Population | Center for a Livable Future

Could ‘Vertical Farming’ Work?

Dickson Despommier brought his idea for vertical urban farms to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on Friday, and his audience of more than 100 people responded with a mixture of enthusiasm and skepticism.

Despommier is director of the Vertical Farm Project and a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He believes the combination of increasing human population and the increasing crop failures seen on much of our cropland necessitates new ways of producing food. He proposes vertical indoor farms that grow hydroponically, use local wastewater and solid waste (as fertilizer), and market to local urban customers as one way to address the growing demand for food.

“Do we need to invent anything to make this happen? The answer is no,” Despommier said. “I think the solutions are out there. We just have to piece them together in the proper way.”

In a Scientific American article this month, Despommier writes: “A one-square-block farm 30 stories high could yield as much food as 2,400 outdoor acres, with less subsequent spoilage.” Read More >

Cultivating Food Desert into nutritional wellspring takes action from whole community

This is the first of a two post series highlighting the critical issue of Food Deserts and how communities can work together to address their needs, as part of the Center for a Livable Future’s focus on National Food Desert Awareness Month.

In just this last week, newspapers around the country have lamented the lack of good food availability in rural areas such as Oklahoma and in the large urban cores of Chicago, and Los Angeles. Health reform dominates the headlines as advocates, policymakers, and community members focus attention on how to make Americans healthier. Diet plays a key role, but it is difficult to maintain a healthy diet without access to healthy foods.

But what does access really mean? In public health, access can be defined by a variety of mechanisms: information, location, and cost.

Public Health & Industrial Farm Animal Production: Setting the Record Straight

The American Veterinary Medical Association’s recent “response” to the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production’s final report on the state of industrial animal agriculture is disconcerting. It appears that leadership of the veterinary professional organization is attempting to misuse science to obfuscate and delay critically needed changes in the food animal production system rather than tackling very real public health and environmental threats head on.

PCIFAP public meeting in North Carolina, 4/10/07

For years a groundswell had been building from a widespread group of experts and advocates in the areas of public health, environment, social justice, and animal welfare sounding the alarms about the serious problems industrial food animal production poses. But until the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) decided to take on the politically controversial issue, there had never been a comprehensive examination of industry’s practices by such a respected and diverse panel of experts. Following a grueling 2½ -year discovery process, and despite several overt attempts by industry to discredit it, the Commission concluded that the scientific evidence was too strong and the public health risk too great to ignore and offered a series of consensus recommendations on how to repair our unsafe food animal production system.

The tone and timing of the AVMA’s 38-page response to the PCIFAP final report, 15 months after it was released, is quite telling. The document’s executive summary starts out by suggesting that the PCIFAP’s technical reports (published separately) were “biased,” and that, “the Pew report contains significant flaws and major deviations from both science and reality.” Another telling facet is that the “response” contains very little scientific citation to backup its rebuttal. It’s not a coincidence that this response coincides with the recent revelation that the Obama Administration supports the idea of banning the use of key antibiotics as growth promoters in food animals, which happens to be one of the PCIFAP’s key recommendations. Not to mention, this year’s version of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) appears to have a much better chance of passing than in any prior year.

New Documentary on H20 Highlights Potential for Power Struggles Over Water

One of the perks of working for the Center for a Livable Future is the opportunity to listen to great speakers and catch the latest documentaries about sustainability and the environment.

Last week, CLF hosted a viewing of “Blue Gold: World Water Wars,” a new documentary about the state of one of our most vital resources. Food and Water Watch presented the film to students and staff at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and hosted a discussion following the screening.

The documentary, based on the book of the same name by Maude Barlow, who spoke at last year’s sustainability lecture series at the school, stresses the importance of protecting our dwindling water resources and ensuring that water is a public right—not a commodity that is owned by corporations (which is what has happened in many parts of the world, as the film details).

Wal-mart: Leading the way on global sustainability?

While big box stores may be an easy target for critics who bash their significant environmental impacts, one national bohemoth is taking steps to inform its customers just how environmentally-friendly each product is. Yesterday, Wal-mart unveiled a plan for a “sustainability index” label to academic, industry and government representatives at its Arkansas headquarters.

Slate’s thorough article reports:

The giant retailer ($406 billion in revenues in 2008) is developing an ambitious, comprehensive, and fiendishly complex plan to measure the sustainability of every product it sells. Wal-Mart has been working quietly on what it calls a “sustainability index” for more than a year, and it will take another year or two for labels to appear on products. But the company’s grand plan-”audacious beyond words” is how one insider describes it-has the potential to transform retailing by requiring manufacturers of consumer products to dig deep into their supply chains, measure their environmental impact, and compete on those terms for favorable treatment from the world’s most powerful retailer.

But why would Wal-mart take on such a Hurculean task? Besides the obvious cynical answer (they are a corporation out to make money), Wal-mart execs say they see this as a way to inform consumers of the different between “green-washing” and truly sustainable production and increase efficiency of global production, perhaps even lowering costs to consumers in the process.

The company also said for the record they do not want ownership of this index– rather, they set out to spur a collaborative effort to develop a wealth of information about the international supply chain. In remarks published on Wal-mart’s web site, the Mike Duke, Wal-mart’s President and CEO stated that in order for this venture to succeed, it needed to be a global effort with the ultimate goal of providing for a better future for the world’s citizens.

“If we get this right…the Index will drive higher quality and lower costs,” Duke said. “It will mean more innovative products that lower carbon output, that promote clean air and water, and that create a more transparent and responsible supply chain. And it will make us even stronger businesses, bringing us ever closer to our customers and what they need to live better …20…50…100 years from now.”

And who can fault that? While the implementation of this plan is still several years away, it’s heartening to see that a company like Wal-mart, with such vast global influence, is not only taking an interest in sustainability, but taking a concrete action to measure how its suppliers are doing, and engaging environmental experts from acadamia, industry and the government to help develop guidelines that could potentially revitalize how the world produces consumer goods.

For more on Wal-mart’s sustainability index plan, check out yesterday’s New York Times article.

WHO Raises H1N1 (Swine Flu) Pandemic Level to Highest Point

Dr. Margaret Chan

The World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to raise the level of influenza pademica lert from phase 5 to phase 6, the highest level. The level was heightened, according to WHO, based on “available evidence and expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met.”

“The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic,” WGO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in a statement to the press today. “We are in the earliest days of the pandemic. The virus is spreading under a close and careful watch. No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely, in real-time, right at the very beginning.”

Dr. Chan emphasized that many, but not all, severe cases have occurred in people with underlying chronic conditions. “At the same time, it is important to note that around one third to half of the severe and fatal infections are occurring in previously healthy young and middle-aged people.”

Despite the heightened level, WHO says it continues to recommend no travel restrictions or border closures.

Never Waste a Good Crisis

It has been said many times, perhaps most recently by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that you should “never waste a good crisis.” The H1N1 (swine) flu outbreak is certainly a crisis and a tragedy, but I hope the public health community does not waste the opportunity to capitalize on questions and concerns being raised around the globe about the methods we use to raise animals for food. In particular, the H1N1 (swine) flu outbreak highlights social justice issues related to where “factory farms” are located.

Negative effects associated with living near an Industrial Food Animal Production (IFAP) site have been documented time and time again, including decreased health status, property values, and quality of life. In addition, the increased likelihood of these sites being located in and around communities where traditionally disenfranchised populations reside (e.g. low income, minorities) has also been documented. The location of these facilities and the associated health effects has contributed to environmental injustices and health disparities in the U.S. and around the world. Read More >

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