#it's a very agricultural area (they grow a lot of the crops that get transported to the other nations (namely Arnna) but

[megarywrites]

find the word tag game

tagged by @thewriteflame and my words were: joke, jump, brown, bug, book

all from Seafoam

joke

Zeno murmured something, and I blinked, abandoning my racing thoughts and returning my attention  to him. “What?” 

“I said, we could get married.” 

The absurd desire to laugh nearly overcame me. He was about to speak again, but I shook my hand between us, cutting him off. “I appreciate you trying to make a joke, but is this really the time?” 

His expression contorted to an almost-grimace before it shifted into a small smile. Then, he shrugged. “Sorry.” I scrubbed my hand roughly over my face, leaning forward, slightly away from him. “It is an idea, though.” 

“Us getting married?” 

“Yeah.” 

I sniffed a quiet laugh, despite everything. “Please, we’d be miserable.”

jump

The door to [the captain]'s quarters was right up against the railing, with just the riggings swaying between me at the oar-churned ocean below. I stopped, looking into the water, my hand absently fingering the shard in my pocket as my gaze traced patterns in sea foam lining the choppy waves. I could jump. The oars might catch me. Or they might sweep me under, their turbulence keeping me below the surface until I was out of air. 

Heart stammering, I stumbled away from the railing until my back pressed into the wall. Did I actually wish for death? Or did I just want this to be over? 

Freedom. That’s all I wanted. Basate promised that; I could hold out until then. I could…

I would.

brown

It was strange. Being here. New experiences—not that I had a lot of practice with them, mind—always were strange. She sat across from me, crossing her feet beneath her and clasping her hands together in her lap. 

“What was your name, again?” 

“Solera,” she said, her grin bright white against her russet-brown features. My eyes dropped to the dimples indenting her faintly freckled cheeks. “And, I know coming here, leaving your family, it’s a bit much to take in.” I met her gaze again. “If there’s anything I can do to help you adjust, or settle, just let me know?” 

I returned her smile, however faintly, and nodded.

bug beetle

A tiny armored beetle skittered over the marble steps by my fingers, deftly avoiding them in its hurry. 

Could I have done anything to help? Would the sound of Osmari’s pleas ever stop ringing in my head? 

“Stay back,” a calm voice said, drawing near. “I’ll talk to her.”

Geros. No longer the Diamo, to me.

Solera was right. He was just another man who had done nothing to deserve my respect. 

The beetle had made it past my hand now, scurrying over the sun-warmed marble toward the shade of the pavilion until it was crushed under Geros’ sandal as he made his way to me. He hunkered beside me, his hand rubbing false comfort between my shoulders. 

“It’s disturbing, isn’t it. The lengths my children force me to go.”

book

“Be still, and accept the blessing of the gods,” he said, stepping nearer to them and laying his hand on each of their heads. When he spoke again, it was almost song-like. A chant, of sorts. In the old tongue. I knew very little of it. Just a few words. Curse words, to tell the truth. Zeno, Ismi, and I had found an old book of it in the attic of their home years ago, and that had been all we had been able to look for before Hele called us down for lunch. 

His voice resonated throughout the latridom, even after his chant had stopped. 

He lifted his hands, staggering back a step. As if he had been possessed by the gods themselves and they had suddenly left him. 

“You are now one.”

I'll tag....... @pinespittinink @flowerprose @daisywords @ashen-crest @isherwoodj and @nectargrapes (as always, no pressure!)

your words will be: purpose, plain, peer, pressure, and pain

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Questions to Help World Build

I’ve realized I have a big problem with my writing. I am awful at world-building. Like, I just start writing without thinking about the world. And since I write fantasy. Well. That’s pretty no bueno and leads to all kinds of problems down the road. So I did some brainstorming with my friends and we created a list of over 100 questions to help think about our stories’ worlds and make them more concrete. Thanks to everyone who chimed in and gave me a hand! 

A traditional Japanese clock, wadokei, that counted hours from 9 to 4, starting from sunrise, and then starting once again from sunset. (1-3 were not used for religious purposes.) They’re super interesting and confusing. You should definitely check them out.

Temporal

Is your story set in the past, present, or future?

Specifically, what year(s), month(s), day(s)?

Are days 24 hours? Or does time pass differently in this world?

How many months are there in a year? Is it a seven day weekday? Does the concept of weekends exist?

Have most existing societies developed a timekeeping device?

Is there a way to communicate across long distances?

The concept of time zones is still relatively new to our world. Prior to the late nineteenth century, timekeeping was a purely local phenomenon. Each town would set their clocks to noon when the sun reached its zenith each day. Do standardized time zones exist across the world?

Geographical

From a planet perspective, is it Earth? If it is not Earth, or an alternative version of Earth, what is it like? Is gravity the same? Does it have a moon or multiple moons? Can you see other planets? Is it closer or further from the sun? If so, what impact does that have on the climate and passage of time?

What town, state, region, country, continent, planet does this story take place in? What are its bordering/nearest neighbors? Draw a world map if you want.

What kind of land is it? Landlocked? Mountainous? Along the sea? Desert? Tundra? Tropical forest? Plains? Agricultural? Industrial?

What kind of plants and animals are common to the area? Are there any that do not exist in the real world?

What are the most common crops and livestock in various regions? What geographic features influence certain regions ability to grow/raise their crops and livestock (positively and negatively)? Are the regions diets strongly influenced by what they are able to grow themselves, or do other circumstances (like strong international trade) allow them to have more varied selections? How does religion influence what is considered ‘normal’ to eat?

What, if any, natural disasters are common to the region? Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, monsoons, blizzards?

How many seasons does it have? Are any longer than others?

What is the typical weather like for those seasons?

Does the region have any unusual geographical features that set it apart? Perhaps there is some weird thing like Devil’s Tower just chilling out. Or hot springs because of volcanic activity?

Is it easy to travel from place to place within the area? Is it difficult to travel because of terrain/technology issues, or because travel is strictly regulated?

Main Locations: Cities

Many stories take place within one city. In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, a character remarks, “So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams.” What personality does this city have? What soul does it have? What does it dream of when it slumbers? If your story takes place within a settlement, town, or city, give these questions some thought.

Exactly where is it located within the lands you conjured up in the above Geography questions? Does it have a bay? A river? Does it butt up against mountains? Draw a map of the city.

How big is the city? Is it compact, or sprawling?

How old is the city?

What is the history of the city? How did it come to be? What tumults and triumphs has it seen?

What is the population? Is it currently increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same?

Does the town have any claim to fame? Any tourist attractions? What are they? What’s the story behind them?

If it’s a big enough city, how many and what kind of districts does it have? Residential, Commercial, Industrial, etc. Where are they?

Are there any areas that are deemed unsafe? If so, where are they and why are they unsafe?

Is there public transportation? What kind, bus, tram, train, subway, monorail? Is it good?

How do people get around this city if not by public transportation?

Are the roads narrow or wide? Crisscrossing in a methodical grid or higgledy-piggledy?

What are the buildings like? What materials are they made of? If they’re wooden, are they new wood, old wood? If they’re painted, what colors? If they’re stone, what stone? If they’re brick, is it new red brick or blackened, crumbling brick? If they’re glass and metal, are they sparkling with new hope or dull and jaded?

Are there many skyscrapers? Or are most buildings 1-3 stories tall? What does the skyline look like?

Are there many parks?

How is the city powered? Coal? Hydroelectric? Wind? Nuclear? Has it always been so?

What is the city’s main source of revenue? Agriculture? Tourism? Manufacturing? Mining? Something else? A combination? Dive deeper into this. If it’s agriculture, what do they grow? Tourism–what is famous? etc. This will help to determine what a lot of people do for a living.

What are the demographics? Ethnicity, age distribution, distribution of upper, middle, and lower class, etc.

How many schools are there? Universities? Are any of them good? Do they specialize in anything? Do schools even exist? Perhaps there are clans that teach their children everything they need, for example, or education isn’t viewed as important.

Are there any particular landmarks within the city that standout?

How many and what kind of restaurants are there?

Are there supermarkets, open air markets, or both?

Where do young people go to spend time? What about adults?

Do people there bustle or do they amble?

What are the nights like? Does the city grow quiet, or does it grow rowdy?

What does the city smell like?

If you had to give your town a color, one that represented its personality, what color would it be?

Main Locations: Houses (or buildings, but mainly houses)

There are many stories that have a house or headquarters or hospital or some sort of building as their main setting. These questions will mostly be geared towards helping you figure out a house, but you can apply these to other buildings too probably.

Exactly where is the house located within the city or outside the city? How does your character usually get there? Draw a map. 

What year was the house built?

Was this house built by the current family or their ancestors? Who else lived in the house before the current dwellers? What were they like? Did they leave their mark on the house somehow?

What style is the house? Bungalow? Cabin? A shed? A cave? (makes the following questions mostly useless if so lol)

How many stories is it?

What is it made of? Wood? Brick? What color is it?

Does it have a lot of windows?

Are the curtains usually open or drawn? Are thee curtains at all?

What does the front door look like? 

Is there a porch?

You enter the front door. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you use the side door because the front door is for show or something. Anyways. You enter the house. What room do you step foot into?

Draw out the floor plans for each floor. How many rooms are there? Where are they? How big are they? How are they connected? What color are they? What style of decor?

Is there a basement? Is it used or is it just a home for spiders and darkness and unwanted things? How about an attic? Crawlspace?

How many bathrooms? 

Are there any rooms that only certain people are allowed to enter? If so, why? 

What is the flooring? Carpet? Wood? Tile? Linoleum? 

What does the house smell like?

Government/Military/Economy

In other words, “the boring stuff,” if you ask me. But this is a very important aspect of any world. 

What sort of government is in place? Democracy, oligarchy, etc? Is it a just or corrupt government?

How are goods exchanged? Bartering? Money? Coins and bills? Credit cards? A specific kind of sea shell? Lol

What are the police like? Strict? Lax? Is there a curfew?

Do taxes exist? If so, do the people feel as though they are heavily or unduly taxed?

Where is the intersection between theology and law? Is it common to have religious leaders in positions of power? Are laws based around religious ideology, or is there an effort to keep them separate?

Is there an organised structure devoted to halting criminal acts? Are they corrupt? Who runs the organisation? How does their reputation change based on demographic? What is the history of the organisation, and how does that history influence how it operates today?

Regarding potentially criminal acts, what is the elgality of prostitution, sex work, ect.?

What about drugs and other illicit substances? Alcohol, illicit drugs, recreational use. Legality, festivity, age limits, etc.

Underbelly. How prevalent is crime, what sort of crime (scaled from pickpocketing to human trafficking) is there? Are there areas that have bad reputations because of it?

Regarding war, are there currently conflicts in the world? Are they international or civil wars? How common is it to have an active war? What is the history of war? What does current warfare look like (Is it dudes in metal suits swinging swords? Have longbows been invented? Gunpowder? Tanks? Missiles?) Is military service mandatory or voluntary? How is the military seen? Is there a sense of patriotism for the military, or does the common man fear it?

Is there stigma around certain genders entering the military? Are come genders regarded as better recruits than others? Is it illegal for some genders to enter the military? Does a person's sexuality affect their ability to serve?

How has religion influenced war? Have there been holy wars in the past? Do any religious institutions hold their own military forces?

Cultural/Historical

I’ve put these together because events in history lead to cultural change. You can apply these questions not only to the world/country, but also the city or even the neighborhood, workplace, or school that your story takes place in.

What is the history of the region? Who was it settled by? Was another group of people displaced? After that, did any new cultures come in? Did they get along?

Were there ever any wars or serious conflicts in the region? What was the cause and what was the outcome of the war if there was one?

In our world, the internet, social media, and film/tv are massive cultural drivers. They determine the latest fashions, jokes, topics, and expressions. What are the big cultural drivers in your world? Books? Plays? Radio? Oral tradition?

Is it a collectivistic or individualistic society?

What languages are spoken by your characters? Is multilingualism common?

What sorts of cultures can be seen? Do any clash? Do any mesh?

What sort of foods are most common?

What superstitions do people hold? Is there a version of “knock on wood” or throwing salt over your shoulder after a funeral? What are the roots of these superstitions?

Are there religions? If so, what are they? Do any conflict with each other? Are zealots or extremists an issue?

Does slavery or indentured servitude exist?

Are there any class or caste systems? If so, what are they, and what does an average day look like for a member of each class/caste?

How does a person's appearance change from country to country? Do certain countries have very distinct fashions? If so, are the fashions influenced by religion, surrounding countries, the cultural majority or international trade partners?

How does a person's clothing relate to their social standing? Is it very easy to assume someone's roll by appearance alone? Are there punishments for dressing above or below your social standing?

Does the society place a great deal of importance on a person's presentation, or is the society more lenient on such things?

