A community designed to produce its own food

[NarnianGarden]

Exactly, Worth... I believe there are all kinds of local communities in most countries, those that function well and those less so. Taking just a tiny sliver of what's going on and making it a normative example does not give a truthful picture of any given culture.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by Black Krim

https://www.government.nl/topics/agr...-billion-euros

The Dutch are innovated people. Knowing what I know now, I wish I could live in the Netherlands.

Maybe I misspoke as the info was NOT clarified to me at the time. Looks like AGRICULTURE products is a key adjective.

When I imported a horse from Holland all those years ago, horses were their number 2 export. I assumed overall products, now see, AGRICULTURAL products, is the category most likely.

Sorry to have caused a disruption. Was trying to point out that if any society can succeed with this endeavor , the Dutch have a great shot. Good luck to them.

Horses have never been anywhere near the top of the Netherlands' exports, at least not in recent memory. But the Netherlands has been one of the top exporters of horses for a while, which is something very different.

The Netherlands currently exports

$161 million in horses (#6 in the world)
$4.03 billion in cut flowers (#1 in the world)

but compare to

$17.5 billion in computers (#5 in the world)
$58.5 billion in refined petroleum (#5 in the world)

The NL exports 10x more in plastic lids than it does in horses.

If you have a large, diversified economy like the NL and most other wealthy democracies do, you can be a specialist in something and dominate the world exports in that thing and still have it be a really small part of your export and overall economy. It's easy to hear that a country is the top exporter of [x] and assume that this means that [x] is their top export, but that's usually very untrue.

[bower]

To my mind the question of cultural differences is a bit of a red herring.

Back on the first page we have two very different examples pictured: the architecturally stunning community of the OP, and the urban farming of Detroit - also very beautiful, and representing a "no frills" step towards sustainable local food production.

No matter where you put these two physical models/entities in the world, the first will be accessible only to the very rich, while the second model is directly accessible to those who are actually in economic need of a more sustainable food source.

In other words, I am in complete agreement with the questions raised first by Cole Robbie and then by PureHarvest. Economic feasibility absolutely matters, and is the first question anyone should ask about whether the model is going to 'work' or whether it's really useful on a global scale or 'sustainable'.

Do i admire the glasshouse closed-loop experiment? Absolutely, it's gorgeous. But lets admit it, it is basically a high end 'gated community' that is made to be politically correct by adding some goats and veggies and fancy toilets.

Maybe of interest, the conversion of waste to energy is also being done on much larger scales - city scale - and it is worthwhile and sustainable for big cities as much as for "closed loop" village experiments like this one.
https://my.spokanecity.org/solidwaste/waste-to-energy/

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by KarenO

I think that it's time that someone reminded everyone here that this is an international gardening forum.
Truly A ridiculous generalization and certain to insult anyone of Dutch heritage

I suspect a misunderstanding here, because, historically speaking, Germans calling the Dutch "ruthless" is a bit ironic. I suspect the German person meant "brutally honest". The Dutch have a (mostly well-earned) reputation for directness and frankness. It can come off as rudeness to those in cultures that value white lies and face-sparing more. Some of us appreciate that quality, though. Of course, these are general cultural characteristics. There are obviously individuals of all kinds in every culture.

Just think about the differences between different regions of the US. Southerners aren't fake and sinister, and northerners aren't rude and hostile. The social rules and assumptions around how one interacts with strangers are just different in each of these regions. The average customs in one region can be a mismatch with and seem rude or strange to the average person in the other region. To travel and interact with people who aren't local, you need the ability to imagine how the world and you and your actions and behaviors look to others who are different from you.

Originally Posted by NarnianGarden

One more side comment, if I may..

When I see comments like in this thread suggesting that European societies are much more 'communal' because the societal structure is different (more socialist), I cannot help but laugh a bit, as this is exactly what we here tend to say about Americans..
'Those Americans are so much more community-oriented, because they don't have the government / municipality / state church organizing it all for them. They are a country of immigrants, so they have had to learn to live together!'

