Michael Pollan On Oprah

February 1, 2010 Farm/Garden Politics

Food expert, activist, and author Michael Pollan was on Oprah last week talking about industrial agriculture and our country’s food habits. He is so articulate, an excellent food revolution politician and makes so much sense. Hopefully the common person will put down the bag of Doritos, listen and understand what he is saying…

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BrightFarm Systems Designs Sustainable Rooftop Greenhouse Integrated On An Affordable Housing Development in South Bronx

February 1, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

BrightFarm Systems recently announced that Blue Sea Development Company’s new state-of-the-art affordable housing complex planned for the South Bronx, NY, will be the first ever affordable housing development to feature a fully integrated hydroponic rooftop farm, designed by BrightFarm Systems. The six-story affordable housing building will feature a 10,000 sq ft rooftop greenhouse that will [...]

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Fruit In Your Neighborhood… There’s An App For That

February 1, 2010 urban gardening

From the Find Fruit web site…
Find Fruit, is the iPhone app that is the mobile companion of NeighborhoodFruit.com! Locate fruit trees on public land on the go!
Looking for local blackberries for a pie? Want to smell fruit blossoms on a romantic walk? Interested to learn fun facts about common edible plants? Want to find fruit [...]

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Green Jobs For Jailbirds

February 1, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

Beth Schwartzapfel writes in Mother Jones magazine,
By the time Anthony McKinney gets out of prison, he will have missed his 20s entirely. He’s 28 now, a compact man with a short mohawk and a tattoo of a chain on his neck. “When I get out, I’ll be only 30 years old, and I’ll have 13 [...]

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Bigger Corn Plants Bully Smaller Neighbors In No-Till Fields

February 1, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

Brian Wallheimer writes at Purdue University News,
Tony Vyn, a professor of agronomy, said it’s been known for a long time that young corn plants are, on average, shorter in no-till, corn-on-corn fields, but that doesn’t mean there is an overall stunting of growth among all plants.
Instead, residue left over from last year’s corn crop is [...]

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The Feds Go Vertical In Portland

February 1, 2010 Sustainable Energy

I live less than a hundred miles from this federal building in Portland, Oregon, so as it progresses look for pictorial updates here as I go up to PDX once a week. William Yardley writes in The New York Times,
Urban gardening used to seem subversive. People planted tomatoes in public parks, strung their hops to [...]

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First It Was Urban Chickens, Now Urban Goats

February 1, 2010 sustainable gardening

The urban chicken thing is so 2009; now urbanites are turning to raising goats. City ordinances usually have to be changed to allow the raising of goats but many cities are doing just that as Marty Englert writes on UPI.com,
As urban farming gains strength, small goats are proving popular as entertaining and intelligent pets in [...]

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