Is there an emphasis on conformity to a dress code, or is individuality encouraged? How strictly is clothing regulated by gender binary? Is it commonplace to see a man and a woman walking down the street in the same cut of clothes? Is there a social stigma when a person does not conform to the most common form of dress for their gender?

How are sexual rights viewed? Does the LGBTQ community have the same rights as people outside the community? How are sex acts between people of the same sex viewed? Is it legal? Taboo? Are there cultures that encourage those relationships in some circumstances (like how the romans were down with guys with guys in the military)?

Are there any groups of people that are victims of prejudice? If so, who are they, who holds these views against them, and what views specifically are they?

In regards to gender, do certain societies hold differing beliefs? Is there a commonly accepted number of gender identities or does it change regionally? Is the most common gender spectrum a binary, or do certain racial and cultural differences allow for a wider range to be seen as the baseline?

Are children raised by their biological parents or are children considered to be in the care of the wider community? Is it common/acceptable for extended family to raise children, such as parents needing to study, work, or serve time in the military? Is adoption a common thing in society? Is there a stigma around adoption/being adopted? Do cultural or religious views impact how adoption is seen by the wider community? What is adoption like for a single perspective parent? When adopting, is interracial adoption accepted/common, or is it seen in a negative light? Are some societies more open to adopting children outside of their own race?

How is sex and virginity viewed? Does religion influence it? What is the age of consent? What is appropriate on a first, second, third date? Is sex something that is talked about openly, or something taboo? Are you supposed to wait until marriage? Do couples stay monogamous while dating? Do some regions place higher importance on virginity than others? Do some place higher importance on one gender’s virginity than others?

How is marriage viewed? Are arranged marriages a big thing, or are people free to choose? Is monogamy common? How is a marriage symbolized? A wedding ring, or something different?

How is divorce viewed? What is the divorce rate? Can people remarry?

Magic and the Supernatural

If magic or spooky stuff doesn’t exist in your story, disregard this section.

Does magic exist? If so, who can use it? What are the limitations to their magic? What things are they capable of using their magic to do? What things are they incapable of doing?

Are there laws against what kind of magic can/cannot be used? What sort of laws? Who enforces them? What are the punishments for breaking said laws if they exist?

How does the existence of magic affect religion? Are there religious institutions that infuse magic into their worship? Are there religious sects that see magic as immoral and in direct opposition to their faith? Have there been conflicts in recent or ancient history between religion and the supernatural? Do some sects employ people to hunt and/or enforce law over the supernatural?

Assuming that magic does exist, is it taught? Are there different schools of magic? Is there a system of ranking for magic users based on their skill level?

Do non-magic users look towards magic users with respect or fear?

What role does magic play in this world? Has technology not advanced because magic solves many problems? Or has technology advanced and the use of some magics has become unnecessary?

Are there any mythological creatures/monsters, such as vampires, demons, skinwalkers, dragons, or other creatures of your own creation? Are they common? Do people believe in their existence? Do people worship them? Where can they be found? Do they interact with humans? Do humans fear them or try to put up with them as they do nature?

Do the dead continue to exist in some form, such as ghosts or zombies or the like? Can the dead be summoned or brought back to life?

Are there human/supernatural hybrids? Perhaps a half-demon half-human, for example? How are these people viewed by their peoples, and by society as a whole?

How has the supernatural influenced war? Do armies tend to have a mix of regular and supernatural soldiers/weapons? Have there been wars between the supernatural/magical and those without? How does magic influence a person standing in a mixed army? Is it more likely for a magical being to be promoted than a non-magical being? Conversely, are supernatural being forced into service and seen as pawns?

The End!

Please feel free to reblog and share, and add on any questions you think should be added!

[followingliz]

New Hometown: Reggio nell’Emilia

Reggio (as it is known locally) is a city in northern Italy. More specifically, in the Emilia-Romagna region in the Province of Reggio Emilia. It has a population of about 171,944. It’s right between Bologna and Milan, an hour train ride from Florence and a three-hour train ride from Rome. A perfect north-central place to be.

When you google Reggio Emilia, you will have to filter out a lot of education posts to get to the Italian town. Shortly after WWII Reggio began the Reggio Emilia approach to preschool education. It is now taught in schools around the world. 

Filter out the education sites and you’ll find a small but vibrant Italian city. With buildings from the 16th & 17th centuries, and a history of agriculture and deep partisanism. It is a primary maker of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Lambrusco wine, and Balsamic Vinegar. Today Reggio has several industrial companies operating in new technology, mechanics and mechatronics. You'll find Reggio boasts being the birthplace of the Italian tri-colore flag and the Max Mara clothing line. But what about being in the city itself?

Reggio is small enough to be charming but not so small as to be quaint. It’s not everyone is in everyone's business kind of town. But it is small enough that you’re likely to see someone you know when you’re out and about in the city center. (if you’ve lived here long enough)

Even though we’ve been here for two months, we haven’t had the chance to travel too far outside the city center. Partly because we don't have a means of transportation. (only getting bikes a few weeks ago) And partly because we're continuing to explore the city center in a slow and unhurried way.

Reggio leaves a first impression of semi-classic Italian charm. It's in the buildings, the piazzas and half-cobbled streets. It’s extremely bike friendly, with wide bike paths next to most of the roads and people of all ages zooming through the city center.

 As with most Italian towns, there's a decent amount of graffiti. But overall it’s a pretty clean city, and after a few weeks you stop noticing the graffiti and the grime. You start looking above it at the ancient architecture.

As a friend recently explained: most of these buildings are over 100 years old…they’re going to be a little gritty at street level. Especially because it’s difficult to renovate them.

The city center has a hexagonal shape made by it’s ‘ring road’, which used to be the ancient city walls. Inside the Centro Storico there are a few wide, meandering roads.

 Mostly there are tiny winding streets- what you might picture as a classic Italian via.

To our delight, there are several small parks within Centro Storico and one main park- Parco Pubblici. 

It has a lovely fountain, an area for children and plenty of benches to sit, rest and relax. In the UK, in South Africa, in the States all our parks are meticulously manicured. Close cropped mowed lawns spread out with trees dotted throughout. Here in Italy, in Parco Pubblici, the grass is longer, wilder, and allowed to grow. Only trimmed down when it gets to mid-calf. It was a bit of a shock at first- we were left thinking…has this place been abandoned? But no, it’s the Reggio way- to let things be.

Follow any of the winding vias and you are likely to end up in one of the many piazzas. The bigger squares host markets every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday. In the smaller ones, you will usually find a variety of cute cafes, restaurants, bakeries or other shops.

One of the things I’ve loved about Reggio is I am always noticing new details. Something I haven’t noticed before, or a shop down a side street I haven’t seen. There is a lot to explore in this small town, and I will continue to share as I discover.

Between navigating bureaucracy and everyday life it’s nice to take a minute and enjoy where we are. (even if we don't get very far.) And even though all the locals have asked us “why on earth have you moved here?!” More than any place I've visited, people seem content living here.

[tlatollotl]

Archaeologists with the University of Cincinnati used the latest technology to find evidence suggesting ancient Maya people grew surplus crops to support an active trade with neighbors up and down the Yucatan Peninsula.

They will present their findings at the annual American Association of Geographers conference in Washington, D.C.

The Mayan civilization stretched across portions of Mesoamerica, a region spanning Mexico and Central America. The oldest evidence of Maya civilization dates back to 1800 B.C., but most cities flourished between 250 and 900 A.D. By the time Spanish ships arrived in the 1500s, some of the biggest cities were deserted. Researchers at UC are trying to piece together the life history of the Maya before the Spanish conquest.

Nicholas Dunning, a professor of geography in UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, was part of a research team that found evidence of cultivation along irregular-shaped fields in Mexico that followed the paths of canals and natural water channels at a place called Laguna de Terminos on the Gulf of Mexico. The archaeologists expect to find evidence of habitation when they begin excavations.

The extensive croplands suggest the ancient Maya could grow surplus crops, especially the cotton responsible for the renowned textiles that were traded throughout Mesoamerica.

"It was a much more complex market economy than the Maya are often given credit for," Dunning said.

Local workers brought the Laguna de Terminos site to the attention of researchers about seven years ago.

"A forester working in the area said there seemed to be a network of ancient fields," Dunning said. "I looked on Google Earth and was like, 'Whoa!' It was an area in the Maya Lowlands that I'd never paid any attention to. And obviously not a lot of other people had, either, from the perspective of looking at ancient agriculture."

Satellite images revealed a patchwork quilt of blocks along drainage ditches that suggested they were built. Archaeologist also studied imagery NASA created of the region using a tool called Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR, that can depict the contours of the ground beneath the leafy canopy of trees and vegetation. Their review confirmed Dunning's suspicions: the area was covered in ancient farm fields.

University of Cincinnati student Jeff Brewer stands above UC geography professor Nicholas Dunning at an archaeological site in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Credit: Nicholas Dunning/UC

"It appears they developed fairly simply from modifications of existing drainage along the eastern edge of the wetlands," Dunning said. "They probably deepened and straightened some channels or connected them in places, but then further expanded the fields with more sophisticated hydro-engineering."

LIDAR gives scientists a never-before-seen picture of the Earth's surface even after centuries of unchecked jungle growth conceals the remains of ancient structures. Researchers look for telltale signs of human activity: squares and rectangles indicating old foundations and circular pits from man-made reservoirs and quarries where the chert used in stone tools was mined. On the LIDAR maps, any hidden structures pop out, including ancient roads and former villages.

"That's the magic of LIDAR," UC assistant research professor Christopher Carr said.??Carr spent a career practicing engineering before returning to UC to study and eventually teach in the geography department. He approaches questions about the ancient Maya from an engineer's perspective.

Carr pointed to a map of Yaxnohcah, Mexico, showing a small reservoir the ancient Maya apparently dug in a wetland far from cultivated fields or known settlements.

"What were my ancient counterparts thinking when they built that water reservoir? What did they want to accomplish?" he asked.

Carr also used the LIDAR imagery in the project to follow an ancient Maya road that perhaps hasn't been traveled in more than 1,000 years. The road is perfectly visible on the LIDAR map but is virtually impossible to discern when you are standing right on it, Carr said.

"There's vegetation everywhere. But when you've been doing this for a while, you notice little things," Carr said. "I'll have a LIDAR image on my smartphone that shows me where I am, but I don't see anything but rainforest. You just walk back and forth until you can feel something underfoot and follow it."

Identifying possible roads is important for another interest of the UC researchers: ancient Maya marketplaces. Dunning and Carr are working at Yaxnohcah with researchers such as Kathryn Reese-Taylor from the University of Calgary and Armando Anaya Hernandez from Universidad Autónoma de Campeche to unlock the mysteries of the ancient Maya economy. Additionally, they and graduate student Thomas Ruhl have been analyzing NASA's LIDAR imagery across the Yucatan Peninsula to identify more ancient marketplaces.

Unlike pyramids or even many homes, marketplaces had no foundations or permanent structures, researchers said. They were built on low platforms or cleared areas, perhaps like a seasonal fair or flea market. But they were an important part of life in Maya culture

University of Cincinnati geography professor Nicholas Dunning, left, and assistant professor Christopher Carr have been studying ancient Maya sites in Mexico. Credit: Joseph Fuqua II/UC Creative Services

Dunning said the presence of roads between Maya cities would lend credence to the value the ancient Maya placed on trade with their neighbors. He thinks some of the larger squares identified on the LIDAR maps represent these open markets.

"In some areas, they have this very distinct physical signature," Dunning said. "So far, we've identified several possible marketplaces. We don't know for sure that they're marketplaces, but they have an architectural layout that is suggestive of one."

Soil analysis at other locations identified evidence of ancient butcher shops and stone masons. Dunning solicited the help of UC's botanists who are conducting analyses that might shed light on his marketplace hypothesis. But the LIDAR maps themselves are instructive.

"I look at spatial patterns. If you look at these big structures and small pyramids, you can tell they're important structures," Carr said. "And then you have this 'lightweight' thing next to it. That's what a marketplace looks like to me."

Dunning said the ancient Maya likely sold perishable goods such as maize and a starchy tuber called manioc. And they traded "mantas," or bolts of the ornate and richly patterned textiles made from the cotton they grew. These were prized by the Spaniards who arrived in the 1600s.

"We don't have direct evidence of what the textiles look like in this area. But if you look at ancient paintings and sculptures, people were wearing very elaborate garments," Dunning said.

Dunning first explored the historic sites of the Yucatan Peninsula at age 14 when he and his older brother drove down to Mexico from Illinois.

"We took a train to the Yucatan and used public transportation to get around to the sites," Dunning said.

He applied to the University of Chicago partly because it offered a Mayan language class. Dunning returned to Mexico while in college to conduct his first field research. He's been back many times since.

UC student Thomas Ruhl works at an excavation of an ancient storage pit in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Credit: University of Cincinnati

"My interest in archaeology is in human-environment interactions, including agriculture," Dunning said.

