It’s time for one of my Community Discussion Posts ™! How do y’all picture the food supply working in a solarpunk world?
It’s very difficult to feed people on homesteading alone (especially since most solarpunk focuses heavily on cities) so I would imagine that there would still be some kind of large-scale agriculture. Any improvements we could make to get farming on that bigger level to be better for the environment? What about the actual distribution of grain and fruit and what-have-you? As much as you might want to stick to local produce, some ecosystems are just naturally better for growing foodstuffs.
Also, I imagine that there would be some kind of distribution system to get meals or supplies to people who for whatever reason aren’t able to run hydroponics systems/maintain gardens/etc.
vertical gardens that allow the general public to help maintain and take for meals.
I would say the gardens most definitely have extremely large windows for sunlight, and different conditions on each floor for different produce (given the fact that not everything works best in the same conditions).
They would be as common as grocery stores. One or even more in every town depending on the need. Also I imagine there would be some that specialise in specific foods (plants that grow specifically in one area and are used as the majority of a culture’s food) sort of like how we have “Asian food stores” now.
Elaborating on vertical gardens, they can be further optimized with integrating them into an aquaponic system.
These systems can be further optimized with other food production systems:
And once again we can go a step further with my own design for an advanced river system for raising a variety of aquatic species
Kansas - centerpivot irrigation is pulling up water from an ancient aquifer
Carbs are a big problem though, they don’t make sense in vertical gardens. I hopefully assume some stuff will just be produced in vats, by manipulating molecules. Think about how much land is used to graze animals, and how much additional land is needed to supplement the diets of those grazed animals. Now imagine that instead, you could grow most of that stuff in vats - the carbs, the protein, the whole lot of it. The vats could be in or near urban centers, where the transport costs could be low. What if you could even have your own personal small vat for household consumption? A Star Trek style replicator, if you will.
Bulgaria - this used to be forests
Meanwhile, the land that was previously intensely managed for humans / human consumption could be all ecological habitat restoration / rewilded. All manner of plants and animals could have way more space on the planet to grow, unlike today’s constant drumbeat of habitat destruction and ensuing extinction.
Brazil - this used to be rain forest, it’s now soybeans grown for animal feed
It’s very hard to imagine the sheer scale involved. Here’s a little something from the FAO, the ag/snack wing of the UN:
“Livestock is the world’s largest user of land resources, with grazing land and cropland dedicated to the production of feed representing almost 80 % of all agricultural land. Feed crops are grown in one-third of total cropland, while the total land area occupied by pasture is equivalent to 26 % of the ice-free terrestrial surface.”
Those are MASSIVE numbers. Growing lettuce and spinach in vertical farms is great, but very very little land, water, and nutrients in use is actually used to grow vegetables anyway.
Here I tried to make a chart to help visualize things better:
Those vegetables are a mere sliver in the dark green pie piece. The dark green pie piece also includes things like olive, coconut, corn, rice, wheat, things grown on large scale for oils for your salad dressing or the wheat for your bread.
Better look at centerpivot irrigation. The tiny blue stuff in the foreground is the roofs of houses. The issue here is one of SCALE.
Iowa - this used to be wild prairie
Missouri/Kansas border - note the little green circles, the centerpivot seen above
Arkansas/Tennesse border. The dark section in the middle, a wildlife refuge, gives you an idea of what the whole area used to look like.
A store-bought bag of topsoil, a roll of landscaping fabric, or a bag of cedar chips doesn’t go very far if you have a large garden or a very limited budget. Here are some ways to create the materials you need for a beautiful, organic, productive garden, by both re-directing household waste, and foraging in your local area. I use a lot of these tricks in my garden to make it almost completely free for me to continue growing new things, and expanding the workable area every year!
For soil
Save your food scraps to create a rich compost for growing veggies and amending your soil. There are numerous options for every size of dwelling and yard. Small space solutions such as Bokashi and vermicompost work indoors and don’t produce bad smells, so you can keep them underneath the sink.Worm towers, compost heaps, and outdoor compost binsare a great solution if you have more space. The more you add, the more rich, nutritious material you can make for your garden. I like composting because it means I don’t have gross smelly garbage bags to deal with, because food waste is diverted. It seems like a lot of work at first, but it actually saves time, money, and transportation.
There are three things that are essential for plant growth. These are nitrogen for leaves and vegetation (N), phosphorus for roots and shoots (P), and potassium for water movement, flowering, and fruiting (K). Commercial fertilisers will give the relative concentrations of each of these compounds with and “NPK” rating. Plants like tomatoes also need calcium to produce healthy fruit. You can create amendments for your garden and soil at home so that you do not have to purchase fertiliser.
Human urine contains 12% nitrogen, and it’s sterile. Dilute before adding directly to plants.