You're defining things a bit differently than I am. I'm not talking about emotional sense of community or people getting together locally, etc. I'm talking about the larger scale sense of "communal" in the sense of society-wide.

For example, something like Delta Works would be incredibly difficult to accomplish in the US. The NL has tax-supported universal health coverage (true universal coverage), tax-funded higher education on a national scale, a strong social safety net, etc. These things are very hard to achieve in the US.

Americans are active in their local communities because
1) The local has more power over our lives than the national due to our political system, whereas it's the reverse in many Europeans countries
2) The social safety net is poor here, so it's a matter of survival to get involved in the lives of the people around us
3) There is comparatively lower trust in government here
4) We're just much more busybodies and more gregarious than northern Europeans, who are more reserved and in general value privacy a lot more.

Americans often like to accuse Europeans of being stingy with charity. But it's just a different way of framing how one cares for other people. Europeans are far more likely to find it acceptable that they pay high taxes that go to the welfare of everyone in society. They are less likely to give to charities, yes, but they're not ignoring people in need in their societies. They're just taking collective action in the form of their attitudes about taxes and the social priorities they communicate to their governments, not individual action in private donations to charities. Americans love to help others, but they want to be in control of when they do it, how they do it, and whom they help. Taxes to help the common good are much more likely to be seen as the government stealing their money and forcing them to help people against their will. There's a lot of and a long history of why those differences exist, and but since many people apparently feel that detailed posts are not welcome on this forum I'll move on.

There are good arguments to be made for either approach. In the end, though, a country like the NL does a better job of making sure everyone lives in good conditions and health, and large public works and campaigns for the public good are easier to accomplish successfully there.

Originally Posted by NarnianGarden

Just recently I saw a blog post by a Finnish traveler visiting California, and she was describing in utter amazement how a small, tiny town (of 40,000 inhabitants) had a thriving Farmers market event every Thursday, even when the weather is cooling down... and how people gather there with enthusiasm meeting one another, swapping ideas and buying food from the farmers.
Such a festival might happen here a few times a year - not every week!

Aside from the fact that Californians are freaks it's once again a difference of perspective. I can't speak to Finland, but a farmer's market is basically where I shopped for my food in Paris by default. It wasn't even a special thing--just "le marché", no big deal, no party, no fanfare, just where French people buy their food. A farmer's market in the US, OTOH, is special because so much of our food is grown on corporate farms and most of the country still buys all of its food at supermarkets. So a farmer's market in the US is something to get excited about and treat like a special thing that deserves enthusiasm and community investment. In a country where the traditional foodways still exist, a "farmer's market" is just "the market".

Also, Americans are among the more gregarious people on this planet. We have a well-deserved reputation for being very friendly and sociable. But that has little to do with attitudes about or success in achieving communal, society-wide welfare (lowercase w).

**N.B. - This is all talking about broad generalization about geographic regions of the world and national characters. Obviously, there are all kinds everywhere.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by bower

To my mind the question of cultural differences is a bit of a red herring.

Back on the first page we have two very different examples pictured: the architecturally stunning community of the OP, and the urban farming of Detroit - also very beautiful, and representing a "no frills" step towards sustainable local food production.

No matter where you put these two physical models/entities in the world, the first will be accessible only to the very rich, while the second model is directly accessible to those who are actually in economic need of a more sustainable food source.

In other words, I am in complete agreement with the questions raised first by Cole Robbie and then by PureHarvest. Economic feasibility absolutely matters, and is the first question anyone should ask about whether the model is going to 'work' or whether it's really useful on a global scale or 'sustainable'.

Do i admire the glasshouse closed-loop experiment? Absolutely, it's gorgeous. But lets admit it, it is basically a high end 'gated community' that is made to be politically correct by adding some goats and veggies and fancy toilets.

