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Hillary Clinton gave the closing remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting this week. The subject? Solving global hunger. Her remarks are particularly important because, as Secretary of State, she oversees USAID, the agency that will administer any U.S. effort to feed the world. And it's no coincidence also that there is a particular effort going on right now to call for a "Second Green Revolution." That is, exporting industrial agriculture techniques, chemicals, and seeds to developing nations.
Where's the cognitive dissonance? When Bill Clinton spoke (he was there to introduce Hillary), he brought Will Allen up on stage and called Allen his "hero." Will Allen is one of my heroes too. I just got back from Allen's farm, a few hours ago actually. Growing Power, founded by Will Allen, is located in Milwaukee, WI. I've heard about it and written about it and finally I've seen it. They use sustainable, low input techniques to grow TONS of food. Year round, with relatively little fossil fuel heat, in a climate that is very cold for much of the year. They provide healthy food to a neighborhood that is 2 miles away from a grocery store in any direction.
Their first and foremost "crops" are compost and worms. Growing Power uses food waste and municipal waste (such as wood chips) to feed their worms and their methane digester. The methane then fuels furnaces, which heats water to 85F to allow tilapia to thrive. Tilapia are a warm water vegetarian fish. At Growing Power, they are grown in aquaponics systems that grow three crops stacked on top of one another - tilapia and two layers of plants such as watercress. The fish waste feeds the plants and the plants clean the water. The fish are highly productive, producing 1 lb of flesh per 1 lb of food. They also produce perch, cold water fish, also in aquaponics systems that grows crops on top of fish ponds. The perch eat soldier fly larvae, which live in Growing Power's compost. Using such agroecological, innovative systems, they produce a LOT of food in a very small amount of space. In addition to the plants (watercress, arugula, wheatgrass, other microgreens, spinach, tomatoes, and more), they also raise chickens for eggs, ducks and turkeys for meat, bees for pollination and honey, and goats (eventually for milk).
The inputs to Growing Power's farm are waste products (food, roots from harvested crops, manure, wood chips). They use some energy from the grid, I believe. But most of what they use can be gotten from their own livestock and plants, plus some rainwater harvesting. The innovations they showed us today did not involve GM crops, pesticides, or commercial fertilizer. They fertilize with compost and worm castings and they deal with pests with compost tea. So why, if the Clintons consider Will Allen their hero, are they pushing a form of agriculture that runs entirely counter to what Will Allen has proven so successful?
You can see a video of the Clintons' speeches here.
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