Dunning is learning more about how ancient Maya people shaped their world to overcome challenges and take advantage of natural opportunities. Dunning's work also took him to a place called Acalan near the Gulf of Mexico.

"Roughly translated, Acalan means 'place of canoes' because it's very watery," Dunning said. "And getting around by water is far easier than any other means in that area."

Then as now the region is covered in thick tropical rainforest. Researchers have to be wary of cheeky monkeys that will throw fruit or worse from the treetops. Carr said one encounter left him sore for days.

"There was this aggressive spider monkey. He'd seen me a couple days earlier. And he's back shaking the trees," Carr said. "And all of a sudden, I'm lying flat on the ground. A branch hit me in the shoulder and knocked me to the ground."

Visiting archaeologists at Yaxnohcah stay at a former Army outpost that was converted into a staffed research station.

"Living conditions are actually luxurious by camping standards. You're in the field all day and you're dirty and tired. But you can take a shower. And when you're finished, someone has cooked you a meal," Carr said.

At Laguna de Terminos, UC researchers are working to collect clues about the ancient Maya before they are lost to development. Many of the wetlands are being drained or plowed up for grazing pasture.?

Dunning said ironically these low-yield pastures provide far less economic value to today's farmers than the seeming bounty of crops the ancient Maya derived from them more than 1,000 years ago. Their study warns the land-use practices are causing environmental damage to some of these valuable wetlands.

"It's a shame because the grazing isn't particularly good. The economic production from that land use is minuscule compared to what was produced by the Maya," Dunning said.

[kawuli]

Top 5 Hunger Games head canons?

okay there’s 3 worldbuilding ones and 2 character ones and lol this got long

1. District 9: Grain

That’s L I T E R A L L Y all we know about it, and that much only from the movies iirc. which is a little confusing because District 11 is “agriculture” and so uh. grain production isn’t agriculture now? what?

So basically I decided D11 is HORTICULTURE: fruit and vegetables, tree crops, anything that takes a lot of hand labor. That seems to match with what we get in the books/movies, although I think the movies have cotton there? But whatever, when it comes to worldbuilding and logistics I ignore most of what the movies do, because they are terrible at worldbuilding. The books bother me less because they’re close-POV and not really TRYING to make a coherent world? But the movies try just enough to annoy me.

A N Y W A Y

The (very limited) fanon I’ve seen about D9 assumes everything is low-tech, some even have draft animals and plows.

But the way I figure, farmers are ornery independent pains in the ass for totalitarian governments, so you actually want as few of them as possible. My D9 history starts with having a bunch of scattered towns called Depots, and each Depot was responsible for cultivating a shit ton of land, with really high level mechanization.

And then during the Dark Days the Depots were like FUCK YOU and stopped shipping out grain and they could still feed themselves so seriously, fuck you.

At which point they re-organized, so the Depots have like one or two families who keep an eye on things and do mid-season operations like pesticide spraying or whatever, and then there’s ~8 person crews who travel up and down the District for planting and harvesting.

Nobody gets to see each other much during the growing season, and in the winter the crews stay in closely monitored barracks and are charged unreasonable amounts of money for food and lodging.

I sometimes describe it as an agrarian cyberpunk dystopia, because I like the sound of that.

(there’s fic of this that (unusually for my HGs fic) has no major trigger warnings)

2. The Map

I am a sucker for maps, so I made one that’s actually georeferenced and stuff. The blue line is North America with a 50m sea level rise. The red lines are railroad lines, based on existing rail lines, and the black dots are towns. The Lionsgate movie map is just wrong, okay, I will accept many other headcanons for map things, but theirs is just incorrect. This one is based roughly on current ecosystems and industries, if you want a really fucking long explanation I can provide one.

3. District 6: Transportation

This is another one that just…the book and movie descriptions of what industries happen where just…no, that doesn’t work, sorry. So in my D6 they build and maintain trains and hovercraft, and the train crews work out of D6. There’s also automotive factories, and general steel manufacturing (so for structural steel, plumbing fixtures, what have you). There are iron mines up in what’s now the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and coal comes in from D12 to big smelters.

Because I started writing D6 fic while I was in Mali, and because Detroit area has a huge Muslim population, I decided there’s still some Islamic influences, plus West African ones because I can.

There’s lots of D6 fic on my AO3 too but for one, it’s A Lot, and for another it’s kind of Here Be Dragons but this is a good place to start (my OC Rokia from D6′s Games) and it’s... probably not any worse than the books?

(See also this entire tag for worldbuilding stuff: LJ for comments / DW xposts )

4. I have A Lot of Johanna Mason Feelings, but most of my headcanons for her are SUPER DEPRESSING especially in canon...

In the canon divergence reality I prefer to live in where not all the Victors are killed, she reluctantly moves to D4 because Finnick kept bugging her until she agreed (as she’d say... she actually likes the idea but “I’m going to D4 because I want to” is not really something she can deal with so she’ll blame him).

It’s Bad for a good long while but eventually she makes actual friends, and I have some very self-indulgent almost-fluff somewhere where she meets a guy who doesn’t know she’s a Victor (at first, she tells him later and he’s like “oh, okay”) and they have a relationship punctuated by Johanna’s completely panicking over the idea of actually caring about/relying on/trusting??????? someone??????????? but they work it out eventually.

5. Finnick is kind of an asshole and that’s why I like him. Also, he and Annie have sex extremely rarely and that’s fine with both of them. Annie and Mags are his People, he’s really not at all sure why they like him/put up with him, but they do? (Annie is like “you dumbass, of course I like you, you bring me cookies and give excellent hugs and put up with my shit, now SIT DOWN, you’ve been running around nonstop for like a week”) So of course when he (thinks he’s) lost both of them forever he shuts down, what the hell is he supposed to do?

Also canon can suck it, he and Annie and their munchkin have a little house on the beach and he is absolutely in awe that this is his life now. Even if some weeks he and Annie are just functional enough to keep the kid fed and clothed and occupied, with some help from their families... it’s still a miracle

[soilhealthinstitute-blog]

Soil Health Institute

Soil Pollution Causes and Effects

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[mst3kproject]

517: Beginning of the End

When I think of the kind of movie that belonged on MST3K, Beginning of the End checks all the boxes: it’s got a silly premise, a lousy script, bad acting, laughable special effects, obvious stock footage all over the place, continuity errors galore… and of course, Bert I. Gordon, the garbage king of bug movies!  I couldn’t possibly ask for more, whether I’m watching with Mike and the bots or all on my lonesome.

Somehow the town of Ludlow, deep in the mountains of Illinois (this movie takes place in an alternate universe), has been utterly destroyed overnight!  Reporter Audrey Aimes takes up the story and it leads her to a lab where Dr. Ed Wainwright and Dr. Frank Johnson are using radiation to grow giant vegetables.  Turns out, a swarm of locusts ate some of the super-crops, causing them to grow to enormous size, and now they’re on the move looking for prey!  Will the government be forced to nuke Chicago in order to destroy them, or can Wainwright and Aimes find another way before it’s too late?

Wikipedia has far more information on how they worked with the insects in this movie than I ever wanted to know.  Apparently Gordon bought a box of grasshoppers from Texas, after some poor bastard from the Department of Agriculture carefully went through all two hundred or so to make sure they were all males and therefore couldn’t breed.  Then I guess somebody forgot to feed the bugs on their way to California, because they ate each other.  The reason you never see more than a handful in any given shot, despite the characters talking about swarms of the things, is because those were the battle-scarred survivors.

The idea of growing giant food in order to end world hunger is something I’ve seen in a couple of different movies from this era, and it always makes me snicker a little.  For one thing, it’s misguided: people don’t starve because there’s not enough food, but because either they can’t afford it, or it can’t get to them.  For another, it’s monstrously impractical: what are you going to do with a tomato that looks like it should be sitting outside a Target?  How will you transport it?  What will you make with it?  What happens to the leftovers?

My theory is that Wainwright said ‘end world hunger’ in order to secure funding – his actual motive is simply to grow bigger tomatoes, perhaps to show up some neighbor who took home a prize at the county fair every year and then gloated about it, no matter how hard the Wainwright family worked on their garden.  I like this idea because it lets me picture Peter Graves bent over a Mad Scientist Kool-Aid Bar, muttering things like, “I’ll show you, Mr. Williams.  I’ll show you.”

Leo G. Carroll, on the other hand, just really liked tarantulas and wanted one big enough to sleep at the foot of the bed.

Time to talk about the actual movie, though.  It’s got a number of things in it that I really like.  For one, there’s no drawing out of the ‘nobody believes in the giant grasshoppers’ thing.  In a lot of movies, the soldiers sent to investigate the grain elevator would have found nothing at all.  In The Beginning of the End, they encounter giant insects almost right away, saving us from a lot of pointless dawdling around.  I can think of half a dozen movies that would have done well to follow this example!  Their plan to destroy the giant bugs is pleasantly free of technobabble or bullshit like ‘mesonic atoms’, though I would dearly like to know how they actually captured that giant grasshopper and got it into the building.  The script also gets around the problem of a monster that can easily be heard coming by establishing that victim Dr. Johnson is deaf.  No Tiptoeing Tyrannosaur Syndrome here!

Furthermore, both the disabled Johnson and the woman-in-a-man’s-job Aimes are mostly treated with respect – even the military men standing in Aimes’ way remark on how she’s at the top of her field.  Captain Parker invites her to hang around because he trusts her to make the army look good in a situation where they could easily be accused of shady dealing and coverup.  Johnson and Wainwright have their own separate areas of expertise and each pays attention to what is appropriate for his, and Johnson’s disability never gets in the way of his job.  The dialogue implies that Wainwright went out and learned sign language just so he could continue working with Johnson after his accident, which speaks eloquently to the depth of their bond without any clunky lines about how ‘he’s also my best friend’.

The mental image I described above, of Graves muttering over his revenge tomatoes, sounds pretty mad-sciencey, doesn’t it?  That’s another kind of neat thing Beginning of the End has going on – the character of Ed Wainwright actually fits the part of mad scientist very well.  He’s a man working in secret in the middle of nowhere with a disabled assistant.  They Tamper in God’s Domain, creating things nature never intended, which escape their control and run off to break stuff.  That could be a description of Victor Frankenstein, in his lonely castle making a monster with Igor the hunchback!  Beginning of the End tones everything in the scenario down from the gothic to the everyday, the castle to a garden shed and so forth, but all the elements are still present, and nobody is more aware of this than Wainwright himself.  When asked if he ‘bred’ the locusts, he replies, “in a sense, I did.”

The difference is in how Wainwright responds to the monsters he has created.  Dr. Frankenstein is so horrified by what he has made that he disavows all responsibility for it.  Wainwright, on the other hand, immediately steps up and takes responsibility.  Throughout the rest of the film we see that he feels keenly responsible for the existence of the grasshoppers and for every single life they take – not only his friend and partner Dr. Johnson, but complete strangers as well.  If the army is forced to nuke Chicago, he will consider this, too, his own fault.  He stays in the city not only in the hope of finding a solution, but because he truly believes that if Chicago has to go then he deserves to go with it.

I like this idea, of a mad scientist realizing he’s a mad scientist and trying to deal with it.  It’s got a Manhattan Project, I am become Death vibe to it that could have been really interesting and relevant to the 50’s Atomic Age zeitgeist.  Sadly, I think it comes far more out of how Graves plays the character than how Fred Freiburger and Lester Gorn wrote him.  The biggest problem is that none of the other characters recognize Wainwright’s self-destructive guilt for what it is.  Aimes, who is supposed to have fallen in love with him, offers to stay in Chicago at his side until the bitter end – I think this is supposed to be a romantic ‘die-in-each-other’s-arms’ gesture, except that mutual suicide is not romantic and a far more caring and natural thing to do would be to find this man a therapist!

What Bert I. Gordon himself actually seems to have been trying to accomplish was adapting H. G. Well’s The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth.  I suspect this was Gordon’s favourite book – he would use it for inspiration again in 1965’s Village of the Giants and 1976’s Food of the Gods.  In the book, scientists create a ‘superfood’ that causes anything that consumes it to grow to six or seven times normal size – unfortunately, this effect is passed on to anything that eats the giant animals and plants, and so forth.  Wells’ book was social satire, exploring the problems created by unchecked population growth in Victorian England.  Gordon, however, is much more interested in the story's relatively minor motif of an infestation of giant pests, and in his favourite bit of movie magic, making small things look big.

Beginning of the End does note that the grasshoppers aren’t the first bug to get into the experimental farm, and this makes me wonder if he had a series of sequels planned.  If so, it’s a pity he didn’t get to make them.  I would give blood to see that giant snail movie.