Maybe of interest, the conversion of waste to energy is also being done on much larger scales - city scale - and it is worthwhile and sustainable for big cities as much as for "closed loop" village experiments like this one.
https://my.spokanecity.org/solidwaste/waste-to-energy/

I agree with much of this. However, I feel a need to emphasize again that the problem ReGen is trying to solve is not how to get sustainable food to people. Feeding poor people is not its goal. It's addressing an entirely different problem: how we can create a way of living for the wealthier people on earth that is less horrifically wasteful and resource intensive. Because--ignore the "if it bleeds, it leads" news--the world is making huge strides against global poverty. A lot of people who are not consuming much in the way of resources because they're too poor to do so are getting wealthier. They'll need a paradigm for living well that doesn't mean living at the expense of the rest of the world's future.

We're not used to seeing the wealthy as a problem to be solved, and think of the poor as the problem that needs addressing. But we are also a huge problem ("we" in the sense that almost all of the people on this forum are very wealthy by global standards, regardless of where we are economically by our local standards). We create a huge problem in how much we need to consume to maintain our lifestyles. I think addressing that problem, especially since we're growing rapidly as a percentage of the world's population, is pretty urgent.

EDIT: This isn't to say that feeding and improving the quality of food for poor people isn't important. Just that it's not the problem being addressed with this project.

EDIT2: And culture can be a big factor in a project's success, so I feel that it's very relevant where one chooses to do something like this as a pilot.

[NarnianGarden]

gorbelly: You succesfully nailed the major differences between the American vs. European system. (let's not go to the details here, for example every European nation having their own version)
What's happening here, because of the economical situation the government has taken drastic steps to get us out of debt, and that means less benefits for unemployed, students etc..., and that means more and more people are turning to the 'third sector' (private charities) for help in their distress.
It's not that people love paying taxes, but when they do pay, they expect to get return interest for their money.
/ Sorry, OT - back to gardening

[NarnianGarden]

Oh by the way, we do have those 'marchee' thing here too, in the summer time. at least. The produce is mostly local, but not always organic but grown with pesticides etc. (not passing any judgement, just the facts) So it is not exactly like the Farmers Market idea.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by NarnianGarden

Oh by the way, we do have those 'marchee' thing here too, in the summer time. at least. The produce is mostly local, but not always organic but grown with pesticides etc. (not passing any judgement, just the facts) So it is not exactly like the Farmers Market idea.

It's hard to generalize about farmer's markets in the US, as we're a big country with very different regions. But here, markets may require that their vendors stick to organically produced stuff (although organic farming uses pesticides--it just uses organic ones), but many do not. It's usually more about promoting local, smaller-scale farms. Some farmers markets include stuff produced on a large scale commercially, though. There are no guarantees. Like anything else, people capitalize on image where they can.

[Black Krim]

Originally Posted by gorbelly

Horses have never been anywhere near the top of the Netherlands' exports, at least not in recent memory. But the Netherlands has been one of the top exporters of horses for a while, which is something very different.

The Netherlands currently exports

$161 million in horses (#6 in the world)
$4.03 billion in cut flowers (#1 in the world)

but compare to

$17.5 billion in computers (#5 in the world)
$58.5 billion in refined petroleum (#5 in the world)

The NL exports 10x more in plastic lids than it does in horses.

If you have a large, diversified economy like the NL and most other wealthy democracies do, you can be a specialist in something and dominate the world exports in that thing and still have it be a really small part of your export and overall economy. It's easy to hear that a country is the top exporter of [x] and assume that this means that [x] is their top export, but that's usually very untrue.

THe point I was trying to make, based on when I bought and imported a horse from Holland is that HORSES are so well made in the Netherlands that they are exported all over the world.


My point has been that the Dutch breed well. They work cooperatively to create a great product as far as the KWPN; and I expect that ability is not a fluke but has been applied for decades or more likely centuries. ANd likely has been applied to dairy cattle, chickens, and flowers.


Hope I was clearer here in my thoughts.

[Worth1]

I can already see thousands of the well to do lined up to live in a communal community were they work for food.
Not gonna happen until they are forced to by way of extinction.

