Future Farming Now

love this piece... i live 5 minutes from Mt. Kisco and this is really fascinating...

It's great to trade, to earn, to live without polluting our environment. This is a part of commodities trading but keeps an important role. Keep it on, we need such the clay model.

good story, but omg the banjo music was SO annoying and pointless

aqua-ponics sounds great if only they could use it in correlation with raising fish for market

great pod

I would love to have my own organic green house farm. Oh my dreams just keep dreaming

Nice. Now I need to find a farm close to Miami. It's worth the trip.

what a hopeful experiment! I'd be interested in how much water gets absorbed by the crops, and how much input has to be given to the fish in order to produce the waste that fertilizes the plants. I also wonder if its possible to recycle garbage in this way by feeding that to the fish instead. Seems like you could kill a lot of birds with one stone!

This is such a great pod.

I hope to have a sustainable farm myself one day.
Hopefully in the future it will be much more commonplace.

Hey all,

I wanted to bring your attention to an environmental blog I discovered and fell in love with:

www.eco-beat.com

As you can read, it's called eco-beat and it's got some witty and informative commentary and discussion on environmental issues.

Great pod. Well done.

Imagine, if each person was given a plot of land and there roll was to perform this function in each community across the country? Keep the idea a float!

I've just started getting interested in this topic (organic & community farming). I'm a techno, but find the sustainability aspects fascinating.

Yesterday I attended a class (first of three) on establishing a Community Garden. Anyone interested please check out Urban Harvest in Houston, TX (yes! Texas!) at http://www.urbanharvest.org/

There are 150 established Community Gardens around here (directory at the site mentioned in the last paragraph). Also many many resources at the UrbanHarvest site.

I look forward to my new adventure / foray into sustainable living !

Thanks for all of that info Mac and Cove. You guys obviously know a lot about this topic and it's great to have your insight here.

You make an interesting point Cove when you mentioned that organic farming is simple and easy. I think on a smaller scale that might be true, but it could be another story on a large scale commercial farm.

Aquaponics seems like a natural fertilizing practice that could be applied on a larger scale operation.

What are your thoughts?

...for anyone interested in this future farming, please google 'vandana shiva', and see an activist at work who has been confronting the whole GMO movement in its most unappealing and dangerous aspects. She clearly rocks, and anyone setting out to do a pod with or about her would be doing the whole natural world and humanity a huge favor!!! she understands what the 'suicide gene' really is...

this is so good to see...the aquafarming is really appealing. Please find more pods on this subject, aquafarming...or get these folks to really do a good descriptive pod on what it is all about...what the real impact is to positive help to the environment.It is so simple and just elegantly intelligent!!! Thanks so much for developing this format of current.tv!

I would like to see an operation like this first hand. Forgive me I am more familiar with growing the cereal grains and yeilding 100's of thousands of bussels a year. And then only getting $2 a bussel for it sometimes. More power to you, it will come around like you said. I think its a good thing, just not economically viable at this point in time. Someone has to pioneer it though. Just for some backround I come off the farm as a 4th generation farmer (my parents still farm) on the same land that my forfathers farmed since this country was started. Check out my video "Farming in Nebraska" I made it in the early 90's when I was really young, so its not as professional as yours. Good job by the way!

http://current.com/items/88173881_farm_life_in_nebraska

Hey Pop,

You should definitely stop by the farm. It might be best to wait until the Spring though, after "hibernation."

As far as the negative:
Junkman (rather bluntly) hit the nail on the head.
The tough standards associated with this type of farming are hard to implement on a very large scale industrial farm. Products from this type of farm also tend to be more expensive... so not every consumer can afford the products.

The more and more farms start integrating these types of standards, the sooner prices will come down due to demand.

Jonathan

Nice piece, but thats expensive farming your never going to get yeilds out of that, its no wonder that "organic" crap is so expensive. I grew up on a real farm with real yeilds and production. But don't get me wrong more power to them! Its the wave of the future, just as long as they can bring the cost of production down.

I HOPE I CAN COME VISIT I go to Mt Kisco often I had no Idea. This should be a manditory process for farming...what is the neg??

That was incredible, I might consider trying to do the same thing.

Hi Anemic,

Farm Sanctuary is an interesting concept. I never knew a place like this existed.

I can understand your desire for more chemical-free vegetable farms. I think Cabbage Hill provides a great framework for future, more sustainable farming practices.

Wow, I wish more farms worked like this. Minus the meat production, of course. I'm not too sure how I feel about keeping fish in tanks, though. I'd like for there to be more organic, chemical-free vegetable farms and more establishments like Farm Sanctuary.

Thanks Tori,

If you ever do visit MK, you need to eat at the Flying Pig Cafe. The best, organic food ever!

i'd like to learn more about the ladybugs' role in this

What a great piece. I love farmer's markets!! Looks like Mount Kisco is worth a day trip the next time I am in NYC!