As an attempt at a good movie, Beginning of the End tries some interesting things and even though it fails you can see enough of the outlines to have an idea what it was getting at.  As a bad movie, it succeeds spectacularly!  Despite what Dr. Forrester said about it picking up just before the end, it’s not badly-paced.  The opening sequence with the destruction of Ludlow tries to create a sense of mystery, and once the clues are lined up it doesn’t waste time on people not believing in what the audience has already seen.  There’s lots of grasshopper action and it’s all appealingly ridiculous.  The one that wanders off the side of a building into empty space is a classic, but there’s also that ludicrous moment when the grasshopper appears to be spying on the woman who just got out of the shower.  Nor can we forget poor Dr. Johnson trying to scream as the giant bugs close in on him!

Beginning of the End is everything I enjoy about Bert I. Gordon movies.  It’s made with love, by people who are terribly proud of what they’ve created even if it really didn’t amount to much.  I honestly don’t think Gordon cared whether his movies got good reviews just so long as they entertained people.  Some filmmakers whose work as featured on MST3K, like Joe Don Baker or Sandy Frank, were bitter about it for years, but I suspect Gordon absolutely loved that the show brought his work to a bigger audience.  I really need to get on with seeing more of his stuff for Episodes that Never Were, and I hope it features in Season 12, as well.

[agritecture]

Urban Agriculture: Can It Feed Our Cities?

CONTENT SOURCED FROM FOOD+CITY

New Jersey has been known since the late 19th century as the Garden State. But today its 12th largest city, Camden, is anything but lush and green. It is the country’s poorest city — an astonishing 42 percent of the population lives below the poverty line — and one of the country’s most dangerous. A recent Rolling Stone profile of the city began: “The first thing you notice about Camden, New Jersey, is that pretty much everyone you talk to has just gotten his or her ass kicked.”

And yet.

A small food economy is blossoming in Camden. AeroFarms, an indoor agriculture firm, plans to break ground as early as this year on a 78,000-square-foot vertical farm that would grow 12 stories of red-leaf lettuce, kale, bok choy and more.

Meanwhile, more than 100 of the city’s thousands of vacant lots have been transformed into community gardens. In 2009, at the dawn of enthusiasm for urban farming and during the last available year data were collected, gardeners at 44 sites harvested almost 31,000 pounds of vegetables. Had it not been an unusually wet and cold summer, it might have been more.

It’s all very inspiring: Whizz-bang technology that offers healthier food and much-needed jobs. Communities taking charge of their food destiny in a place that the almighty market has neglected. (Camden, population 77,000, has just one supermarket within its city limits.) But it’s not only struggling cities that see the promise of urban farming.

Urban agriculture — which by definition includes indoor farms, rooftop and backyard gardens, community plots and edible landscapes — is often hailed as a solution to daunting global challenges. It addresses climate change by allowing food to be grown close to home, rather than hauled thousands of miles. It could affect obesity and chronic disease by making healthy options more available. And urban farming could help feed a quickly growing world population, because many of the predicted 9 billion people on the planet (by 2050) are increasingly headed to cities.

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION?

But can urban farming sustainably feed cities? A close look under the agri-hood suggests that it’s a lot more complicated than advertised.

For starters, let’s examine the history. The Industrial Revolution quickly and dramatically severed ties between consumers and the farmers who grew their food. Efficient train networks transported food more rapidly, from farther away, and more people moved away from rural areas to cities for work in factories. Since then, there have been regular waves of enthusiasm for urban gardening in the West, motivated by social reformers, who made a moral connection between the land and healthy living, or by the innate human desire for self-sufficiency.

To wit: One of the Salvation Army’s first initiatives in late 19th-century London was “farm colonies” designed to help city folks feed themselves. Beginning in the 20th century, Israel’s early Zionists created thousands of small urban farms. But the only examples of urban farming feeding substantial numbers of people occur when there is little other choice.

In Israel, urban farms soon gave way to rural kibbutzim (collectives based around agriculture). The United States saw Americans plant more than 5 million household plots during World War I and 20 million in World War II. Those 1940s victory gardens produced 9 million pounds of produce each year — what amounted to 44 percent of the U.S. harvest. (Read more about how people cope with food shortages during wartime in our story about rations.) But when the war ended, citizens largely abandoned their gardens and returned to the convenience of shopping at the supermarket.

HIGH-TECH FARMING

Proponents of urban farming say this time could be different. Besides the global challenges of climate change and population, there is wide consumer demand for locally grown food. Moreover, technology that makes urban farming more productive and more sustainable could tip the balance. The technologies include lightweight beds that can be stacked, efficient LED lights and hydroponics and aeroponics, by which plants grow without soil and fed a calculated diet of nutrients by water circulating beneath them.

“By some estimates, we will need 50 percent more food by 2050,” says David Rosenberg, CEO of AeroFarms. “We need transformational changes. Vertical farming does more with less.”

A decade ago, not even one of these so-called vertical farms existed. Today, there are dozens of them — one in Singapore, one in a former bomb shelter in London and one in Japan, built by researchers to provide safe food after the devastating Fukushima earthquake in 2011. That farm, formerly a semiconductor factory, now produces 10,000 heads of lettuce per day.

AeroFarms operates nine vertical farms. Its largest, in Newark, 90 miles northeast of Camden, produces 2 million pounds of leafy greens each year. The 70,000-square-foot complex is a poster child for futuristic farming. Inside, so-called grow tables are stacked 12 levels high and enveloped by a glow of pink LED light. (Plants, it turns out, require little from the yellow part of the light spectrum, which requires greater amounts of power to produce.)

Rosenberg sees AeroFarms less as an agricultural producer than as a data-science company, delving into the intersection of plant biology and engineering with the goal of controlling every aspect of growing and maximizing efficiency.

“We take data on plants and understand what makes them grow,” he explains. “You can’t do it this way in the field. There are too many unknowns.”

AeroFarms’ vertical gardens grow under energy-efficient LED lights and use up to 70 percent less water, compared with more traditional soil-based or horizontal farming. Its largest facility, in Newark, New Jersey, produces 2 million pounds of leafy greens each year, which don’t have to travel far to reach urban markets. Despite these efficiencies, critics of vertical farming say using electricity rather than renewable sunlight doesn’t add up for high-volume production. (Photo courtesy Aerofarms) 

RESOURCE CONSERVATION: PROS AND CONS

The biggest boon of vertical growing may be water conservation. Drive through California’s Salinas Valley, where the vast majority of America’s salad greens are grown, and you’ll see hundreds of sprinklers shooting great arcs of water across the fields. Some of that is used by the plants, but much is lost to evaporation and runoff.

In contrast, hydroponic and aeroponic systems give the plants only the water they need, and it is recirculated through the system. On average, indoor farms and greenhouses use at least 70 percent less water than traditionally farmed lettuce in California.

There are other benefits, too. The produce doesn’t have to travel — unlike the lettuces that journey as far as 2,800 miles if they are shipped from coast to coast. This all but eliminates the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with transport, though those are only a fraction of the total associated with producing food. (Read more about greenhouse gases tied to food waste in our feature on page 18.) And because they are fresher, the greens last longer in consumers’ refrigerators, which means less lettuce thrown away because it’s gone bad before it could be eaten.

No wonder vertical farms are catnip to technology investors looking for the next big disruptor. According to AgFunder, in 2016 funders poured $126 million into indoor agriculture- related startups (including things like lighting and software). But critics say that the environmental benefits of indoor farms don’t add up.

For one, to grow even a fraction of the fruits and vegetables needed to feed cities would take vast amounts of space. According to one analysis, it would require a 150-foot-by-150-foot, 37-story building to provide the vegetables for a city of just 15,000. This would cost $250 million to build and $7 million in electricity to run annually.

Indoor farms also fail to take advantage of a free and renewable source of energy: the sun. “If you’re not taking advantage of the sunlight, then the process will inherently involve excess energy consumption and carbon emissions,” says Stan Cox, a researcher at the Land Institute in Salinas, Kansas.

Substituting electricity for sunlight is costly. Using current technology, the equation just about works out for leafy greens, which are 90 to 95 percent water and don’t require as much light to grow. But do the math on denser fruits and vegetables or other crops — carrots, potatoes or wheat — and the amount of power required to grow them soars. According to Cox, it takes about 1,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity for each kilogram of edible matter (excluding the water stored inside). Or to put it another way: You need the same amount of electricity to grow one kilogram of tomatoes as you do to run your home refrigerator for an entire year.

“The claim of indoor farming is that we can spare the land by getting rid of industrial farming,” Cox says. “But of course, this vision uses more industrial inputs than anything done on the landscape.”

AeroFarms’ Rosenberg counters that lighting technology is getting ever more efficient. And though he concedes that indoor farming may look industrial, it addresses major challenges including the depletion of arable land, water pollution and conservation: “We don’t use soil. We don’t use pesticides. We use a fraction of the water that field farms do. We have a much softer footprint.”

In sunlit greenhouses on the outskirts of urban areas where land is more plentiful, BrightFarms raises greens and tomatoes using hydroponics — a system in which plants grow directly atop pools of fortified water. These and other crops like strawberries, cucumbers and peppers benefit from growing near where they’ll be consumed, a selling point for cities that have an urban-adjacent BrightFarms facility nearby. But hydroponic agriculture isn’t the right fit for all crops; apples, for instance, store well and travel more easily than delicate tomatoes, making traditional orchards a better option, for now. (Photo by Chelsea Clough) 

GREENHOUSE GROWING

An even softer footprint comes from other types of commercial urban and peri-urban farms that use greenhouses. Take BrightFarms, which operates three commercial greenhouses and sells directly to grocery stores in seven states and the District of Columbia.

BrightFarms uses hydroponics, which means that trays of greens grow atop vast ponds. But rather than place its farms in cities, where land is generally more limited (and much more expensive), it locates its greenhouses just outside of urban areas. With more space, it is not necessary to stack plants to turn a profit. The use of hydroponics also means that the farms can be, well, horizontal — and take advantage of (free) sunlight.

Today, the crops that make commercial sense for hydroponic farming are greens and tomatoes, says BrightFarms CEO Paul Lightfoot. Both crops travel long distances, unless you live on the West Coast. Both too are highly perishable and sell for a premium price. And, as anyone who has eaten a winter tomato knows, these crops benefit from being grown closer to home.

One day, Lightfoot hopes that BrightFarms will expand to other crops that meet the same criteria: strawberries, peppers and cucumbers. But there are limits to what he can produce. BrightFarms, he says, will never be able to compete on a crop like apples, which grow in many geographic areas, store well and travels easily. They will always be cheaper and more sustainably grown in the field.

In a hydroponic set-up, plants get the nutrients they need through irrigation water. The process eliminates soil and increases yield. For this process to be successful, ventilation and temperature modulation are key. Solar panels provide renewable energy to power irrigation pumps and ventilation systems, and rainwater is captured in roof tanks for use as irrigation in dry periods. Water is constantly recirculated in a hydroponic system, wasting none. Illustration by Ellaphant in the Room.

CLOSING THE GAP

Commercial farms, of course, do not have to produce everything. Could community, rooftop and backyard gardens make up the difference? According to a 2016 report from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, the answer is no. While a significant proportion of fresh produce needs could theoretically be met in some places, it would only work in those locations if urban farms are widely implemented and focus on intensive forms of production such as rooftop gardens.

To feed Cleveland, for example, 80 percent of every vacant lot (of which there are many), 62 percent of industrial and commercial rooftops, and 9 percent of every occupied residential lot would have to be put into food production. Those are daunting numbers before you even consider practical constraints such as property values, infrastructure limitations and zoning regulations.

Urban agriculture’s limits do not make it a failure. Community, rooftop and backyard gardens make significant impacts in the lives of the people who tend them, and give poor communities like Camden access to fresh, free food.

Dominic Vitiello, a professor of city planning and urban studies at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied urban farming in cities including Camden, concludes that in the United States, perhaps urban farming’s greatest potential is to effect “inside-out” community revitalization. Urban farming offers opportunities for social enterprise and supplemental income for low-income families. It also helps to build and sustain vital social networks that go unmeasured by traditional economic-development research.

In other words, urban farming may not feed a city like Camden. But its gardens can help rejuvenate the city and make it a worthy representative of the Garden State.

[suntharavadivu12]

“Agriculture that works for future” is the motto of RCET, the top engineering college in Kanyakumari district.

Agricultural Engineering (also known as Agricultural and Bio systems Engineering) is the field of study and application of engineering science and designs principles for agriculture purposes, combining the various disciplines of mechanical, civil, electrical food science, environmental software and chemical engineering to improve the efficiency of farms and agribusiness enterprises as well as to ensure sustainability of natural and renewable resources. Agriculture industry plays an important role in India as it provides employment to the major section of the Indian population. Agriculture Engineering is a technologically sophisticated field that offers bright career prospects and opportunity in any country around the world, and in various sectors. Some of the higher study options for the B.Tech graduates in agriculture are: M.Tech in Agricultural Engineering , M.Tech in Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, M.Tech in Renewable Energy, M.Tech in Crop Production, M.Sc in Rural Technology, PhD in Agri-Informatics, PhD in Rural Technology

Well-paid careers are available for qualified agricultural engineers in government and public sector organisations, agribusiness firms, food processing and retail industry, research organisations and laboratories, banks and financial corporations, central and state government organisations and private firms.

