Talking Sustainable Agriculture on North Carolina's Outer Banks

I’m on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the wedding of my eldest nephew.  I’d never been here before, and I was expecting a stretch of land so desolate that I’d have trouble getting online or finding a good newspaper.

For better or worse, that’s not the case.  I delighted in Sunday’s New York Times, which featured a front-page article on California’s new-found budget surplus, totalling somewhere between $1 billion and $4.4 billion.  Of course, this is welcome news in a state run largely by Democrats who hated being forced to slash the social services to recover from the state’s huge deficit ($60 billion) that existed as recently as three years ago.

So how to spend that loot?

Remarkably, the governor’s office haven’t asked me for a suggestion.  But when that moment comes, it will be for the development of a single, low-cost program that will foster education, employment, health and sustainability.  All four at once?  Does that sound far-fetched?  Not at all.  Here’s a specific recommendation:

Bring the subject of aeroponics (a breakthrough in sustainable agriculture) to inner-city schools.

First and most obviously, children of all ages and socio-economic groups need to understand that our current approach to agriculture has serious drawbacks.  Millions of families are under-nourished, and the agribusinesses that provide our food operate in grossly unsustainable ways, pumping an ever-increasing variety of harsh chemical pesticides and fertilizers into our food – not to mention our land and waterways.

From there, note that the study of proper nutrition and the processes by which it can be provided offers touch-points to virtually every educational discipline, including, first of all,  the sciences:

• Biology (botany, zoology, genetics, animal husbandry, etc. – looking at the life forms we consume from the level of molecules, cells, issues, organs, individuals, groups, and populations)

• Chemistry (inorganic and biochemistry)

• Physics (thermodynamics, energy efficiency, energy conservation, mechanics of food production)

• Geology and Climatology (much of what we eat is a function of the climate in which we live)

• Health and Nutrition (how, precisely what we eat provides nutrition and wellness)

As well as the humanities:

• Sociology (food is more than a simple substance; it lies at the root of many of our cultural traditions and customs)

• History (the evolution of food production and consumption has played important roles in historic events through the ages)

With a little imagination, this discussion could be made even further-ranging.

Aeroponics, with its sister disciplines bioaeroponics and aquaponics, offers an enormous number of advantages over terrestrial agriculture – especially as the latter has slid into such states of degradation and desperation.  Aeroponics offers local, organically grown food with a tiny fraction of the use of water and land.

OK, California, go for it.