[P2P-F] how-1-million-pounds-of-organic-food-can-be-produced-on-3-acres

Mon Jul 18 18:05:46 CEST 2011

josef was promoting organiclea a while back I think?

Michel

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Nicholas Roberts <
niccolo.roberts at gmail.com> wrote:

> hi Steve
>
> I haven't seen Growing Power's operations first hand, but I did meet him at
> a talk he gave in Berkeley and spoke, off-the-record to one his volunteers
> about the experience of working there
>
> the volunteer told me that Mr Allen runs a very tight ship, very long
> hours, super hard manual work and the labour is volunteer. i.e. no or very
> little costs. The systems tend to be very manual and there is no real
> incentive to make things efficient or automated because new volunteers keep
> streaming in. Also the management is very much centred around the
> charismatic and hard working founder and principal, all the way up to the
> board level. Again, creating a situation where there are few feedback loops
> that make better management and better processes a reality.
>
> There is an worker cooperative project in the UK that might fix some of the
> agency problems http://www.organiclea.org.uk/ although I am not sure it
> has the same drive and energy as Growing Power. Will Allen was a
> professional athlete, corporate exec, businessman and has a family
> background in farming. He is basically an establishment figure, the
> Organiclea project ... well, I am not sure
>
> ...
>
> as to automation and efficiency, there is a funded, automated, organic
> aquaponic growing system being developed in Australia
> http://www.urbanecologicalsystems.com/
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Steve Bosserman <
> steve.bosserman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Michel,
>>
>> These articles have some truth, but they don't tell the whole story.  For
>> instance, here's a similar operation to what the Wake-Up World post
>> highlights in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA area:
>> http://www.growingpower.org/.  They have a spin-off facility that
>> specializes in aquaculture: http://sweetwater-organic.com/.  They offer
>> training programs to help people in communities across the U.S. setup their
>> own food / composting / aquaculture systems.  The founder of Growing Power,
>> Will Allen, even won a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" to promote his
>> program
>> http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4537249/k.29CA/Will_Allen.htm.
>>  And he was selected as one of Time Magazine's Top 100 influential people in
>> the world for 2010
>> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984949_1985243,00.html
>> .
>>
>> The problem is, as even Will Allen will say, that these food production
>> systems require constant subsidy through gifts of time, materials, and
>> money, grant funding, or high-end markets where clientele can afford to pay
>> a premium for local food.  In other words, they are not sustainable.
>>  Furthermore, they only provide a small percentage of the calorie
>> requirements for the local populations they serve.
>>
>> The answer rests in the community adopting a production-to-consumption
>> local agriculture system rather than attempting to establish a sustainable
>> food supply through production only.  That means the entire value chain gets
>> taken into consideration when designing the local system.  And it means
>> starting at the point of consumption, i.e., total number of affordable,
>> accessible, and healthy calories required to sustain local community
>> members, designing the system backwards to the points of production, and
>> allocating the revenue from sales of calories to community members such that
>> all participants in the value chain, i.e., preparation, processing,
>> production, and distribution, can, at a minimum, cover their costs.  Such a
>> system is very different than a "destroked" global system which is what one
>> has when only localizing production.
>>
>> My opinion for what it's worth...
>>
>> Steve B.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 8:47 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> http://wakeup-world.com/2011/07/14/how-1-million-pounds-of-organic-food-can-be-produced-on-3-acres/
>>>
>>> it would be great if someone more versed in agrifood production could
>>> look into this,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>

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