Food Price: New Window of Opportunity for Urban Agriculture
Mission
Right around the time a barrel of oil was around $150 USD I stumbled upon an article from an "expert" saying that the solution to resolve hunger was to give more money to poor countries in order to buy more tractors and more agrochemicals! So wrong! Then a thought popped into mind: " Do something! No matter what! Anything is better than nothing! ". Mission: increasing awareness of hydroponics and aquaponics as key tools in fighting hunger around the world.
Roger Pilon, Editor
Hello everyone! How I got into hydroponics is a long story...let's just say that it involves a lot of tedious farm work as a child, unsuccessful 'dirt' gardens of my own and a near electrocution from a semi-submersible hydroponic pump. I've learned that hydroponic gardening is the only way to garden for me and I've been working at it for several years now. I've built ebb/flow, nft, Mittleider, wick and passive systems and I'm always on the lookout for the easiest and most efficient means of hydroponic gardening...If you have questions, I would be more than happy to answer them...
Today farmers that are not reliant on expensive fertilizer and petroleum-based fuel can sell at higher prices than last season without incurring higher costs.
With basic food items rising in price worldwide from Dhaka to Dallas the market for locally produced food is improved, that is to say, the small-scale producer can more often succeed in competition with globally produced food products. Today farmers that are not reliant on expensive fertilizer and petroleum-based fuel can sell at higher prices than last season without incurring higher costs.
This opens an opportunity for the urban agriculturist and for all those that support her; technical advisors [extension], input providers [seeds, tools, small-scale irrigation], food processors, market operators, and educators. We all need to increase our efforts to address the crisis and to seize the opportunity while it's hot.
One particular opportunity to support the urban farmer is mobile food processing. Senator Lugar [chair of the agriculture committee] reported this week that 30 percent of Indian food product never reaches the market.
So, the market is hot but I can't get one third of my product to market. The mobile processing plant can connect the small-producer to the market with value added. The Michigan organic Food & Farm Alliance offers a good model: a trailer with stove, oven, freezer, packaging and cold storage. Other mobile processing facilities include poultry slaughter, fish processing, cheese making, and vegetable cleaning and chilling.
Two questions challenge us:
1. How to get these relatively new items of equipment to those who need them and 2. How to get government approval of their operations and
Refs. Washington Post, 7,3,2008, Op Ed, Josh Ruxin www.listwfan@iastate.edu 7,2,2007
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