiorari ."

"The one place where the future farm made perfect sense.

Founding a lunar colony is an exercise in "get the job done and hang the cost". For colonies, you need people and people need air. To recycle air on a barren desert like the moon means growing plants and that means you need farms even if soy burgers that come at the same prices as a slice of fried gold at Maxim's in Paris. So, you need to develop Moon farms, because without them you're reduced to tiny outposts or praying that you can find ice mines somewhere at the poles. Really big ice mines.

Oh, and you get food as a dividend."

SANTIAGO DE CHILE –

'Halfway between the capital and the Pacific coast, Chile’s countryside becomes a patchwork of dry brown hills and verdant lowlands cut by endless rows of grapes on the vine.

Here in the country’s Casablanca region, a vineyard called Matetic  is pushing new limits in the organic cultivation of wine grapes by experimenting with biodynamics – a movement that has gained momentum in wine-growing regions around the world, from the fields of France to Napa Valley.

Matetic is a relatively young vineyard, founded in 1999 by a Croatian family of the same name. Amidst the hilly terrain, Matetic maintains 168 hectares planted with varietals including Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay – all certified organic. Several years ago, Matetic took its first steps toward biodynamic production.

In 1924, Austro-Hungarian scientist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner founded biodynamics, which is defined by the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association  as “an objective understanding of the spiritual world and its interrelationship with the physical world” that “relates the ecology of the farm-organism to that of the entire cosmos.”

As with organic farming, biodynamics precludes the use of pesticides, fertilizers or artificial chemicals of any kind but takes agriculture well beyond basic organics to include the study of and reliance on moon cycles, and the use of oval shapes to foster closed energy circles, elaborate compost preparations, among other efforts."

"The next step up from hydroponics is the orbital space farm, as envisaged by artist Frank Tinsley in 1954. The great coils you see in the giant dish contain chlorella algae; the wonder food of Future Past that was, along with yeast, supposed to replace bread as the staple of all mankind. 

Back in the 1950s, this didn't seem like such a crazy idea. On paper, chlorella looked like a winner. Not only was the microorganism 50 percent protein with the complete set of amino acids, but it was also chock full of calories, fats and vitamins. Furthermore, all you needed to grow it was sunshine, water and carbon dioxide. And it grew in incredible quantities with one pilot plant projecting yields of 40 tons of dry weight protein per acre. At this rate, a farm the size of Rhode Island would feed the entire planet and cultivating one fifth of the Earth's surface would not only provide food, but all of the fuels needed for every major industry on the planet. All that needed to be overcome were "minor technical difficulties."...

"Used for centuries in Eastern Europe and Germany, hugelkultur (in German hugelkultur translates roughly as “mound culture”) is a gardening and farming technique whereby woody debris (fallen branches and/or logs) are used as a resource.

Often employed in permaculture systems, hugelkultur allows gardeners and farmers to mimic the nutrient cycling found in a natural woodland to realize several benefits. Woody debris (and other detritus) that falls to the forest floor can readily become sponge like, soaking up rainfall and releasing it slowly into the surrounding soil, thus making this moisture available to nearby plants."   permaculture.org.au