How is B.E. Agricultural Engineering Course Beneficial? 

·The ever-growing concerns regarding environmental protection are opening new avenues for agricultural engineers.

·Students after attaining a B.E. (Agriculture Engineering) degree can work in a variety of settings, including government environmental organisations, private consulting firms and agricultural machinery manufacturers.

·The degree course in agricultural engineering combines the knowledge of mechanical, civil, and chemical engineering which aids in designing and improving agricultural systems, equipment, and tools, thereby helping farmers to increase crop production while lowering costs.

·The degree course also equips its students to focus on the impacts of farming practices on the environment and develop means to reduce pollution and restore the damaged ecosystems.

                      RCET, the Top Agricultural Engineering College

Employment Opportunities for Agricultural Engineer 

The employment opportunities in this area are challenging and very interesting. This field is suitable for those who are interested in agriculture. There is a lot of potential for agricultural engineers, they can work as technical experts on engineering projects in banks and financial corporations. After becoming an engineer they can also establish their own small unit or consultancy. There is a good scope for getting employment opportunities in the government and private sector. Agricultural Engineers are required in the following sectors:

·         Non-government voluntary organisations

·         NC Department of Transportation

·         NC Department of Agriculture

·         Departments of Agricultural Engineering

·         Tea gardens

·         Farming Industry Consultants

·         Area development projects

·         Agricultural machinery manufacturing organisations

·         Dairy, food, agro industries

·         Agricultural finance corporations

·         Processing agricultural products

·         Minor irrigation projects

·         Agricultural Universities

·         Consultancies

·         Manufacturing agricultural implements

·         Recruiting Companies

·         Water management 

Top Recruiting Organisations/Companies for Agricultural Engineers 

Take a look at these organisations/ companies which hire Agricultural Engineers:

·         Mother Dairy 

·         Amul Dairy

·          ITC

·          Nestle India

·          NABARD

·          Agricultural Commodities Processors

·          Indian Council of Agricultural Research

·          PRADAN

·          Food Corporation of India

·          Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

·          National Seeds Corporation

·          National Dairy Development Board 

Pros of becoming a Agricultural Engineer 

·         Abundant job opportunities worldwide.

·         Permanent jobs with fixed working hours and salary.

·         A career in agricultural engineer has great earning potential and rate of growth. 

Agricultural Engineering in RCET 

Rohini College of Engineering and Technology, the top engineering college in Kanyakumari district, has a B.E. in Agriculture.  The college is known for its teaching style and placements in the college. Renowned in other engineering disciplines, Rohini Engineering and Technology College easily turns young people into agricultural engineering.

The department of Agriculture Engineering was established with a motive to bridge the gap between agriculture and technology. The department vows to update and equip the students with the latest skill and knowledge to develop and promote a sustainable organic agriculture for global development. RCET, the best engineering college in Kanyakumari district train the students to apply engineering technologies in agriculture, perform innovative research to help the overall development of the farming community and thus helping to meet out the global food demands. 

RCET, the best engineering college in Kanyakumari district believe in work not by words.The college Provides Very  good library and Well equipped Labs & Workshops.The Faculties are highly experienced in Agriculture field’s and help to mould students to become a Agriculture Engineer. RCET, the best engineering college in Kanyakumari district has a Student Friendly atmosphere.  

As RCET, the best engineering college in Kanyakumari district launches this new course, it is clear that it aims at a number of practical applications that will help students excel in their future. 

[davidanderson7162]

Crucial Truths Regarding Land Cleaning You Should Recognize

Whatever land endeavor you're mosting likely to take, it is very vital to consider the appropriate means of having the area cleaned. For many years, land cleaning legislations have actually been passed and strictly executed across the globe as an outcome of various adverse effects to land problem such as dirt disintegration, dryland salinity, biodiversity, logging, and even climate change.Land Grading

What is land cleaning?

Land cleaning, as defined these days, is not simply the elimination of trees and also other vegetation in a location to lead the way for various other land uses like farming or urbanization. With the guidelines on such task, the term can currently be specified as the liable approach of eliminating challenges such as trees, stumps, bushes, and also rocks from a specific location to improve farming operation or to suit urban growths.

The job also entails the efficient administration of reduce, additionally called harvest residue, or the great woody debris such as needles, branches, or log chucks that have actually been created after logging operations.

What are the methods of land clearing?

There are various methods executed as well as each differs according to the type and also quantity of reduce to be cleansed or gotten rid of. Consequently, you ought to likewise recognize the appropriate means of managing slash, whether you need to pile, melt, or spread them. When it comes to cleaning, there are normally 3 methods.

Handbook Cleaning

This is additionally known as hand clearing as it requires the use of hands with tools like axes, hoes, as well as cutlasses. While this is taken into consideration the best as well as the most affordable approach, it only works pretty well with smaller sized and also much less woody locations. Otherwise, then it can be very lengthy and expensive.

Mechanical Clearing

This technique is normally excellent for larger locations where hefty makers like bulldozers are utilized to remove the area in simply a short quantity of time. Provider will typically have the best equipment for sure areas with rocks and also rocks along with makers for pushing over trees, removing roots as well as even stumps.

Chemical Clearing up

This approach is generally used for soil preparation as well as planting. Chemicals are used, either through overall chemical spray or airborne chemical spray, to remove weeds and also make the soil ideal for growing crops.

Factors you ought to seek land clearing up solutions:

With the intricacy this task provides, it is highly suggested that only the right professionals have to do it.

Some Kinds Of Land Clearing Devices That You Must Know

Usually, removing land is really crucial point to eliminate rocks, trees, shrubbery as well as particles. This point is typically done by a commercial developer or a homeowner. There are some factors for doing this. Among them is to make an area for vegetable garden or for building a complicated for home. Regardless create those points, there is selection of devices used to do this work.

Hand tools These tools are used by do-it-yourselves who wish to clear their land. In this matter, the devices are normally made use of for horticulture or yard work. A few of hand tolls for clearing land are loppers, pruners, hand saws, shovels, pickaxes, rakes as well as hoes. Nevertheless, each device has its function so that a person need to choose the appropriate device before doing the land-clearing task.

Excavators Excavators are pieces of equipment that are utilized in huge land-clearing requirements. These are among one of the most pieces of equipment that are usually utilized. For land-clearing requirements, there are lots of attachments that can be attached in these tools to make the job easily. A few of the accessories are a root rake to eliminate shribs and also shrubs as well as a heavy-duty rake to eliminate little trees, rocks as well as stumps.

Excavators Excavators are other pieces of equipment that are typically made use of for land-clearing demands. These machines are normally made use of in bigger applications. As the excavators, there are some accessories that can be affixed in these makers to make sure that the machines can be used properly. Grapples are the attachments that make these machines get to, grab onto and also remove little trees, brush and also logs. Other accessories are stump pullers for getting rid of stumps as well as heavy-duty rakes for collecting rocks before they are filled right into trucks.

Home Advancement Land Clearing Choices

Eco-friendly Land Clearing

Obsolete land clearing procedures are becoming practices of the past. Newer and preferred approaches have actually come and are promptly winning support. Separate aspects are in charge of these adjustments.

Primary, the dated conventional methods rips and scars the land, disturbing topsoil and triggering injury to bordering lumber. For the property owner this causes big refuse heaps which demands greater money investment if they select to throw away these piles. Due to landfill (tipping) costs skyrocketing and also the rising cost of gas straight drives the cost.

Secondly shed constraints, ecological approaches as well as additionally control over injury to the landscape comes into play. The last yield is extremely more desirable as well as budget-friendly with these as much as date procedures.

When these two treatments are evaluated environmentally friendly land clearing has a noticeable desired result over the previous standard approaches. Underbrush and also little seedlings are ground up, which deposits all the nutrients afterwards to restore the dirt. In addition the root system is left in position which assistants in the control of erosion. This technique is so helpful that it is liked in various applications where the old orthodox design is unlawful, such as close-by present water resources. Obsolete procedures are called for to permit a pre-defined padding between where they clear as well as the water source. Nevertheless the mulch land cleaning procedure has no such constraint and can get rid of right to the limit of these water resources.

Taking all these factors to consider right into factor to consider mulch land clearing has a massive advantage over bulldozing and also shedding or transporting the rubbish to the garbage dump. With the even more modern-day mulch land clearing process, burning, transporting to the landfill, reduction of woodland fire fuels and scaring the countryside are all nearly gotten rid of. All this substantially drops the cost of land cleaning.

Landowner bewares because on the impression each method would certainly seem to value regarding the exact same. When you explore even more right into it you figure out that there are hidden investments related to the old traditional method.

Lately there have actually been numerous areas that have had forest fires during periods of draught. Ranch owners such as Government, land Organizations and individuals would certainly profit considerably from the reduction of fuels such as underbrush. This would certainly damage the chance of fire and in various scenarios entirely terminate the growth of fire. The new clearing techniques can stop underbrush fuel to mulch, which consequently decreases the hazard of fire.

Land Cleaning - The Issue With Land Clearing

A huge issue in today's contemporary culture is the amount of land offered to the world for growing crops as well as supporting pets for food (such as livestock and lamb). This amount of land is currently inadequate to sustain the food needs of the world's population. The primary reasons for this trouble is urbanization and also land clearing for financial development.

Clearing the land has a variety of adverse effects on the community. One issue that arises when you change woodlands or wetlands with agriculture or growth is soil erosion. In some instances clouds of dirt can be seen blowing right into the wind over farmland and also this causes the top soil to go away. This leaves the land with fewer nutrients and also less of an ability to soak up rainfall, which can create flooding.

Another trouble occurs when you remove the land it gets rid of systems of woodlands and also various other plants that would certainly otherwise use and also store carbon dioxide in the environment. This minimizes the Planet's capacity to deal with greenhouse gases.

Due to the fact that individuals no more create their own food and garments, food and various other vital items need to be transported right into communities and also cities. This creates a huge rise in energy consumption used for transportation.

In order to create the food required for expanding populaces, mass farming techniques are called for. This triggers a breakdown in the family members farm. These household farms are being change by large company entities that can pay for as well as utilize automation.

Ultimately, the last problem that can occur with land clearing is the quantity of waste that has to be dealt with in metropolitan areas at the population rises. As individuals become separated from the land that supports them, their issue regarding lowering waste reductions.

[farmingblogs]

General Hydroponics – Grow indoor-Grow outdoor

Spot: The plantation may and may be somewhat nearer to the end consumer, diminishing the carbon footprint of shipping and delivery and increasing the warmth of the item. Since there isn't any reliance upon land fertility, this type of growing can be accomplished everywhere.Utilize much less distance: With stackedvertical or vertical techniques, the return per squarefoot considerably raises. It really is crucial in order to cultivate enough food to growing populations without having to enlarge farmland to wetlands, forests, or other major all-natural eco systems.Simply putthis can be floating plants onto recirculating water. You can find various tactics to do it but often it's done on styrofoam insulation boards (4ft x 8ft). By drilling tapered (conical) holes at the planks to the size of the growing press you select, you are able to drop on your germinated plant plus it won't collapse through. 

The roots are wrapped at about 6 to 18 inches of a well-oxygenated nutrient option until harvest. It truly is best to get short-statured leafy greens and greens since they do not demand much root aid. DWC methods often hold a large volume of water slowing any swings in the chemistry of their answer. In addition, when there's a pump malfunction in a DWC technique, you'd have lots of hrs to fix it before you conducted to some critical troubles, such as the origins drying outside. Inside of greencoast hydroponics, you'll find many techniques to permit optimal personalization of an increasing functioning. Whether you are a hand-watering pastime grower, or looking to start a large commercial farm, then there's a growing technique absolutely suited for the goals. And also the ideal part is that you do not need to pick just one single! With enough distance, you can use any or all of these techniques in tandem.Deep H2o CultivationExtended Water Cultivation We are all aware that crops grow from dirt but, what's soil? Very well, it's obviously our abundant increasing moderate, but it also has that the regular macro and micronutrients required for plant growth. When drinking water travels by way of soil, it chooses people nutrients with it into the plant roots. In soilless agriculture, such as hydroponics, we only send the exact same nutrients that happen to be pre-mixed to a water reservoir, along side elevated levels of oxygen, efficiently for the plant roots. 

