good agriculture

a few days ago, a friend who's a political scientist sent me a link to a new york times article about will allen, who is, among other things, an urban agriculture advocate. i've not run across his stuff before, but i think urban agriculture is generally the right way to go, if it is done correctly. i have some minimal objections to urban agriculture fanatics: the principal one is that if it isn't done right--ie in an ecosystemic way--it is often worse than the alternative. city rainfall runoff systems are generally not capable of dealing with non-botanical agricultural runoff. urban market gardening on a large scale, without NPK nutrient addition, is probably sustainable and net-beneficial. include meat animals anywhere in the system and things begin to break down unless all the components are fairly carefully hooked together. for example, the urban meat animal par excellence is the chicken, or so people think. but keeping chickens in urban environments without transferring the chicken wastes into a composting system that then feeds a garden almost inevitably pollutes the rainwater runoff system with high-nitrogen fecal matter that promotes algal growth in pipes, reducing their lifespan and increasing maintenance costs (and incidentally, increasing the likelihoods of oxygen-starving any water bodies into which the runoff is directed: that's what algal blooms do; high temperature composting sterilizes fecal matter, and plants absorb nitrogenous compounds so that rainfall washing through a flourishing garden is generally close to being filter-clean).

the article concludes by noting that intelligently-executed agriculture has positive externalities, enough perhaps to warrant subsidies to encourage it. well yes. duh, in fact--i've been grouching about this for years (since the year we created the seminar on biodiversity, agriculture, and economics, which was also the year of reading more about agriculture than is good for my blood pressure). certainly, if we are willing to subsidise badly-executed agriculture with massive negative externalities, we should be willing to subsidise the opposite. conventional industrial agriculture, at least in the US, produces food that is incredibly cheap by using and abusing generally underpaid labour, large quantities of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and transportation to arbitrage low land and production costs. (there are more, but these are the big ones) each of these sources of private savings in fact transfers costs onto various parties:

1. farm labourers (often illegal, living in horrendous conditions, and exposed to high pesticide loads) go without healthcare which they cannot afford and then tax emergency care systems,
2. fertilizers run off into local water bodies and cause algal blooms and aquatic die-offs that require expensive remediation often funded by federal or state bodies,
3. pesticides and herbicides damage local ecosystems (also expensive to restore) and additionally often disrupt the biochemistry of humans that consume them even in trace quantities (see this list of foods frequently contaminated with chemicals used in production). this latter health impact constitutes a potentially enormous distributed cost which magnitude is not yet clear.
4. transportation-intensive agriculture relies on heavily subsidized fuel and systems (like the interstate freeway), both funded by the taxpayer.

all this, and the food produced isn't even tasty. it's not great for you, it's bad for the environment, it doesn't even taste good; why is it so cheap to buy when it costs so much? because the price of purchase doesn't include all the other costs incurred. on the other hand, local, intelligent agriculture (if done correctly), has fewer of the drawbacks of industrial bad agriculture:

1. the workers tend to be paid (slightly) better and have better access to healthcare,
2. fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide use is much reduced or nonexistent (discounting judiciously-applied manure or compost), and
3. produce is transported much shorter distances.

the food so produced is much more expensive, but the price of the locally-grown organic tomato captures most of the costs of production without spreading a large proportion of those costs thinly across taxpayers and consumers. the cost of intelligently-farmed meats is, of course, even more astronomical, as befits a product which (even correctly-raised*) is costly. arguably, this sort of fully-loaded pricing encourages more efficient consumption: food should be good, it should be produced well, we should be eating smaller amounts of it, a larger proportion of which should be vegetables, we should be treating it with the respect due to costly things.

but can intelligent agriculture provide for people who already can't afford food, or is it going to be the province only of the affluent? the answer depends on assumptions:

1. if we assume that everyone must eat as much as they currently do (anywhere from 10% to 40% more calories than they need, hence the obesity epidemic in the US),
2. if we assume that foods will be eaten throughout the year regardless of whether or not they're in season, and
3. if we assume that the majority (over 90%) of the $50+ billion spent annually on farm subsidies continues to go to industrial agriculture,

the answer probably is no. but if both these assumptions are relaxed, more local, lower-impact agriculture might go a long way towards feeding people well and cheaply. we'll never be able to grow all the staple starches (rice, potatoes, beans, etc) within 50 miles of the coastal urban centers, but a large-scale shift in produce production is possible. food in season is more plentiful, cheaper to produce, and cheaper to sell. locally-grown food travels shorter distances and is thus cheaper to transport. organic or low-pesticide/low-herbicide produce keeps people healthier and eventually will result in healthcare cost reductions both for individuals and for healthcare provision systems.