Legumes such as beans, clover, peanuts, and alfalfa fix inorganic nitrogen into the soil with mycorrhizal organisms and nodules on their root systems. Plant these crops every few years in rotation with others to renew the soil organically.
For phosphorus
Human urine is also a great source of phosphorous and trace amounts of potassium.
Many plants are particular about what the soil pH should be.
To make soil more acidic: add oak leaves, pine needles, leaf mulch, urine, coffee grounds or sphagnum.
To make soil more alkaline: add wood ash, shell, or bone.
Mulch
Mulch is decomposing organic matter that adds nutrition to the soil, while simultaneously keeping out weed growth and retaining moisture. It also attracts worms, fungi and other beneficial creatures to your soil. Free sources of mulch include:
Leaves
Garden waste
Grass clippings
Straw (often straw bales are given away after being used for decoration in the fall. You can also plant vegetables directly in straw bales using a technique called straw bale gardening).
Wood chips (if you can borrow a wood chipper after you’ve collected some wood you can have attractive wood mulch for free)
When mulch isn’t enough to keep the weeds down, many people opt for landscaping fabric. It can be quite expensive and inorganic-looking. Free solutions that both attract worms and can be replaced in small segments as they break down include:
Newspaper*
Cardboard*
Egg cartons*
Printer paper, looseleaf, etc. in thick layers*
*try to make sure you are using paper that has vegetable-based dyes, so you aren’t leeching toxins into the soil.
Soil density/drainage
If your soil is compacted and you have plants that require low levels of water, or excellent drainage, add sand. I don’t recommend stealing it from the beach, but ask around and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to get for free. Sawdust also improves drainage. Adding organic matter and mulch encourages worms, who also till and aerate compacted soil.
If the area still needs drainage, dig a hole and fill it with bricks or rocks to create a “dry well”
For drainage in pots, add crushed bricks,terra cotta pot fragments, packing peanuts, small stones, marbles, orsand to the bottom under the soil layer. I find these in construction sites, on craigslist, or at flea markets.
Pots and growing containers
If you have space, raised beds are a great no-dig way to establish growing space. If you are pressed for space (like working on a balcony) there are many cheap or free options for container gardens.
Creating raised beds allows you to build up the soil without digging. Free ways to do this include using rocks or lumber (like my DIY “lasagna garden” made with the sheet composting technique), using the “wattle“ method with sticks and posts you have found, using discarded straw bales, old bricks,paving stones,cinder blocks or really anything else you have lying around.
Hugelkutur raised beds, which fix carbon and provide drainage, can be made by stacking sticks and untreated wood, and then piling soil or compost over it. (Thanks milos-garden)
Rubber tire gardens retain heat in the night and allow for great drainage. They can also be painted in fun ways.
Herb spirals (here is mine: 1, 2, 3) can be built with stones, bricks, and other found materials.
I often use old cooking pots, barbecues, teapots, or other found objects as planters.
If you can track down peat moss, cement, and vermiculite, you can make an easy Hypertufa planter in whatever shape you would like, provided you have a form in which it can dry.
Paving often requires a foundation of sand or another stable and well-drained substrate, and a covering of stones, bricks, or other weatherproof elements. Slowly collect stones over time, or free paving stone fragments to create a mosaic-type walkway. Often people give these things away on craigslist. I made a patio and fireplace out of free salvaged bricks, for example.
Save seeds from foods you like from the grocery store: consider growing peanuts, ginger, garlic, peppers, or a walnut tree: all of these and more can be planted from store-bought produce.
Learn to take cuttings. There is a tonne of info on the web about basic cutting propagation, layering, (like I do with rhododendrons) air layering, and numerous other techniques to take clones of plants you like. This saves going to a nursery and shelling out big bucks for all the variety you want.
For cuttings, willow tea and honey are great rooting hormones/antiseptics/anti-fungal agents, which can save you $40 if you were thinking of buying commercial rooting hormone.
I hope this helps you build your garden outside of the usual capitalist channels! It can be a cheap or free hobby if you are willing to think outside the box, and maybe put up with things that don’t look as clean or crisp as a hardware store catalogue.
If you have any further ideas, please add them! The more information the better.
Another source for pots: Your local garden center (even some at the big name big box stores) may have many, many, MANY used pots they will sell for pennies or possibly even give away.
Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.
After over a hundred years of decreasing, tiger numbers are now on the rise!
In 2019, scientists in India carried out the largest and most in-depth tiger census ever recorded. The census was so big that they made an application to the Guiness Book of World Records to determine if it was the largest wildlife survey ever conduted for any species.
India is home to the vast majority of the world’s tigers, and it was shown that Indian tiger populations have seen at least a 6% increase since the last survey in 2014.
While there is still work to be done to increase tiger populations to healthy stable levels, the fact that they are increasing at all is a huge step forward!
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
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