Ponderings about food and water
So this article came up in my news feed on facebook today. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z43wpx/goodbye-world-weve-passed-the-carbon-tipping-point-for-good?utm_source=vicefbus
It really has me thinking about food and water. We are going to need some serious systems in functioning order to overcome huge obstacles we'll be presented with. I mean the way we produce and use and buy everything is going to go out the window. Big farm food, shipping food all over the country, the resources to produce all the packaging and to get it there, what happens to the food if it isn't bought before it expires. Then water, clean water. Where's it going to come from?
Here in Detroit, we have had water shut offs over the past recent history. It has come to even the attention of the United Nations as a crime against humanity. Then also in Michigan, the Flint water crisis. An entire city in Michigan, still without clean drinking water because of greedy politicians. If you aren't familiar with this atrocity and absolute failure of governing and municipal services check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
My point is, the systems we have in play right now, revolve too much around money and politics. It makes me feel like our humanity is lost, like the greater vision of what the world is supposed to be like was smote out by a bunch of rich, greedy assholes who care for nothing but money and their own comforts. So with all of our empty land here in Detroit, I'm thinking about serious food production on public land controlled by individual community sectors, water purification systems that are apart of our individual houses' infrastructure, climate controlled greenhouses, alternative local currency backed by wheat stores, a regional agriculture program dedicated to practices without pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and mandatory carbon sequestering zones. Completely feasible stuff. In my opinion, things of absolute common sense. We have to start taking responsibility for our survival. So let's explore some of these options.
The act of food production on public land is not new in Detroit. Back in 1893 when there was a nationwide depression, Hazen "potato patch" Pingree dedicated the use of 430 acres of city owned land for farming. We still have block clubs and plenty of tight knit communities, active farming groups, and can collectively pick what things we would like to grow and need to grow to make us happy and healthy. According to Data Driven Detroit, there are approximately 21 square miles of vacant land here. That's just over 13,000 acres. Ever hear about the guy who grows enough food for 10,000 people on three acres?
https://www.splendidtable.org/story/how-to-feed-10000-people-from-food-grown-on-3-acres-in-the-city
I'm not saying that's typical but if we have legions of farmers growing all sort of different crops locally, a whole grains region, a fruit region, a fish farming region, leafy vegetables, root vegetables, etc., we can be satisfying demand for our entire population and devote acres to offsetting carbon with land race grains (another food source) and forests.
Rainwater harvesting could be an art form. All the different things you can do with it blow my mind. Rain gardens, watering the crops, gravity flush toilets, water for aquaponics, but what if we actually used the walls of our house as active water purification systems. If you mimic nature and it's natural filtration cycle for ground water we could find ourselves having three layers consisting of sand, rocks and charcoal from the roof to the basement giving us potable water. Say buh-bye to those huge water bills, fluoride, chlorine, lead from aging city water lines, and any means of control from a municipality.
Climate controlled greenhouses become essential if we want to have tropical fruits in non tropical climates. Many of our dilapidated structures could be easily converted to houses for growing by installing plexiglass window coverings and plexiglass roofs, passive solar heaters, and again with rain harvesting from the structure itself. This is blight removal as well which is more of a problem here than other places. Hoop houses are also fantastic for extending growing seasons and A frames for nurseries and large scale aquaponics and fish farming.
As we have seen with the growth and understanding of cryptocurrencies, having a local currency gives power to local
commodity providers and active community participation. It's not about getting rich but the actual value of labor and goods put into a local comprehensive unit. I thought a dollar being backed by wheat was anchored in justice. We can grow right around 50 bushels of wheat per acre. Current price per bushel of wheat as of January 2018 is $4.36. Looking back to the acreage available in the city of Detroit, if we devote a mere 500 acres to regular old winter wheat we're looking at an income of $109,000. Even in my neighborhood, on two acres, or a dozen lots, that's $436. From wheatlife.org "One 60-pound bushel of wheat provides about 42 pounds of white flour, 60 to 73 loaves of bread (depending on the size of the loaf and whether the bread is whole wheat), or 42 pounds of pasta." So local currency, food sovereignty, all that stuff is hand in hand.
Lastly, with the world in such deep decline from pollution, greenhouse gases, we have to ban the usage of fertilizers and pesticides. It's a must. We can no longer concede to the corporations that are benefiting in the sale of these products for the demise of all humanity and the planet we live on. It's insanity. The United States is disgusting in it's laws for these psychotic harbingers of doom. I know I should be wrapping this up with a bunch of facts and figures but honestly, if you don't see the problem with them, you are part of the problem. Obviously I'm not going to give the public that much credit, Trump is our president and when I think of that, the despair starts overwhelming me, but I try to believe that the world isn't that awful. We are going to organize and work towards things that absolutely matter. I'm going to go sort through my seeds and pick out what I should be starting soon. I already have some requests from neighbors for this year's food production. Soon I'll be passing out the five gallon buckets to people so I can collect their food scraps and use it for our community composting. Carpe Diem.