The community I lived in we all shared and there wasn't any money spent on research or grants.
Somehow us poor working class idiots managed to figure it out on our own.
The folks behind me and I had the big garden.
Some raised chickens.
Others hunted and fished.
Others bought the beer.
We all shared and lived like kings and protected each other.


My 29 year old Latino neighbor and I just got through talking about it this morning.
About how they tore his old apartment and other houses down he was raised up in, in Austin to build fancy houses for the rich.
Called re-gentrification.
Seems when they moved the airport the land became valuable again.
Nice place but the poor folks had to move couldn't afford it anymore.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by Black Krim

THe point I was trying to make, based on when I bought and imported a horse from Holland is that HORSES are so well made in the Netherlands that they are exported all over the world.


My point has been that the Dutch breed well. They work cooperatively to create a great product as far as the KWPN; and I expect that ability is not a fluke but has been applied for decades or more likely centuries. ANd likely has been applied to dairy cattle, chickens, and flowers.


Hope I was clearer here in my thoughts.

The horse breeding industry, especially the international market in pure bred horses, is small enough that a small group of highly dedicated people who set a standard for their country can make it an exception without it necessarily reflecting on the country's culture or economy as a whole. The Dutch industry may be highly focused on high-end and very demanding buyers abroad and domestically. I wouldn't draw conclusions about an entire society based on its horse breeders.

My point is not to disagree with anything you have to say about Dutch horse breeders. I'm just trying to bring things back to the original point, which the Dutch horse industry doesn't say a lot about.

When you look at the overall strengths of Dutch society, its general priorities, its attitudes and high level of competence on cooperation within society, and its established accomplishments in achieving a high quality of society-wide welfare and in building and maintaining breathtakingly ambitious building projects that protect their country and make its way of life possible, it seems like a very good place to pilot this project, especially given that it obviously has the necessary wealth and scientific/industrial knowledge.

By comparison, the USA, though it probably has the most wealth and scientific/industrial knowledge capital of any country, is ideologically and culturally somewhat hostile terrain for a project like this today.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I can already see thousands of the well to do lined up to live in a communal community were they work for food.
Not gonna happen until they are forced to by way of extinction.

The community I lived in we all shared and there wasn't any money spent on research or grants.
Somehow us poor working class idiots managed to figure it out on our own.
The folks behind me and I had the big garden.
Some raised chickens.
Others hunted and fished.
Others bought the beer.
We all shared and lived like kings and protected each other.


My 29 year old Latino neighbor and I just got through talking about it this morning.
About how they tore his old apartment and other houses down he was raised up in, in Austin to build fancy houses for the rich.
Called re-gentrification.
Seems when they moved the airport the land became valuable again.
Nice place but the poor folks had to move couldn't afford it anymore.

I don't know why you keep insisting that this is going to be some kind of work commune when it's so clearly not that at all.

You still don't seem to get this isn't about improving the work ethic of the rich or about solutions for the poor. It's about acknowledging that the rich are a problem for the earth and trying to find ways to mitigate their damage without using totalitarian measures that just end up hurting everyone anyway. It''s about trying to initiate a broader cultural change by providing a different aspirational model for living that is not the waste dump that the McMansion life is.

I mean, if you want to advocate for a form of global Communism and a world which people are compelled to live in an ecologically sound manner in less space, denser population centers, rationed resources to avoid waste, etc., then, yes, this sort of project is a bad idea.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by Worth1

My 29 year old Latino neighbor and I just got through talking about it this morning.
About how they tore his old apartment and other houses down he was raised up in, in Austin to build fancy houses for the rich.
Called re-gentrification.
Seems when they moved the airport the land became valuable again.
Nice place but the poor folks had to move couldn't afford it anymore.

Gentrification is a huge problem and has been a huge concern for many of my close friends, some of whom are involved in anti-gentrification activism. I lived in NYC during the perfect years to witness the economic violence of gentrification myself and to be buffeted by it firsthand and see friends who were lifelong residents and/or small business owners in the city suffer as well.

