A local woman tends zucchini at a Saudi owned farm in Ethiopa. Photo credit: The Guardian

I have commented before on posts related to this; the world grows enough food, it is the agri-biz industrial food distribution system, and the abject poverty around the world that is the cause of world hunger. Now the wealthy countries are buying up farm land and water rights in Africa and other parts of the world to produce food for the other wealthy members of their country while locals starve to death in the countries that host the farms, as John Vidal writes in The Guardian,

We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches.
The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.
The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

Click to read the rest of The Wealthy Are Buying Up Farms And Water Rights In Africa While The Locals Go Hungry story.

The recently completed greenhouse at the College of Southern Idaho is the most modern educational facility in the state of Idaho. It grows plants using hydroponics and aeroponics, soil less systems that grow the plants faster than in soil.

Students transplant small seedlings in the school's greenhouse during a meeting of the Germinators Club. Photo credit: Philip Kamrass/Times Union

Some students at Sand Creek Middle School (near Albany, NY) want their classmates to eat their vegetables.
That’s because the lettuce, tomatoes and carrots are their vegetables, grown by the school’s Germinators’ Club. For the first time this year, the club’s produce will be added to the sandwiches and salads in the cafeteria.
Greg Shafer, a seventh-grader and one of the club’s leaders, hopes students will learn that freshly grown vegetables usually taste better than ones from the supermarket.
“I feel very proud about how we grow all this stuff, and I hope everybody would like it,” he said. “People could experience different foods we grow.”

Click to read the rest of the Students Grow Veggies For School Cafeteria story.

Tom Adamo of The Greenhouse Project explains the insulation design of the greenhouse that was built at the Brooksville Elementary School. The project, using grant funds, hopes to help local residents to build low-cost greenhouses that will allow them to grow vegetables year round. Photo credit: Rich Hewett/Bangor Daily News

A grass-roots project seeks to promote self-reliance and self-sufficiency by making low-cost greenhouses available to interested individuals and institutions.
The Greenhouse Project, sponsored by the United Methodist Church of South Brooksville through The Reversing Falls Sanctuary, already has built several small greenhouses in the area — including one at the Brooksville Elementary School, which has been growing vegetables throughout the winter months.
The hope of founders Tom Adamo of Penobscot and Tony Ferrara of Brooksville, is to encourage more people to grow their own food.
“The goal is to produce a greater percentage of our food locally,” Ferrara told a group of interested people during an informational meeting Saturday. “Active greenhouses help us to become more food secure.”

Click to read the rest of the Greenhouse Project Promotes Self-Sufficiency story.

Different salad greens are growing in six greenhouses at Urban Oaks Farm. Photo credit: Urban Oaks

While most farms take the winter off and suspend their CSA program, Urban Oaks Organic Farm in New Britain, Connecticut offers their CSA year round. With an acre under cover in six greenhouses, Urban Oaks has arugula, spinach, mustard greens, bok choi, rosemary, and bay leaf growing now. The farm stand is also open throughout the year.

Darzay Starling adds water to one of Calhoun Area Career Center's hydroponic gardens. Photo credit: Chad Ruhl/Battle Creek Enquirer)

Annie Martin writes in the Battle Creek Enquirer,

In the middle of the greenhouse, there’s a long bin of plants about 6 feet tall, with lush green foliage and bright red peppers the size of a fist.
Sue Smith puts her hand at mid-thigh to show the height of a typical soil-grown bell pepper. In this greenhouse, liquid nutrients replace soil, resulting in food that is more nutritious and has a longer shelf life.
Smith teaches environmental science at the Calhoun Area Career Center, which is home to a computer-controlled greenhouse. The shelter anticipates changes in exterior light and temperature and automatically adjusts conditions inside. Though the greenhouse is already environmentally sound with zero chemical runoff, Smith currently is writing a grant so the school can have a windmill to power the structure.
Inside the greenhouse, students grow hydroponic plants, which now include watermelon and Asian greens like bok choy. The crops depend on nutrient solutions rather than soil for vitality.
“It’s like giving a plant an I.V.,” Smith said. “It’s giving it exactly what it needs.”

Click to read the rest of the Students Cultivate Hydroponic Produce story.

Photo credit: Susanna Meyer/Beacon Journal Ohio.com

Denise Ellsworth writes on the Beacon Journal’s Ohio.com,

Can urban farming save the modern city, or is the phrase an oxymoron? In many urban areas, the quest for fresh, local food and a desire to ”green” blighted, vacant properties have focused attention on urban agriculture options.
Urban residents are addressing the questions of where and how produce, flowers and herbs should be grown, and the answers are becoming much more creative than ”out in the country.”
In Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Cleveland, gardening and urban farming are vital parts of revitalization plans — and Akron isn’t far behind. Grow Pittsburgh promotes local, urban food through farmer education, school gardening and a host of other projects.

