Exactly the themes I proposed a panel discussion for at an upcoming Farm Conference in Michigan. Will include a reference to your project. Thanks for uplifting the voices of those most impacted.
Urban vegetable production, or urban market gardening, or urban boutique farming, but please don’t elevate it by calling it agriculture. The fertility has to be imported, and the land is too expensive to make anything but the highest value niche crops viable.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment! I’m aware of the challenges you point out. Whether it's called farming, gardening or something else, soil fertility, land costs, and crop viability are central issues. These complexities are exactly what I try to engage with in the piece.
Fantastic essay, thank you. One of your links "focus from organic farming or bee-friendly practices to fundamentally question" isn't working for me.
I'm in the Philippines, a completely different context but essentially same sorts of problems; most agriculture is done by landless farmers working for privileged land owners (usually inheritance and often via dubious land-grabbing means).
I'm part of an organic "farmers" organisation in my area and I don't think there's a real farmer (one that works the land) amongst us. As a foreigner its difficult to even express my thoughts on the inequality amongst us.
Exactly the themes I proposed a panel discussion for at an upcoming Farm Conference in Michigan. Will include a reference to your project. Thanks for uplifting the voices of those most impacted.
An important discussion and research. Thank you!
Urban or rural the main problem with farming in the North/West/1st World is the distribution of land and low wages/food prices.
Urban vegetable production, or urban market gardening, or urban boutique farming, but please don’t elevate it by calling it agriculture. The fertility has to be imported, and the land is too expensive to make anything but the highest value niche crops viable.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment! I’m aware of the challenges you point out. Whether it's called farming, gardening or something else, soil fertility, land costs, and crop viability are central issues. These complexities are exactly what I try to engage with in the piece.
Fantastic essay, thank you. One of your links "focus from organic farming or bee-friendly practices to fundamentally question" isn't working for me.
I'm in the Philippines, a completely different context but essentially same sorts of problems; most agriculture is done by landless farmers working for privileged land owners (usually inheritance and often via dubious land-grabbing means).
I'm part of an organic "farmers" organisation in my area and I don't think there's a real farmer (one that works the land) amongst us. As a foreigner its difficult to even express my thoughts on the inequality amongst us.
Fertility is imported in most "conventional" agriculture these days, super phosphate etc.
Even "organic" farmers are so rarely making their own composts.