There's therefore far to unpack when it regards soilless agriculture, this post is going to mainly concentrate on the standard hydroponics nutrientscultivation methods you may use, their own advantages, and a very little about aquaponics and organic and natural techniques.Quicker expansion: Much much more optimized eating strategy means additional increase cycles per year, more yield, far additional foodstuff.Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA):'' CEA can be just a procedure of agriculture that optimizes the warmth, humidity, airflow, and also light within at the growing environment of the farm. Growers functioning making use of greenhouses or in-door perpendicular farms can cause optimal growing conditions 365 days a year, anywhere in the world. That is often how soilless agriculture is put on. Rising in a managed atmosphere also enormously improves a farm's capability to predict harvest time, and grow high excellent plants, also continue maintaining high food security expectations. No birds traveling over head or critters burrowing in the area, and dyes may be averted. Most CEA farms use integrated pest control (predatory bugs) to either check or deal with any pest control problems. Weather is not going to alter the farm's capability to make, however energy usage will soon be higher compared to normal farms (because of lighting and HVAC).

Extreme reduction in water and nutrient usage: By simply shutting the loop and recycling the water through the device, sunset hydroponics typically employs at least 90% less water compared to soil-based methods. So much of the water and nutrients are wasted over traditional external land farms since merely a small segment of this makes it to the roots, and also the others winds up in the local water source.Nutrient Film TechniqueBenefits of Soilless AgricultureExtended Water Culture (DWC)Types of TechniquesThis versatile technique employs channels or troughs, set up on a minor angle for both drainage functions, also conducting a exact shallow stream of plain water into the roots. This is done over a timer or even using a continuous flow. The solution would be held at the lowest level in a reservoir which has a submersible pump and generally air stones to get ideal dissolved oxygen ranges and stagnation prevention. After the water flow the roots, then it drains into the reservoir. NFT is ideal to get short-statured plants such as DWC, however these approaches require not as much water per plant and also tend to be somewhat more easily transportable, cleanable, and flexible for the grow room.

[orbemnews]

Why India’s Farmers Fight to Save a Broken System BHAGWANPURA, India — The farmer sat in the house his grandfather built, contemplating economic ruin. Jaswinder Singh Gill had plowed 20 years of savings from an earlier career as a mechanical engineer into his family’s nearly 40-acre plot in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab, just a dozen miles from the border with Pakistan. He has eked rice out of the sandy, loamy soil with the help of generous government subsidies for 15 years, in hopes that his son and daughter may someday become the sixth generation to work the land. Then India suddenly transformed the way it farms. Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year pushed through new laws that would reduce the government’s role in agriculture, aimed at fixing a system that has led to huge rice surpluses in a country that still grapples with malnutrition. But the laws could make Mr. Gill’s farm and many others like it unsustainable. They would reduce the role of government-run markets for grain, which the farmers fear would eventually undermine the price subsidies that make their work possible. If that happens, the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on the land could be in jeopardy. At 56 years old, Mr. Gill doesn’t know what to do next. “How can a man restart at that age?” he said. Mr. Modi’s campaign has ignited one of the biggest and thorniest conflicts of his seven-year tenure. Farmers from Punjab and elsewhere have camped outside the capital, New Delhi, for four months in protest. The country’s Supreme Court has suspended the laws while it figures out the next steps. The government has occasionally cut off internet access for protesters and tried to suppress criticism online. At the heart of the dispute lies the subsidy system that the government, economists and even many farmers agree is broken. But Mr. Modi’s haste to remake it — his political party pushed the laws though Parliament in a matter of days — could devastate vast swaths of the country where farming remains a way of life. “Agriculture in India does need change,” said Devinder Sharma, an independent economist in Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab, “but this isn’t the way forward.” Nearly 60 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people make a living from agriculture, though the sector accounts for only about 11 percent of economic output. For many, getting another job isn’t an option. The manufacturing sector has shrunk slightly since 2012, government figures show, while the work force has swelled. “Our potential nonagricultural work force is growing very fast,” said Jayan Jose Thomas, an economist and professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “They’re all looking for jobs.” Officials in the ministry of agriculture in New Delhi did not respond to requests for comment. Unquestionably, India’s current system is outdated. It was introduced in the 1960s to stave off a famine by encouraging farmers to grow wheat and rice. It included minimum prices set by the government, helping farmers sell what they grow for a profit. “‘You produce as much as you can. Work hard,’” Mr. Gill, the farmer, said, citing the government’s instructions. “They made a solemn guarantee that they would pick up each and every grain.” The prices are fixed at government-run markets called mandis, where farmers and buyers, for a fee, can meet where grains are sun dried, stored and sold. The fees get channeled to rural infrastructure projects, farmer pensions and programs that provide free technical advice on such matters as seed and fertilizer. The system, along with improved techniques, greater use of machinery and fierce competition, increased yields. As a result, India has too much wheat and conventional rice — as compared with basmati rice — enough to fill more than 200,000 shipping containers. Subsidized rice is sold on the global market, raising hackles within the World Trade Organization. At the same time, nearly 190 million people in India are malnourished, according to the Global Hunger Index. India’s surpluses are grown in the wrong places, and the public food rations system can’t transport all of the grain to the needy before it rots. The government doesn’t buy enough nutritious crops like green leafy vegetables, lentils, chickpeas and sorghum to incentivize farmers to grow them. The imbalances don’t end there. Price supports help keep smaller farmers in business, but most don’t till enough land to turn a profit, leading to crushing debt and suicides. The subsidies encourage farmers in Punjab, a relatively dry area, to grow conventional rice, which requires a lot of water. Rice and wheat irrigation is depleting the area’s water table, according to India’s Central Groundwater Board. Mr. Gill once tried to grow basmati rice instead. More flavorful and nutritious than conventional rice, it also consumes less water, grows faster and sells at a premium on the international market. But government price rules don’t cover basmati rice. When he sold the basmati rice, Mr. Gill said, a private buyer shortchanged him. Under Mr. Modi’s plan, corporate buyers would take a much greater role in Indian agriculture because farmers would have greater power to sell their crops to private buyers outside the mandi system, which he said would lift farmer incomes and increase exports. The protests ignited because many farmers fear that the laws will eventually kill both the subsidies and the mandi system. The new laws would also make it more difficult for farmers to take their disputes with buyers to court. Farmers point to an effort 15 years ago in the state of Bihar to deregulate agriculture. Supporters say it spurred growth, but some economists and farmers in Punjab consider it a failure. Some farms in Bihar ship their harvests to Punjab’s mandis for the guaranteed prices, while many of those who lost their farms became migrant laborers in Punjab. The change in the farm laws is an example of how Mr. Modi has a penchant for quick, dramatic moves that have roiled the country. Punjab’s farmers and local officials want slower change and a shift in subsidies to support different crops. In interviews, the farmers of Bhagwanpura, population 1,620, said they feared losing their farms and having no other work. “I’m not scared of hard work,” said Rajwinder Kaur, 28. “I will do any job, but there are none.” Ms. Kaur, a widow, said her family lost most of its farm because her late husband needed to feed his drug and alcohol habit. It is only a half acre in size, compared with India’s average of about two and a half. With revenue from her grain sales, Ms. Kaur said, she and her two children can barely eat. A relative pays one child’s tuition at a local Catholic school. She is negotiating with the school to waive fees for the other. A big cut of the sales goes toward paying down her $4,100 in debt for seed and fertilizer. “I repay every six months,” she said, “but with interest, the amount never goes down.” If she loses her farm, “I will have to beg,” she said. Many of the farmers who have joined the protests have left family members to tend the land. Others pool their money to support the protests. “We feel that the struggle of Punjab is everyone’s struggle,” said Gurjant Singh, the village head, “and unless everyone contributes to that cause, the protest will not be successful.” Mr. Gill lent his 17-foot tractor-trailer and donated money and grain to those taking turns. For him, defending the farm is a family matter. His grandfather built the farmhouse after the bloody partition of Pakistan from India in 1947 forced him to flee Pakistan. The subsidies of the 1960s brought the farm prosperity, making it the largest landholding in this corner of Punjab. Since he took over the farm in 2005, Mr. Gill has plowed his savings into a smart irrigation system, built a machine to clear crop residue and invested in a pair of John Deere tractors. As he spoke, prayers from a Sikh gurdwara, or temple, bellowed through a loudspeaker across Mr. Gill’s wheat fields. “Work hard, worship the Almighty, and share the benefits with all mankind,” Mr. Gill said. “That is what is taught to us at the gurdwara every day.” His fears for the future, he said, should not hinder his work. “What’s going on here is within me,” he added, touching his heart. “I should keep it in myself.” Source link Orbem News #broken #farmers #Fight #Indias #save #system

[agritecture]

Congressional Urban Agriculture Production Act could help eliminate urban food deserts and strengthen urban ag   

CONTENT SOURCED FROM URBAN AG NEWS

To date, little has been done at the federal level to help bolster urban agriculture in cities across the US. But with agriculture currently on the agenda as the next Farm Bill reauthorization quickly approaches, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09) introduced the Urban Agriculture Production Act in September. This bipartisan bill aims to support nutritional and farmers’ market programs and help create the next generation of local, urban farmers and food producers. 

Kaptur was joined by 11 original cosponsors: Rep. John Conyers (MI-13), Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-13), Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL), Rep. Gwen Moore (WI-04), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Rep. Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA-02), Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-13), Rep. Dwight Evans (PA-02), Rep. Alma Adams (NC-12) and Rep. Don Young (AK-AL). The bill is supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and Farmers Market Coalition.

Congresswoman Kaptur (above) sat down with Urban Ag News to talk about the Urban Agriculture Production Act and the impact it could have on growers, local food retailers and urban communities.

UAN: What are the goals of the Urban Agriculture Production Act and why did you introduce the bill at this time?

Kaptur: The Urban Agriculture Production Act can serve as a marker for the next Farm Bill reauthorization. My key goals are to support small farmers and producers, work to eliminate food deserts and promote local agriculture in our nation’s metropolitan areas.

Across America, too many of our urban neighborhoods are absent of stores where community members can purchase fresh, healthy foods. There are more than 23 million individuals residing in these so-called “food desert” neighborhoods, where there are no stores within one mile in which they can buy healthy food. Without healthy options, people are forced to eat unhealthy, processed, junk food, because that is all that is available and affordable. This bill is a step to correct this unacceptable trend.

UAN: The term “urban agriculture” includes urban farms, hoop houses, aqua-culture, hydroponic and aquaponics facilities and rooftop, vertical and indoor farms. Would this also include new or existing commercial greenhouse growers who may be looking to set up production facilities in urban areas?

Kaptur: Certainly. But it is important to also note that new approaches to greenhouse growing should be re-imagined in order to manage energy and water systems through more efficient and renewable means. In urban communities like those I represent, resources are available and are waiting to be utilized. Vacant and blighted properties can be repurposed into productive sites with the installation of energy- and water-efficient commercial greenhouses. Waste heat from manufacturing operations can also be rechanneled to allow for an entirely new class of four-season growing.

Embracing such opportunities can empower new people through agriculture. Residents in urban areas could benefit from not only the jobs created, but also from the unique skills gained in food production and distribution processing.

UAN: How is the production of the food and its sales going to be coordinated? In other words, how are growers going to know that they have markets ready to handle their produce even before they grow the crops and retailers are going to be sure they have an adequate amount of produce to sell?

Kaptur: That is up to the growers, but ideally, we will have at least some venues, think farmers’ markets that are also empowered by the investments we’re making in this bill. From there, growers and producers can get a foot in the door to compete and succeed.

UAN: The Act directs the Secretary of Agriculture to establish an urban agriculture outreach program. Part of this program enables the Secretary to award grants. Would growers be eligible for these grants and what type of production and marketing activities/projects could these funds be used to finance?

Kaptur: That is one of the most exciting pieces of the legislation. Growers would be eligible for these grants. And the grants are for the following types of activities in urban or in and around urban areas:

Infrastructure, land acquisition and land conversation.

Education and training to enhance agricultural production.

The aggregation of farmer products and supplies for purposes of transportation to market.

Other activities that support urban agricultural production as determined by the Secretary of Agriclture.

UAN: Where would the money come from to operate the urban agriculture outreach program and who would oversee it?

Kaptur: Our bill authorizes Congress to allocate $50 million each year to the Department of Agriculture for the urban agriculture outreach program. It also creates an Urban Agricultural Liaison who would administer the program.

UAN: How much money will be available to initiate the urban agriculture outreach program and for how long would this funding be available? Does this amount of funding change from year to year and does it have to be appropriated annually?

Kaptur: $50 million is the amount authorized in our bill, starting in 2018 and each fiscal year thereafter. This authorizing amount does not change from year to year. We hope this money will eventually inspire other investment from businesses, nonprofits, churches and even local and state governments.

In my hometown of Toledo, for example, a local restaurant, Balance Pan-Asian Grille, is building an urban indoor aquaponics farm next door to their new location to grow the food that will be served every day. It is very exciting and ideally, our bill would help create more opportunities and the expertise for this to happen a lot more across the country.

UAN: Who will decide as to which production and marketing projects receive funding?

Kaptur: The Secretary of Agriculture will determine how the production and marketing funding is awarded based on the criteria set out the bill.