Click to read the rest of the Urban Farm Movement Takes Root In Akron story.

Leimone Waite is head of Shasta College’s horticulture program, which prepares students for jobs in the in nursery and landscape fields. Classes at the farm cover plant propagation, irrigation, landscape design and more. Photo credit: Tim Holt/Redding.com

Tim Holt writes on Redding.com,

The land stretches out in abundance: acres of clover and grains, woodlands and a small vineyard. A herd of cattle lazes next to a barn. Across the way two additional barns house sheep and pigs in the middle of their birthing seasons. Four greenhouses are nearby.
The 70-acre farm is on the east side of Shasta College off of Old Oregon Trail in Redding. It’s here that the rudiments of farming, landscaping and nursery work are taught each year to a fresh crop of students. The program is run by Leimone Waite, who grew up on a 160-acre cattle ranch down river from Hayfork where her family lived off the land, growing most of their own food. As head of the college’s Horticulture Department, Waite teaches others to make a living off the land.
Eight students live rent-free on the college farm and care for livestock, the fields and greenhouses. Grants and work-study programs supply additional student labor. A U.S. Bureau of Land Management program is paying students to propagate five species of oaks, as well as native grasses and shrubs. In the fall, they’ll be planted along streams and in foothill woodlands ravaged by wildfire.

Click to read the rest of the Learning Is Hands On At College Hort Program story.

Wind turbines tower over Cider Hill Farm greenhouses, also augmented with green technology. Photo credit: The Amesbury News

In doing this web site/blog I have come across numerous places farmers can apply for various grants for projects on their farms. Here is one example of a farm’s success in applying for a grant that finances alternative energy at Cider Hill Farm as Pamela Canning writes in The Amesbury News,

Cider Hill Farm is continuing its commitment to “going green” having recently received a $30,000 energy efficient grant, from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, to install a new photovoltaic system. A PV system uses solar panels made of silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. The farm currently has a 10 kw photovoltaic system that consists of 56 solar panels; the new system will be 25.6 kw which will have 128 panels. These two systems will be in addition to the three wind turbines churning out energy.
“Each one of our turbines generates enough energy for one medium-sized home for a year,” said Cider Hill Farm owner Glen Cook.
“I love my farm and what we are able to do with all of the energy efficient choices. If we can’t sustain our personal lives through our growth, it becomes a trap,” added Cook.
Cook said he and his family began looking into ways to become more earth friendly in terms of growth.

Click to read the rest of the Massachusetts Farm “Wins” Green Grant Money story.

Rob Torcellini a 41-year-old I.T. director for an industrial manufacturer, built his greenhouse from a $700 kit, alongside his family's Victorian-style farmhouse in Eastford, Conn. Within it are fish, shivering through the winter, and a jerry-built system of tanks, heaters, pumps, pipes and gravel beds. Some 500 gallons of water fill a pair of scavenged food-grade polyethylene drums. Photo credit: Rob Torcellini/The New York Times

Whenever hydroponics or aquaponics gets  mentioned in an article in the mainstream media, it is a good thing. It changes the public’s perception that those horticultural techniques are only for growing illegal plants to understanding that they can be used to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers for everyday use both on a commercial farm scale or a hobby, backyard small scale as Michael Tortorello writes in The New York Times,

THERE’S a “Beyond Thunderdome” quality to Rob Torcellini’s greenhouse. The 10-by-12-foot structure is undistinguished on the outside: he built it from a $700 kit, alongside his family’s Victorian-style farmhouse in Eastford, Conn., a former farming town 35 miles east of Hartford. What is going on inside, however, is either a glimpse at the future of food growing or a very strange hobby — possibly both.
There are fish here, for one thing, shivering through the winter, and a jerry-built system of tanks, heaters, pumps, pipes and gravel beds. The greenhouse vents run on a $20 pair of recycled windshield wiper motors, and a thermostat system sends Mr. Torcellini e-mail alerts when the temperature drops below 36 degrees. Some 500 gallons of water fill a pair of food-grade polyethylene drums that he scavenged from a light-industry park.
Mr. Torcellini’s greenhouse wouldn’t look out of place on a wayward space station where pioneers have gone to escape the cannibal gangs back on Earth. But then, in a literal sense, Mr. Torcellini, a 41-year-old I.T. director for an industrial manufacturer, has left earth — that is, dirt — behind.

Click to read the rest of Aquaponics In The New York Times story. Click to view a photo slide show of Aquaponics related to TNYT article.
There is a reason the cannabis growers use hydroponics and aquaponics; these techniques grow

A backyard aquaponics operation in Hawaii. Photo credit: Kanu Hawaii's Flickr photostream

plants faster, using way less water, recycling and recirculating both water and nutrients, and harvest more produce in the same square footage of garden.