the key, in a food production system already heavily biased in favour of the incumbents, is to change the price incentives consumers face, so that making the right choice isn't a matter of fighting price signals. bad food produced badly is currently cheaper to buy than good food produced well. for those at the margins of poverty, such a situation is untenable: the obvious rational choice is to choose the cheaper food (and thus to choose all the implications that cheaper food brings). even for those comfortably above the poverty line, choosing between organic strawberries at $6.99 a pound and conventional ones at $3.99 a pound becomes a tough choice between the amorphous, possibly distant benefits of organic produce** and the clear, immediate benefits of saving a couple of bucks.

assumption #3 above, if relaxed, may begin to get us out of this trap. to get this started, subsidize local farms again. levy heavy, punitive taxes on industrial agriculture to pay for subsidies for local, intelligent agriculture. (the same way significant taxes on gas, roads, and personal cars should subsidise cross-national railway and efficient, high-frequency urban public transit, another hobby horse of mine.) we know that good food produced well is less expensive than bad food produced badly; but the price tags need to say so too.

(next: a description of a system for producing and distributing food locally. a food grid, if you will.)

* the costs of meat agriculture gone wrong are legion, and are enormous. low beef prices (for the fast food industry) are largely supported by almost completely unregulated cattle ranching in central and south america. the result is deforestation on a massive scale.

** which is not to say that all organic food is necessarily well-produced. earthbound, one of the largest organic producers, is as industrial as they come. strawberries are top of the list for foods containing herbicides and pesticides: a luscious berry without an outer skin, we eat exactly what birds and insects want to eat and everything sprayed on to prevent them from eating before we do.

today's discovery

it is difficult, awkward, and time-consuming, but not impossible, to char-grill an entire marinated chicken over a gas burner.

google chrome OS

o, the google OS. it was only a matter of time. kottke points out that a web platform/OS effectively already exists, since users can already run most of their lives online. this is true, but misses the point.

the point is this: the main (only? probably not) promise of the web as OS is client thinness -- if everything happens there, very little needs to happen here. we should have ultra light, incredibly cheap clients that consist essentially of a small graphics-optimised processor, a display, and input device/s. but, of course, as it stands, in order to be able to use the web as an operating system, users still almost always require a heavy operating system. (i discount smartphones as promising but ultimately incapable of replacing full-featured systems as they are currently configured. android is nice, but it doesn't cut the mustard. if chrome OS, as promised*, can jump you straight into the browser while still providing some of the client-side lifting necessary for a low-latency user experience, it will surmount this almost-last hurdle to the world of thin clients. (after that, we'll just need immersion wireless connectivity, but 4G is theoretically on the way.)

* why did they have to go and announce vapourware? what happened to the company i used to work for anyway? i expected better of sundar.

droit, or some things are wrong

in our relentless pursuit of making everyone happy with "doing their best," i find we often lose sight of how there are often right ways to do things and thus, conversely, wrong ways to do things.* someone who is adroit follows an elegant and effective course of action, like odysseus, whose cunning and shrewdness led him to do the right thing (not a coincidence that droit in the original means right or law, per the motto of the windsor crown). a good printer, a good builder, a good furniture maker--they are all adroit in their practice. the same holds for the cook. i found this passage from zhuang zi in the most unlikely of places (fuchsia dunlop, for those who care):

庖丁为文惠君解牛，手之所触，肩之所倚，足之所路履，膝之所倚，砉然响然，奏刀豁然 ，莫不中音。合于桑林之舞，乃中经首之会。文惠君曰：“嘻，善哉！技盖至此乎？” 庖丁释刀对曰：“臣之所好者道也，进乎技矣。始臣之解牛之时，所见无非牛者。三年之后，未尝见全牛也。方今之时，臣以神遇而不以目视，官知止而神欲行。依 乎天理，批大郄，导大髋，因其固然。技（枝）经肯綮之未尝，而况大骨乎！良庖岁更刀，割也；族庖月更刀，折也。今臣之刀十九年矣，所解数千牛矣，而刀刃若 新发于硎。彼节者有间，而刀刃者无厚，以有閒入无厚，恢恢乎其于游刃必有余地矣，是以十九年而刀刃若新发于硎。虽然，每至于族，吾见其难为，怵然为戒，视 为止，行为迟，动刀甚微，然已解，如土委地。提刀而立，为之四顾，为之踌躇满志，善刀而藏之。” 文惠君曰：“善哉！吾闻庖丁之言，得养生焉。

fortunately for you (and me), here is the least egregious of the translations of this passage from zhuang zi:

His cook was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wen Hui. Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of 'the Mulberry Forest' and the blended notes of the King Shou.' The ruler said, 'Ah! Admirable! That your art should have become so perfect!' (Having finished his operation), the cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, 'What your servant loves is the method of the Dao, something in advance of any art. When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the (entire) carcase. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, (my knife) slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones. A good cook changes his knife every year; (it may have been injured) in cutting - an ordinary cook changes his every month - (it may have been) broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone. There are the interstices of the joints, and the edge of the knife has no (appreciable) thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along! The blade has more than room enough. Nevertheless, whenever I come to a complicated joint, and see that there will be some difficulty, I proceed anxiously and with caution, not allowing my eyes to wander from the place, and moving my hand slowly. Then by a very slight movement of the knife, the part is quickly separated, and drops like (a clod of) earth to the ground. Then standing up with the knife in my hand, I look all round, and in a leisurely manner, with an air of satisfaction, wipe it clean, and put it in its sheath.' The ruler Wen Hui said, 'Excellent! I have heard the words of my cook, and learned from them the nourishment of (our) life.'

from the inner chapters, translation by james legge

dôgen wrote some instructions for chef monks (actually, "as instruction for accomplished practitioners of the way in the future"); these tenzo kyōkun are worth reading.

another perfect sandwich

thin-sliced roasted cauliflower, grilled zucchini, tomato, and charred green onions, with black pepper and olive oil, on toasted ciabatta.

fireworks and good weather

after a week of loping about under steely skies, today we woke up to blue skies and bright sun shining through the maple leaves outside the window.

view from the back porch, behind the plastic owl.

like desert wildflowers after the rain, small columns of grill smoke began to rise around noon and kept on going. after the barbecue, a large contingent left for the riverside to watch the fireworks; i managed to lose them, but found other people by sheer chance and watched the fireworks from the green building instead. neil diamond sang sweet caroline, and hundreds of thousands of people sang along with him.

there were loads of flashy, multicoloured crowdpleaser fireworks, and in the last two minutes of the show the sky was so thick with light it was nearly tasteless (but not quite) and it hurt to look at it, but the most awesome pyro sequence of all actually occurred about 17 minutes into the 23-minute show. 6 composite shells went up simultaneously and detonated within a few seconds of each other, sending a web of evenly-spaced fine golden threads across almost 160 degrees of the sky; these eventually turned into a shower of spreading, sparking points gradually falling and fading into the night. sandwiched between red, purple, and green smileyfaces and big balls of scarlet fire, the filigree of gold was subdued and serene--anyone can wow an audience with many kinds of flashy explosions in a riot of colour, but i imagine it takes a real gift to do it with just a few of one type of pyrotechnic, in just one colour, set off with sensibility and restraint.

(more on fireworks and thoughts)

(also, did you ever wonder if those marvellous bright colours in fireworks were too good to be true? as it turns out, it's all ok, they're just burning lots of heavy metals and letting the combustion product drift gently over the city. occupants of beacon hill, try to hold your breath.)

happy 4th of july.

philippe parreno: the boy from mars

i saw this at the kunsthalle in zurich; to get to the screening room, you walk through galleries mostly empty except for parreno's extremely bright marquee sculptures. one room was dedicated to a cloud of helium-filled black speech bubbles bobbing at the ceiling. the gallery was deserted, and the marquee at the door to the screening room slowly faded from brilliance to complete darkness while the boy from mars looped, a quiet, serene, and disquieting film made in thailand, apparently on property owned by rirkrit tiravanija. (music at the end is by devendra banhart, whose music is so surpassingly strange i am lost for words.)

microwave vacuum dehydration: experiments in plasma explosion

the latest post from cooking issues is about using a microwave and a vacuum to dehydrate fruit. in building a jerry-rigged microwave vacuum chamber, what they had apparently not thought of was that "under partial vacuum, microwave ovens really, really want to make balls of plasma. I kept having giant balls of fire shooting off the thermocouple. I ripped out the thermocouple. Then I kept on getting balls of fire coming off my oranges." have i mentioned how much i love cooking issues?

geert goiris, blast #3

first infusion

before moving a few weeks ago, i noticed that what appeared to be an ornamental cherry tree in the yard next door was in fact a tree beginning to burgeon with edible, plump sour cherries. the fruit got ever larger and riper, and eventually i had no choice but to ring the doorbell and ask if they would let me pick the cherries that they clearly weren't eating. a few days ago, i made off with a pound; yesterday, remembering the chairs in the back of the old house, another two pounds, this time dark red, drippingly juicy, and on the verge of being overripe. the first infusion is sour cherry, fresh mint, and cherry pits (in vodka). does cambridge need one of these?

peeves

1. writing in library books. even in pencil. i would like to arrive on my own at the conclusion that "NETWORK = POWER!!!"
2. items on craigslist and ebay without decision-critical metadata. who is going to buy a "bike frame, paint chipped in places, with wheel"?
3. unnecessary and unpleasant ornamentation on otherwise functional, well-designed objects. i don't want big purple dots on my hammer handle.
4. PDFs of book pages that are surrounded by enormous black borders (wasted toner!), slightly skewed (unreadable!), and scanned at unnecessarily high resolution (network load!)
5. despatch systems that give 6-hour service windows during which you're expected to be home and then fail to despatch a serviceperson within said window. (verizon, i'm looking at you.)