What I really need now, though, is advice on urban-apartment-dwelling fruit and vegetable preservation. My goal: full-on seasonal eating. I want to purchase my food only locally and in the season it is produced, and preserve it for the non productive seasons.
Crazy? We'll see.
Oh..that and somehow convincing our co-op board to let us raise chickens on the roof of the building. Kara thinks we need to wait ten years for a generational shift.
Again, we'll see.
I'm sure there must be plenty out there on urban localvore eating / preservation... probably even a number of blogs you can track down!
ReplyDeleteCall me a cynic - but I'm not convinced that dense urban living is compatible with your ideal. If everyone in NY wanted to do the same as you, there wouldn't be enough farmland to supply your needs. How many people live in your building? How many chickens would you need to have on the roof to sustain them all? Who is growing the feed you give to the chickens?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately intensive farming is about the only way to use our land economically. The alternative is to either disperse everyone back into small towns and villages, or to go start planting crops in the National Parks. The challenge is to intensively farm in a way that doesn't pollute our water or atmosphere.
Well worth reading the special report the Economist wrote back in 2006 about food politics and what's the most effective way to bring about real change (i.e. 'food miles' don't mean much unless you can take into consideration the vehicle being used, how efficiently it is being used, etc.). I can't seem to link it - but will email it to you (or go to Economist.com and search for "Voting with your trolley")
So you might solve your problem on a micro level - but we'll still have the same issues to deal with on a macro level.
Simon,
ReplyDeleteI think you're quite right, and it's not what I would call cynical to point it out.
I would argue the following points:
1) urban living, if done to maximize the efficiency of human consumption by having people close to their jobs and other necessities is, in my humble opinion, a MORE sustainable option than suburban and super-suburban development (which has become, unfortunately, the norm in the US at least).
2) I would submit that there is a happy medium -- or at least a happier medium -- to the efficient utilization of farmland and food production. The option is not the full-out, environmentally destructive industrial farming that has become the norm in the US (due in no small part to the interests of the bottom line, not other considerations such as environment, health, safety, animal welfare, etc.) or everyone become yeoman farmers. Living in New York, which has, within a two hour drive of my apartment, some of the most verdant farmland in North America, it is absurd that I cannot go into a market and purchase produce that was grown within a 200 mile radius. This is not the result of the best option based upon the aforementioned considerations, but rather the success of massive industrial farming conglomorates who have utilized a smorgarsbord of lobbyists, legal loopholes, and rather unsavory (at least to me) ethical practices.
3) Agreed that wholesale "beyond organic" lifestyles might well be beyond the capacity of our society to support. However activity on the micro level can (and I think will) affect the macro, with the hopeful potential of pulling things to a better medium.
4) I don't entirely accept the premise that, were large segments of society to adjust their expectations for what they eat and how readily available these things are to levels that are more in line with, say, what was the norm c. 1909, would not be possible or sustainable on the macro level. So much of what is consumed, and what in effect keeps massive agricultural industry intact is the expectation that one can always, at any time, have whatever one wants and lots of it.
I would suggest that this attitude requires intensive interrogation.
I look forward to reading the Economist article -- thanks for the reference!
Read this: http://timharford.com/2009/07/carbon-footprinting-time-to-pick-up-the-pace/
ReplyDelete"The carbon-footprinting process often produces surprises. An environmentally conscious consumer in the crisps aisle of the supermarket will probably be thinking about packaging or “food miles”. The Carbon Trust reckons that about 1 per cent of the climate impact of a packet of crisps is from moving potatoes around. The largest single culprit is the production of the nitrogen fertiliser, and half of the climate impact in general takes place at the agricultural stage. The point is not that agriculture is always the problem, but that it is very hard for a well-meaning consumer to work out what the green purchasing decision actually is"
True enough. But it is worth pointing out that it is the wide-scale industrial (and especially) commercial marketplace that produces the potato chip which gives the highest incentive to the cheapest agricultural production, rather than the most efficient or environmentally sensitive. The use of massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer is a perfect case in point. In effect, it's a self-perpetuating problem.
ReplyDelete