Sunday, May 18, 2014

nexus? peri-suburban agriculture?

so is this field in the nexus or is it in the suburbs? i am inclined to the latter...i have been reading a lot about urban food systems and urban agriculture to a purpose...quite a bit about vertical farms and their supposed positive impact on urban areas, food distribution, and the environment in general and, as an aside, i find them altogether too reliant on complex and costly technology and on capital intensive investment which leaves me wondering who will control food supplies if they come to fruition...monsanto? archer daniels midland? staley syrup? one supposes it won't be local or "small vertical farmers" another reason for community gardens...vertical agriculture is a rarity but urban food systems are not..i have been reading papers on urban food in japan, turkey, and kenya...they are on the ground now and are in the ground as well not in buildings and they exist from one of three reasons ( so far ) in kenya they exist from necessity...it is how people feed themselves since the imf "export model" destroyed traditional agriculture there in favor of specialty export crops and fresh flowers for the european market...in turkey they are the focus of an attempt to save the traditional vegetable gardens and markets that have provided fresh produce to istanbul for centuries...and in japan urban food systems seem to exist because the urban sector has surrounded the rural and transformed it into an urban entity...that, i believe, is where we are at with the field by the supermarket...the suburbs have subsumed the rural and there is wheat next to the supermarket...i am prepared to call it hard red winter wheat because the winter rye in my back yard ( third photo )..and in the pgp as well...is bursting with seed heads while the winter wheat in my back yard ( and the plants in the field...second photo ) are 1) smaller in stature and, 2) not a seed head in sight...whether this crop is allowed to ripen or is turned under for yet another crop of dense yellow #2 corn remains to be seen...it is early and wheat as a commodity is up in price...to early to call.

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