After desegregation and when discriminatory housing practices and school busing made real racial integration of cities a possibility, white residents fled to the suburbs, leaving cities scrambling to provide services and enforce safety with much of its wealthier tax base gone. Cities in the US mainstream imagination became scary places full of brown people, misfits, ghettos full of strange folks from other countries, and poorer whites. They became places where you had to go to work and make money but then left by sunset, or went to have more edgy forms of fun but always left to return to the staid safety of the suburbs.

Once cities clawed their way out of the hole they were dumped in, white young professionals started coming back, looking for a lifestyle more glamorous and meaningful than the homogenized, suburban lives they knew as children. Ironically, they now push out the people who stayed and gave the place character, and now big swaths of US cities are like the surburban mall life these folks tried to escape, only many, many times more expensive.

At particular risk are neighborhoods that are seen as "the next big thing", i.e. poor minority neighborhoods once avoided like the plague and completely neglected by the rest of society but which are now seen as the best way for developers to get the best bang out of their buck. Young, mostly white, and mostly educated people come in thinking they've "discovered" the next hip neighborhood, ignoring the fact that there were communities there before, maybe not cushy, rich ones and not the safest ones, but communities of people who nonetheless worked very hard despite a lot of difficulties to keep their neighborhoods livable and take care of their friends and neighbors. Instead of slower, more stable improvement of these neighborhoods through improving the economic prospects of its residents, they often get displaced entirely and very suddenly, and those that resist these changes are called stupid and ungrateful that they're not thrilled at how much their neighborhoods have "improved".

Yes, I am intimately familiar with gentrification.

But I'm not sure what direct relevance it has to the ReGen project.

[imp]

Originally Posted by gorbelly

This New Neighborhood Will Grow Its Own Food, Power Itself, And Handle Its Own Waste



The pictures are excellent pr0n for gardeners!

To get back to the OP idea, I am interested in watching how this plays out over a few years time. I do like that there are more reasonable remarks in the article acknowledging that not all the communities, even the planned only ones so far, will not be producing all their own foods for the most part. Some of the ideas seem to all rest on a balance point, so I am wondering if there is a failure of one system as to how it would affect the rest of the systems and community, though.

[bower]

I must admit I'm a bit skeptical when I look at those pictures and really don't see anyone doing any dirty work. The second picture in the loop, there's a woman about to pick some full grown heads of lettuce which are basically in her open door living room, and growing under - within a foot of! a full sized fruit tree!!!! Seems the whole thing was just stocked for a photo shoot with the lettuce plunked in whole and big.
The caption says " Seasonal gardens will be fertilized by waste from the livestock." Somebody has to shovel that. People who work full time in some 'top tier' industry to pay for this place, they will likely pay someone to do it, not dirty their own hands or spend their valuable time on farmer's wages work. This could be the ultimate 'fake farm', where the wife goes out to cut lettuce that the minions have been tending all along - maybe growing it elsewhere to boot.

Okay maybe I'm being mean because I am just a rough sort and don't understand the technology. I really don't understand those 'plant towers' filling up two stories of greenhouse. How do you take care of the ones at the top? How bout when little gnats decide they like it up near the glass (yes they do!) and start destroying and infesting from the top down? How hard would that be to fix? How much fun is it to move the top three or four tiers when they are completely coated with aphid goop? How much more fun when you have to do it after nine to five in an office somewhere?

Also since I've lived a good while with an attached greenhouse, I know what kind of problems do arise - plants need a moist environment and this basically accelerates the decay of wooden structures (or metal) and the glass surfaces become colonized with molds etc that have to be cleaned off.... if you use a dehumidifier it will distress the plants. and it's noisy to have fans running as well as costing energy. The whole concept is beautiful but in practice, things fall apart if you actually grow plants in the space to capacity.... It's a high maintenance affair IMO, so am curious to see how it will look in ten years time. I realize, they are better glasshouse builders but.... well, I'm willing to learn better ways... bring it on, if so....