UAN: Some of these projects are eligible for grants and others are eligible for loans. Who will make the decision as to which projects receive which type of funding?

Kaptur: The Secretary of Agriculture, either as acting through the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency or any other USDA agent who he deems appropriate, will make the determination.

UAN: With the mentality of the current administration and some legislators in Washington to cut spending, what do you think are the chances of this bill passing even though it has received bipartisan support?

Kaptur: That is why we are focused on incorporating as much of our urban agriculture bill into the upcoming Farm Bill. Though it won’t be easy, this legislation is a must-pass bill, and historically has always crossed the finish line.

UAN: Will the Urban Agriculture Production Act have any connection with the upcoming 2018 Farm Bill? If so, would funding the urban agriculture outreach program and its projects have any impact on funding other programs in the upcoming 2018 Farm Bill?

Kaptur: Well, we hope so. And I am confident that other Members of Congress from both rural and urban areas alike will see the value in spurring innovation and investing in our urban agriculture infrastructure.

CONTENT SOURCED FROM URBAN AG NEWS

Be sure to write or call your Senators and Congressional Representative to let them know that you support this legislation too!

[asagriaqua]

Vertical  farming  advancements that could alter Agriculture

Many have contemplated whether vertical farming is actually the response to the lack of food on the planet. Anyway the idea of vertical farming may appear to numerous new businesses, it is a sharp strategy to deliver food in conditions where arable land is inaccessible or uncommon and no more. 

This strategy is particularly convenient for testing conditions, for example, deserts, mountainside towns, and urban areas where numerous various sorts of vegetables and organic products are developed utilizing exactness agribusiness strategies and high rise like plans. 

Vertical farming is a progressive and more feasible technique for agribusiness than its partner as it brings the prerequisite of water down to up to 70% and furthermore spares extensive space and soil. This development in the field of horticulture with maintainability as its proverb is making an ever increasing number of heads turn today with its eco-accommodating techniques and making the chance of farming genuine in troublesome environs. 

Let us look at the top vertical farming developments that could wind up in your plate sooner rather than later! 

1. Aqua-farming – Growing Plants Without Soil 

Aqua Farming in India is a dominating arrangement of developing that is utilized in vertical farming, and it is gradually yet consistently, picking up significance. It includes the development of plants in arrangements of supplements that are basically liberated from soil. 

In this vertical farming development, the underlying foundations of the plants are lowered in an answer of supplements. This is every now and again circled and checked so as to guarantee that there is the upkeep of the right compound arrangement in the supplement arrangement. 

2. Aeroponics – Growing Plants Without Soil and Very Little Water 

The advancement of Aeroponics in the field of vertical farming was made by The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). This feasible developing method was imagined by NASA during the 1990s when it was searching for productive strategies to develop plants in space. 

This procedure was then begun Aeroponics and was characterized as "developing plants in an air/fog climate with no dirt and next to no water." However, these frameworks are yet to ascend from an abnormality in the realm of vertical farming despite the fact that they keep on making interest. 

It is without a doubt the most proficient route for Vertical Farming Companies in India as it utilizes an amazing 90% less measure of water than the most effective aquaculture frameworks as well. It has likewise been seen that the plants that are developed with the aeroponics framework take-up more nutrients and minerals, accordingly making the plants conceivably more advantageous and more nutritious. 

3. Hydroponics – An Ecosystem that Promotes Plants and Fish Farming Together 

An Aquaponics System is a lot like the Hydroponics System however is just better for

 Fish Farming in India . It expects to join the fish and plants in a similar environment. In this framework, fish develop in indoor lakes and produce a supplement rich waste that further goes about as a food hotspot for the plants developed in vertical ranches  

The plants, doing their part, clean and channel the wastewater that gets reused straightforwardly to the fish lakes. Hydroponics is unquestionably utilized at a littler scope than most vertical farming developments. 

In any case, it is as yet utilized by numerous business vertical homesteads that wish to deliver only a couple of quickly developing yields as opposed to including the part of hydroponics. According to the Aquaculture Companies in india creation and financial aspects issues are improved and it likewise augments effectiveness. 

All things considered, this shut cycle framework may turn out to be more well known with the fame of new normalized aquaponic frameworks. 

4.Vertical cropping – A Sustainable Farming Technique for Urban Areas 

Vertical harvest is an exclusive farming strategy that has been considered as one of the World's Greatest Inventions by TIME Magazine in 2009. This patent-forthcoming innovation was planned and grown with the goal that food could be developed normally in the climate of clamoring metropolitan territories. 

This restrictive strategy offers a serious change in outlook in food creation and feasible farming techniques. It gives up to multiple times the yield of your standard field harvests and uses just 8% of the water that is typically required for soil farming. 

The Vertical Farming in india advancement deals with a suspended plate design that is remarkable in itself and proceeds onward a transport framework. VertiCrop offers ideal presentation to both fake and regular light notwithstanding supplements that are absolutely estimated for each plant. 

It has been planned such that it can advance the solid development of harvests in controlled and shut circle conditions. Moreover, it totally disposes of the requirement for utilizing hurtful herbicides and pesticides and expands food worth, nourishment or more all, taste. 

5.Cubic Farming Systems – The Next-Gen Sustainable Farming System 

Cubic Farms, as its CEO Dave Dinesen brings up in his TEDx Abbotsford discourse, is the up and coming age of reliable, unsurprising and beneficial homestead creations. It chips away at the transport pivot technique, mechanized supplement conveyance framework and LED lighting. 

The machines utilized for developing harvests establish an ideal climate for the greens. It additionally utilizes 1/26th the measure of water that is used in conventional farming, in this way making it economical. 

One would for the most part not partner these words with farming or developing. Nonetheless, the licensed Dutch Cubic Farming framework altogether takes out dangers of regular farming to normalize the yields by controlling the sources of info. 

This, thus, implies a consistent and more unsurprising salary notwithstanding more consistency in the size, taste, and shade of the produce. It likewise guarantees a more extended timeframe of realistic usability and higher healthful substance for your greens. 

6. ZipGrow – Vertical Farming for the Modern Farmers 

The aphorism of ZipGrow is to 'Teach. Prepare. Enable.' The ZipGrow group has thought of creative farming answers for current ranchers who don't have the necessary instruments and experience to scale or start an aquaculture farming business. 

ZipGrow comprehends the difficulties that are looked by the normal ranchers today as far as imperfect developing hardware, helpless farming or helpless comprehension of what the market truly needs. Subsequently, ZipGrow has manufactured a huge number of administrations and items so the deck can be stacked in support of themselves. 

They have essentially altered the business of Vertical Farming Companies with framework controls, vertical plane developing innovation and cutting edge work process plans to help innumerable ranchers all around the world. 

Advancements That Could Build the Food of the Future 

Vertical farming is unquestionably an alluring choice for ranchers these days as increasingly more industry specialists grasp it and for a valid justification. It guarantees a considerably more manageable method of farming notwithstanding delivering quality produce as well as reducing down on expenses and making horticulture more eco-accommodating. 

These developments will undoubtedly ascend in notoriety and reform the essence of vertical farming later on! 

Many have contemplated whether vertical farming is actually the response to the lack of food on the planet. Anyway peculiar the idea of vertical farming may appear to numerous new businesses, it is a brilliant technique to create food in conditions where arable land is inaccessible or uncommon and no more. 

This technique is particularly convenient for testing conditions, for example, deserts, mountainside towns, and urban communities where numerous different sorts of vegetables and natural products are developed utilizing exactness agribusiness strategies and high rise like plans. 

Vertical farming is a progressive and more economical technique for horticulture than its partner as it brings the necessity of water down to up to 70% and furthermore spares extensive space and soil. This development in the field of horticulture and Top Aquaculture Companies in India with maintainability as its aphorism is making an ever increasing number of heads turn today with its eco-accommodating strategies and making the chance of farming genuine in troublesome environs.

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Social Issue Blog - Final

Climate change is an issue that affects a lot more than just the Earth’s aesthetics. As fossil fuels keep being pushed as the best power producer, even though they are not, more and more emissions will be put into the atmosphere. The usual heat cycle is heat is produced down on the surface, travels upwards into the atmosphere as cooler air comes down, then moves down into the ocean. This keeps the earth mostly stable and it influences weather patterns as clouds full of cold water are warmed enough to release the precipitation [Figure 1]. Because of global warming, too much heat is going into the atmosphere and then getting trapped in the ocean instead of moving through the cycle at a constant rate. This makes the clouds less likely to release precipitation in small amounts as it accumulates, instead it builds until it is at a dangerous level. Because so much heat is trapped in the oceans and other large bodies of water they are becoming warmer at a concerning rate. The water is too close in temperature to land masses, reducing the rate of evaporation, and increasing the water levels. This is supplemented by glaciers and ice caps melting, increasing the water level even more. Gradually this has made the waves and currents move differently, causing massive amounts of erosion and flooding in coastal residents (Harvey, 2015). Because clouds are not getting the heat necessary to cause precipitation tropical storms are influenced. Now, there are large bursts of heat moving up which, when hit by the cold clouds full of precipitation, creates hurricanes and typhoons, aided by the high water levels. This causes even more damage to cities and towns along the coast, flooding them beyond repair and permanently displacing people. As the climate continues to change, this will keep happening at ever more common rates. In the past, one hurricane in a decade was a big deal, now there are usually two or three hurricanes that hit the southern United States within a year. This is killing people and leaving them homeless for no reason. The people predominantly affected by this are poor. The rich are able to leave before the storm hits and return later to rebuild or relocate to a very comfortable area easily. The poor are forced to stay at home and hope that the storm will be weaker when it hits the land, they do not have the money or enough possessions to get out of the danger area. If they do get out in time, they lose everything they own and are left in debt which follows them and keeps accumulating as more storms come. 

Also affected by rising sea levels and flooding is agriculture. A great amount of the Earth’s population lives on continents that rely on agriculture in coastal areas (Harvey, 2015). Plants are incredibly picky. They can not grow in salty water and will die from over watering which will render any crops that get flooded useless and cause widespread starvation because so many first world countries rely on their food being brought in from far away. This is not even considering the acres of otherwise usable growing land that get torn up by hurricanes and tsunamis. Farmers in Nepal “have experienced an increasing trend of untimely and erratic rainfall, and a decrease in the level of water in the nearby Sukahali and Tinau rivers” (Manandhar et al, 2010). These rivers are very important to them because they are the only source of water that they have near them to draw from. Wells have been drying up and now they fear the rivers will as well. They also have to contend with cold waves, a thick fog that covers their land following a fast drop in temperature within 24 hours. This can greatly shorten their growing period and leave them with less to sell than in past years (Manandhar, et al, 2010). 

The excessive use of fossil fuels has resulted in a destruction of the Earth’s atmosphere which leads to generally rising temperatures, crazy forest fires that cause more pollutants such as Volatile Organic Compounds, carbon, and micro-particulates to be released into the air which harm human health. Forest fires are running rampant because of shifting weather patterns. Scientists are able to track fires as they start and watch the chemicals changing concentration. The effects of these chemicals are far ranging. Some are able to combine to create toxic gases like ozone which decrease the ability of the lungs to function. Too much exposure to these chemicals and gases eventually leads to premature death (Dickman, 2020). Asthma is one of several big conditions created by forest fires. Children are being poisoned from birth and adults develop it from bad living conditions. Smog, smoke, and chemicals are all released into the air and hang there, drifting through the atmosphere (World Health Organization, 2018). Urban areas have the worst of it, and not coincidentally, urban areas are also usually home to poor minorities. They can not afford to move away so they are stuck dying slowly. In order to seek treatment, they have to use money that they would otherwise save to move, to buy medications and equipment to ease their pain. Common medications like inhalers and equipment like home ventilators can become very expensive very quickly. 

Not only do fires destroy human health, they destroy property. As humans build more they are encroaching on areas that would normally be burned in cycles to prevent wildfires. Because people are not respecting the heavily wooded areas that are needed to act as a buffer around cities and building their houses there, thousands of people lose their homes every year (Dickman, 2020). These people are usually rich or upper middle class though. Once their house burns down they just rebuild and move back in or find somewhere similar to move. This is a major problem because them being there is helping feed the fires. If they were not there, it would be easier for firefighters to stop the fires, or do cyclical burns to get rid of the built up starter that accumulates throughout the seasons.

The new rates of health problems in people are not a good sign. More people are not just being diagnosed because society is more understanding and comfortable with conditions. They are being diagnosed because climate change is making more people sick. Just like how cigarettes and alcohol can damage a baby’s DNA before it is born, so do the chemicals produced by fossil fuels. Coal and oil powered energy plants cause asthma from birth in babies due to the particulates that they release weakening the lungs. In a study conducted in California from 2001 to 2011, premature births by women living within 3 and 6.3 miles from an coal or oil powered energy plant dropped by 30% as the plants were closed (Dickman, 2020). 

