Tenure track, Urban Agriculture position

This position hasn't been well-publicized, but if you have the experience and are interested in a tenure track position in Logan, Utah, check out this job advertisement for an Assistant Professor -- Small Farms and Urban Agriculture Specialist at Utah State University.

Introducing skirret, the "it" vegetable of 2016?

Montreal had their Seedy Weekend earlier in the month and one gardener brought skirret to sell. This is how trends often start, you see a vegetable or fruit at one or two farmer's markets and then WHAM, it's everywhere. Let's see if this underappreciated plant takes off in 2016.

Politics meets horticultural therapy + underground greenhouses

Politics is top of mind for everyone in the USA and beyond as well. So it was interesting to see the Republican National Congress, Real Clear Politics and several credit unions in Ohio have joined forces to create a year-round horticultural therapy program. The Democrats are doing the same soon!

-Solutions for Change has been the leader in aquaponic education and production. They are tripling their size this year thanks to a $1,000,000 dollar grant.

-In Minneapolis an experimental sunken greenhouse has come through the winter, none the worse for wear, while still producing vegetables. This could be a turning point for those in colder climates.

-The insect farming industry has just reached the next level, as Mark Zuckerberg's sister has invested in a leading company. 

Vertical farming's biggest story of the year!

A company has leased several 100 foot silos to try their hand at true vertical farming. The company is being very cautious and rightfully so. Most of the time when you read about vertical farming, the operation is a few feet tall, at most 2 stories. If cities are ever going to be able to sustain themselves, as vertical farming pioneers, architects and urbanists have dreamed, we'll need to cover whole buildings...fill a skyscraper or two would be helpful. And this is the biggest experiment to date on the planet, by a long shot. Keep your eye on this one in the coming months and years!!!

Five important things to know:

-Five year lease starting March 1, $42,000/year, which can be extended up to 35 years.
-24,650 square feet in total available; they are starting "small" with 1 silo.
-Hydroponically and aquaponically grown vegetables could be available as early as September.
-The silos have been leased "as is" and the company is responsible for cleanup (primarily asbestos, lead paint, spent rotting grain).
-The company will invest at least $500,000.

Two more colleges offer urban agriculture degrees

A quick kick to spotlight two urban agriculture programs: Mesa Community College in Arizona has introduced a new urban agriculture degree and UMass is now offering their 60 credit urban agriculture degree online!

Bio bricks and Mushroom burial suits

I had to profile two incredible products already for sale.
The mushroom burial suit, seen above, turns dead bodies into clean compost. All the things, both good and bad, that we ingest over our lifetime, leach out when we are buried or are released into the atmosphere if we are cremated.
The suit, filled with mushroom spores, makes it possible for our final burial to be as green as our lives.

Making bricks releases up to 8% of all greenhouse gases. We obviously need to do better. Enter bio bricks, bricks grown from bacteria, which could eliminate one of our enduring and truly destructive traditions. $2.8 million dollars in first round funding will go a long way towards making this venture a future force.

France bans supermarket food waste + 10 trees make you feel 7 years younger

So much going on in the living architecture world, it’s very exciting! After a lull during late December, early January, there is now a ton to follow…

The picture above is perhaps a sign of things to come, in Holland they are floating trees as part of an art installation. But with North America’s first climate refugees confirmed, one wonders as rich countries like the USA continue to dither on the federal level to embrace concrete climate change abatement, how many municipalities, communities and individuals effected by climate change will resort to “doing the best they can”, instituting band-aid solutions for their neck of the woods, and stop pressuring the big guys altogether. Maybe changes need to happen from the bottom up?
 
We can look at the efforts of one developer proposing adjoining his buildings with green walkways to give people a chance to stroll way up high. Or look to Madrid doing way more than this, as the global city goes all-in by encouraging living architecture and green infrastructure, in the form of green roofs and mass tree planting. Hopefully this will encourage other Spanish cities, the region and beyond.

-On nature.com there was a stunning report which illuminates how important trees really are to our lives and pockets, "10 more trees in a city block, on average, improves health perception in ways comparable to an increase in annual personal income of $10,000 and moving to a neighborhood with $10,000 higher median income or being 7 years younger”. There’s much, much more in this is one you should read.

-Speaking of health, we need a lot more information on how much lead there is in the urban environment and whether it is harmful to our health or not. Case in point are numerous articles about the dangers, now there have been a couple of articles which maintain we should not be worried, there isn’t much in the soil (or wherever that researcher tested…since we don’t have nationwide data in either the US or Canada yet) and if it's present it shouldn’t be an issue as most lead is locked in the plant roots. If you're eating root vegetables, however, well, then, that's not so good...

-At the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos, Switzerland a few weeks ago, goals were set to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030. France has heeded the call and is certainly ready to lead the way with their legislation which bans supermarkets from throwing away unused food…this year! Imagine that!!!

-In Istanbul, unfortunately, things may be going backwards. Some farms, including one 1,500 years old, are in danger due to encroaching development. Also in the last year a few impressive projects were announced or profiled in Egypt. Although there seemed to be a lot of promise, one author has his spin on why there won’t be a green infrastructure movement anytime soon.

-Closer to home, Auburn, New York is creating a food forest. It’s actually more of edible garden park, as it stretches along a major street. They hope to start planting this spring. 

-Lastly, I saw a man on the subway last week reading Peter Wohlleben’s “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries From a Secret World,” and am anxious to crack it open. Here’s an article about what Peter has been up to most recently, discovering that trees have social networks!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Air farming - my two year old April fools joke is real

Nearly two years ago I posted what I thought was a terribly humorous April Fools joke, the advent of artisanal air. Unfortunately the commodification of air is now real. Air connoisseurs do exist, people are paying up to $160 for a single jar, but people also need just regular old clean air. Up to 4,000 people a day are dying in China from air pollution.

The Super Bowl's super green roof

The Super Bowl is today, as you probably know. The Big 50!  And Levi Stadium is pretty proud of it's start-of-the-art facility, including a massive green roof which boasts 16 indigenous plant species and a handful of others used in the restaurant on site.

Goodbye to a living wall in British Colombia

Thomson Rivers University in British Columbia have a lovely 760 square foot living wall. Well, they had one. It was installed in 2011 sadly, it seems, it's location (near the library and the humidity jeopardizing the books), maintenance cost ($20,000-$30,000/year, which breaks down to $26-$39/square foot per year!!!), and general disinterest (70% of those surveyed wanted it gone) combined to mean it's all over.

Here's the wall in better times...