LJR Enterprises

Another design for high rise farming is getting attention and awards. Here’s a quote that stops me in my tracks:

The irrigation is automatic, the greenhouse is sealed against insects and there is no need for pesticide, and the windows provide the light and heat necessary for growth”.

Uh… what about pollination? Sure, you can plop some bee hives inside the greenhouses, but what about the fact that domestic bees are inefficient pollinators without the interference of wild bee populations?

Too bad this workshop is way up north of Traverse City.

A free one-day workshop for farmers and aspiring farmers on how to grow crops in low-cost “hoop house” greenhouses will be offered on Friday, Oct. 5, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Black Star Farms in Bingham Township.

Leelanau Enterprise

I love this picture and I love this article.

“No matter who you are or what your background is, everyone has a ceiling to break through,” [Mike Jones] says. “All my ancestors on both sides of my family have been farmers, but they never owned land. So mine was to own my own farm.”

It took him more than 20 years to reach his goal. Determined to make something of himself, Jones became the first in his family to attend college. He finished his degree with help from the GI Bill, then worked for several confinement hog farms—many of which now contract with Smithfield Foods—to learn the business. He did well, but kept looking for ways to improve the system.

“Finally I came to the conclusion it couldn’t be done,” he says. “I didn’t see how the environment could be managed in a way that was tolerable to me. The profit was there, but I didn’t want to be there.”

Jones’ decision to leave was one of conscience.

“I began to get callused to animals’ suffering, and this bothered me,” he says. “I thought, ‘This is how human rights abuses get started.’ First the animals get abused, then the people.”

There’s a reader comment at the end that claims it would not be feasible for all pigs to be raised in this way. He may be right that not all pigs could be raised in exactly this way, but I think all pigs can be raised in a better way than an entire lifetime spent on 6 square feet of concrete. We can all eat less meat and, most of all, stop turning our noses up at certain cuts. Our pig lasted us nearly a year. We didn’t get to eat bacon and pork chops everyday. Some of those days we ate soups made with neck bones and hocks. There is a cookbook out there about the moral necessity to use the entire animal if we are going to eat it, but I can’t find it. I heard a brief section of an interview with the author on NPR a while back but I’ve searched for the program a number of times to no avail. Does anyone know what this book is, or did I dream it?

I saw an article about this a while ago, and the topic resurfaced the Washington Post (stop me if I’m repeating myself). This is one of those ideas that is going to fuel the backlash against the local food movement. You know, all of those writers/bloggers who are talking about the high cost of local food - lambs that can be raised more efficiently in New Zealand, heating greenhouses with fossil fuels just to call it local, etc. While I understand what the critics are saying, I think that they are missing the point of “local.” Local shouldn’t just be about where it’s grown. I don’t think proponents of local food are saying that we should get to eat whatever we want whenever we want all season long. My personal take on the grass roots local food movement is that we should not only eat locally, but seasonally.

So, back to the article… I wonder if anyone has done a study on just how much energy it is going to take to produce these high rise farms and what they will smell like. To me, it reeks of corporate farming… just more of the same especially where animal husbandry comes into play. Any thoughts?

I have been wholly uninspired in the blogging department lately. I did find this website, which I plan to comb through later this evening.

And their national partner…