Burning Poop

I am always surprised by how much my life is totally Po-Mo; something is always referencing something else. Yesterday I decided to avoid doing work by sitting around, eating ramen noodles, and watching Rear Window; then SNL did a scatalogical spoof on it. Stuff like this is always happening to me.

The latest of these intertextual life experiences is Scientific American. I've been a subscriber for years and last night I picked up the November copy and found an article about vertical farms. How fortuitous. Or so I thought. The article left me completely torn between what I feel is important and what I know is true. The article is written by Dickson Despommier who is a public health and microbiology professor at Columbia University. He's also the president of the Vertical Farm Project. The gist of the article is that farming is bad for the planet. He cites that there isn't enough land, that farms create too many fossil fuel emissions, that farming wastes water and makes it undrinkable, that the oceans are dying...yadda yadda yadda. I see his point. Absolutely. I worry, however, about painting farms in such a negative light. His solution involves building skyscrapers that use aeroponics, hydroponics, and drip irrigation to grow crops. These vertical farms would also use "black water" for water and energy - essentially taking what we flush down our toilet, cleaning it up, watering the crops, and then burning the poop for energy. He ACTUALLY says that the "typical half-pound bowel movement contains 300 kilocalories of energy." That was a little TMI. These farms would have the benefits of virtually eliminating food-borne buggies and would use a lot less water. They would also be closer to urban centers. He says that local food "would become the norm." I'm not sure this fits my personal definition of local food. Is it closer? Yes. Is it better? Maybe. Does it support local farms? Absolutely not. He only briefly addresses what would happen to farmers, saying that they "would be encouraged to grow grasses and trees, getting paid to sequester carbon." Not on this planet. What is more likely to happen is that they would be totally forgotten. The money would go into developing these new farms, not taking care of old farmers. The big corporations that Despommiers mentions (like the notorious Monsanto) would take over all the production of food and farmers would fall to the wayside. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with having scientists and corporations control ALL my food - they control enough of it already.

All in all, I'm just not sure I buy it. It doesn't address livestock, it doesn't properly address funding or real farmers, it completely ignores the issues around power and corruption. It seems like a great solution to the problems he cites, but it all sounds a little too pie-in-the-sky for me. I love science and I'm all for new things, solutions to environmental problems, and the creation of jobs, but I think there's a middle road that needs to be explored. Considering our food needs will continue to grow, I'm pretty sure there's room for both vertical farms and traditional farms. Vertical farms should be promoted in conjunction with, not in place of, good old-fashioned farms.

I'm just not sure how to say it - supporting local farms just FEELS right. It feels like the ethical thing to do. Maybe I'm just holding on to the past, but is there anything wrong with that?