Illnesses and diseases are thriving in these new conditions [Figure 2]. With flooding and warmer temperatures in northern areas, mosquitoes and other disease carriers are able to survive longer. Because malaria varies seasonally, as seasons expand, more people will be at risk of infection (World Health Organization, 2018). Children and the elderly are the most at risk for contracting a life-threatening disease. “Globally, temperature increases of 2-3ºC would increase the number of people who, in climatic terms, are at risk of malaria by around 3- 5%, i.e. several hundred million” (World Health Organization, 2012)).  

Greed and climate change keep intersecting. Climate change denial lies largely in the profits that can be made from it. The government is held in the hands of whoever has the most money, and currently, that is the fossil fuels industry. They control everything, even elections. The conservative party has a lot of connections to the big businesses because they are the main supporters of capitalism. This is where the controlling comes in. The conservative party forces people to deny climate change if they want to be successful in political runs. (Collomb, 2014). They do not want to lose the millions of dollars they get every year from the fossil fuel industry so they claim that supporting climate change and renewables is a way of stifling economic freedom. It takes away the “American Way.” They mostly do not even bother denying it, they just say that there are other causes of climate change too and it is not worth stopping the use of oil and coal. “Non-denier deniers” are replacing “deniers”. These non-denier deniers are “people who put themselves forth as reasonable interpreters of the science, even as allies in the fight to bring climate change to the public’s attention. But then they throw in a variety of arguments that actually undermine the public appetite for action” (Collomb, 2014). Some of those arguments include the known fact that the Earth goes through periods of heating and cooling every few millennia, so the “non-denier deniers” try to say that we are just entering one of those periods. They will do anything to make sure that their pockets are lined. 

Money also comes into play in the ways that people react to climate change. For upper middle class and rich people, they are able to run away from climate change. When a storm comes, they can move fairly easily. The loss of their possessions will hurt, but they can recover and get new ones. For poor people, they lose everything. They have no ability to find a new home or lost possessions. Super-rich people are able to make money off of climate change. The ones that are still involved in the fossil fuel industry own stock in companies and refineries. Even ones that are fossil fuel adjacent like Amazon profit from putting pollutants into the atmosphere. They created a demand for quick delivery and cheap products, which comes at the cost of the environment. Because online shopping is now based on convenience people will go there first to find a product. They have more options and can shop without leaving their house. The shipping is the real problem. If a product is coming from overseas, it then has to be transported to a distribution center, either by plane or truck, then it has to go to the postal service distribution center on another big truck, then it crosses hundreds of miles with the postal service until it is delivered. People want everything now, now, now, a smaller but more impactful form of greed. Stores get enough products sent to serve hundreds of people in one shipment, as opposed to a single person getting individual shipments several times a week from multiple locations. This does not take into consideration that people often send things back. The amount of waste emissions that could be reduced by less convenient online shopping is incredible. 

Other people who profit from climate change are the renewable energy camp. They have a smaller impact on climate change, and are working to change it. Nonetheless, they make money off of consumers who want to live a less impactful life. Producers like Tesla are rather wasteful in their production. In order to get the strong, lightweight materials that they need, they have to dig them out of the earth in small quantities, polluting 99.8% of earth to get a .2% yield of materials (Wade, 2016). While electric vehicles do come out to a smaller impact than a gas car, they still harm the environment and it needs to be known that they are profiting from the hysteria. 

In order to fight climate change, we need to fight predatory corporations. With more regulations to restrict them taking advantage of cheap overseas labor, they would be forced to do production in the countries they are based in. This would lessen the carbon footprint and boost economies. Politicians should also be regulated. If there are restrictions on who they can accept money from, and there is a limit of how much they can accept they might focus more on policies that better the whole of the country. I believe that both of these will greatly affect how climate change evolves. When human lives are valued above profits, there is a good chance that enough will have changed for climate change to slow. It will take many hundreds of years to possibly reverse it, but for now we can lower the rate at which it is happening. (2062 words)

Figure 1

Figure 2

References

Collomb, J. (2014). The Ideology of Climate Change Denial in the United States. European Journal of American Studies. Open Edition Journals. https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.10305

Conca, J. (2018, May 30) Does fossil fuel use affect premature births? Forbes. https://www. forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2018/05/30/does-fossil-fuel-use-affect-premature-births/#4aa1f976692d

Dickman, K. (2020). The Hidden Toll of Wildfire. Scientific American, 322(3), 38–45. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-hidden-toll-of-wildfires/

Harvey, C. (2015, February 17) Sea-level rise will cause more than flooding — these 5 other impacts of rising oceans are just as bad. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider. com/5-terrifying-impacts-of-rising-sea-levels-2015-2

Manandhar, S., Vogt, D. S., Perret, S. R., & Kazama, F. (2011). Adapting cropping systems to climate change in Nepal: A cross-regional study of farmers’ perception and practices. Regional Environmental Change 11(2), 335–348. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113- 010-0137-1

Wade, L. (2016). Tesla’s electric cars aren’t as green as you might think.” Wired. https://www.wir ed.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/

World Health Organization. (2018, February 01) Climate change and health. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-chang e-and-health

World Health Organization. (2012, October 25) Climate Change and Human Health - Risks and Responses. Summary. World Health Organization.  www.who.int/globalchange /summary/en/index5.html

Image Sources

The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate. Youth Community, Oceanwise. https://education.ocean.org/youth/assignments/1115637.

World Health Organization. (2012, October 25) Climate Change and Human Health - Risks and Responses. Summary. World Health Organization.  www.who.int/globalchange /summary/en/index5.html.

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New top story from Time: What We Can Learn From the Near-Death of the Banana

The banana has been the subject of Andy Warhol’s cover art for the Velvet Underground’s debut album, can arguably be the most devastating item in the Mario Kart video game franchise and is one of the world’s most consumed fruits. And humanity’s love of bananas may still be on the rise, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. On average, says Chris Barrett, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University, citing that U.N. data, every person on earth chows down on 130 bananas a year, at a rate of nearly three a week.

But the banana as we know it may also be on the verge of extinction. The situation led Colombia—where the economy relies heavily on the crop, as it does in several other countries including Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala—to declare a national state of emergency in August. Banana experts around the world have raised concerns that it may be too late to reverse the damage.

The reason for the problem comes down to a single disease, but it also has far-reaching implications—and the world is watching. Even if the world’s relationship to bananas may never be the same, the lessons of the fruit can still save us from damage that could hit far beyond the produce aisle.

“The story of the banana is really the story of modern agriculture exemplified in a single fruit,” says Daniel Bebber, who leads the BananEx research group at the University of Exeter. “It has all of the ingredients of equitability and sustainability issues, disease pressure, and climate change impact all in one. It’s a very good lesson for us.”

Ninety-nine percent of exported bananas are a variety called the Cavendish—the attractive, golden-yellow fruit seen in the supermarket today.

But that wasn’t always the case. There are many varieties of banana in the world, and until the later half of the 19th century, the dominant one was called the Gros Michel. It was widely considered tastier than the Cavendish, and more difficult to bruise. But in the 1950s, the crop was swept by a strain of Panama disease, also known as banana wilt, brought on by the spread of a noxious, soil-inhabiting fungus. Desperate for a solution, the world’s banana farmers turned to the Cavendish. The Cavendish was resistant to the disease and fit other market needs: it could stay green for several weeks after being harvested (ideal for shipments to Europe), it had a high yield rate and it looked good in stores. Plus, multinational fruit companies had no other disease-resistant variety available that could be ready quickly for mass exportation.

The switched worked. As the Gros Michel was ravaged by disease, the Cavendish banana took over the world’s markets and kitchens. In fact, the entire banana supply chain is now set up to suit the very specific needs of that variety.

To the people who pay attention to such things, it wasn’t long before a case of banana déjà vu set in: the Cavendish had supplanted the Gros Michel, but—even though it had initially been selected for being disease-resistant—it was still at risk. Almost a decade ago, Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, warned in an NPR interview that Panama Disease would return to the world’s largest banana exporters, and this time with a strain that would hit the Cavendish hard. “[Every] single banana scientist I spoke to—and that was quite a few—says it’s not an ‘if,’ it’s a ‘when,’ and 10 to 30 years,” he said. “It only takes a single clump of contaminated dirt, literally, to get this thing rampaging across entire continents.”

Sure enough, the confirmation of the presence of Tropical Race 4 (TR4), another strain of Panama disease, on banana farms in Colombia, prompted this summer’s declaration of emergency there.

“The situation is very urgent,” says Bebber.

There are any number of ways the problem can spread. When it comes to bananas, everything from truck tires to workers’ boots can be disease carriers. But the bigger problem is how hard it is to stop. Because banana farmers are overwhelmingly growing the same exact crop—the Cavendish—they were all vulnerable to the same diseases.

“A lot of people would agree that we need to move to a more diverse, more sustainable system for bananas and agriculture in general,” says Bebber, “where we don’t put all our hope into a single, genetically identical crop.”

There’s a name for this situation: monoculture, the practice of fostering just one variety of something. Monoculture has its benefits. The entire system is standard, so there’s rarely new production and maintenance processes, and everything is compatible and familiar to users. On the other hand, as banana farmers learned, in a monoculture, all instances are prone to the same set of attacks. If someone or something figures out how to affect just one, the entire system is put at risk.

And as the banana industry has begun to battle the effects of monoculture, someone else has taken notice: the tech world.

The parallel was noticed as early as the late 1990s. Stephanie Forrest, one of the early researchers in this area, commonly cites the banana problem in lectures explaining the importance of diversity in computer systems. Forrest argues that some of the most notorious software attacks in history are comparable to Panama disease’s threat to the Cavendish; uniform software systems lead to uniform vulnerabilities. For example, the 1988 Morris Worm infected an estimated 10% of all computers connected to the Internet within just 24 hours, and, more recently, the 2016 Mirai Botnet, which allowed an outside party to remotely control a network of internet-connected devices, brought down Twitter, Netflix, CNN and more.

“Monocultures are dangerous in almost every facet of life,” echoes Fred B. Schneider, a cybersecurity expert at Cornell University. “With people, of course, populations are stronger and more disease-resistant if there’s more genetic diversity. And with transportation, it’s more effective to have several different options—when a train line is shut down, if you have other choices at your disposal, like a car or another form of transit, you won’t be stuck.”

Schneider points out that software monocultures are common because, without them, using your computer would be a lot harder. Default configuration settings, for example, are the norm to help users who may not be experts in the technology they’re using. Defaults like that can protect people from some problems, but also lead to others, as all the systems using the same default are vulnerable to the same problems. Knowledge of the problem, thanks to understanding of the issues facing crops like bananas, have led technologists to take steps to introduce artificial diversity into their systems. “To make a system artificially diverse, you just rearrange its guts in ways where the differences do not affect functionality in a material way,” Schneider says. Microsoft implemented one of the first large-scale commercial developments of artificial diversity in their Windows OS system, by randomizing the internal locations where important pieces of system data were stored.

For bananas, addressing the problems caused by monoculture may be harder, as market standards and supply chains make it very expensive for fruit companies to cultivate multiple varieties.

Jan Sochor—LatinContent via Getty ImagesA Colombian worker carries crude bananas to a transport car at a banana plantation. (Photo by Jan Sochor/Latincontent/Getty Images)

Existing disease-resistant varieties haven’t made inroads on the international market, but The Honduras Foundation for Agricultural Research (FHIA) has spent more than three years working on developing a disease-resistant variety that is as close as possible to the Cavendish, so that the world’s banana infrastructure doesn’t have to be reshaped from scratch. Still, that’s a process that can take 15 to 20 years, Bebber estimates.

Genetic engineering can lead to the development of new varieties at much faster rates than traditional breeding methods, but it can also turn consumers off. However, it has been the answer to similar problems in the past—for example, when the papaya ringspot virus threatened the papaya supply in the 1990s, “the major supply shock was averted through the development of a transgenic ringspot virus-resistant papaya,” explains Cornell’s Barrett. He believes that consumers’ fears might ease if it becomes one of the only viable answers to the issues created by monoculture production. The UK-based biotech company Tropic Biosciences has received $10 million in funding to use gene-editing technology to research solutions to widespread issues with tropical crops, focusing specially on disease resistance in bananas.

And while even the most Cavendish-like of FHIA’s disease-resistant varieties, a banana known as the FHIA-18, hasn’t yet met the standards of multinational buyers, that may change, according to Adolfo Martinez, director general of FHIA. “It’s still not close enough to the Cavendish,” he says, but he thinks the crisis may convince them. “Maybe now, companies will be more interested in it.”

So, what’s next for the banana? Will it simply disappear from our diets, album covers and video games? Bebber says the banana may change, but hopes are high that it won’t completely vanish. “Science,” he says, “will find a way.” Meanwhile, tech researchers are watching—hoping they can once again learn a lesson from biology, learning how to prevent a crisis before everything goes bananas.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste