I am excited to be heading into “the big city” from Mendocino for the weekend for two events.

The first is Design for Resilience at The Hub Berkeley on Saturday.  REALLY looking forward to this event.  See my post here and comment after this great post re: A Pattern Language for Resilience and what I am looking forward to addressing.

Then, it’s off to Green Festival in San Francisco on Sunday.  Always a great place to catch up with The GreenMBA crew and meet friends old and new.  Living Mandala will be announcing an Aquaponics course that I will be a guest instructor at August 26-28 in Ukiah CA, so come on by and check out that course and others they’re offering at the booth they’ll be sharing with Starhawk.

And, thanks to fellow GreenMBA Joey Shepp of Earthsite for hooking up the free passes.  If you’re there on Sunday, drop me an @byrnegreen and say Hi!

I am honored to have contributed this piece to Thrivability, A Collaborative Sketch (see slideshow at right).

This is a diverse collection of the thoughts of 64 contributors on topics related to Thrivability.  The work itself is exceptional, as is the process by which it came together.  This “Flash Collaboration” occurred around the dynamic hub known as Jean Russell, aka @NurtureGirl, who coordinated the submissions and inspired the authors to co-write this in a process that occurred in less than 3 months.

Imagine harnessing this Flash Collaboration in your endeavor.  If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and can get to The Hub in Berkeley this Friday April 9, 2010, Jean will be offering a brown bag lunch style presentation on the process.  Not to be missed! (Members and Invite only though.)

Here’s to collaborating the world we all  know is possible into being!

Chris

(A portion of this post will also appear in the Noyo Food Forest Newsletter.)

Background

“The good food movement is now a revolution.”  Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power likes to point this out.  I had the pleasure to hear this in person, and to experience various elements of the organization, by taking part in the ongoing “From the Ground Up” regional food production workshop series in Milwaukee on February 20-21, 2010.

Many great write ups have been done of late on the work this outfit is doing.  If you are interested in learning more about Growing Power, here are some links to recent articlesThere is also plenty to find on You Tube (including my own additions.)

I have been daunted upon return to condense the sum of my experience into a manageable post (not to mention all of the flow charts and concept maps and spreadsheets swirling around my head), so this has evolved into a mini-series of sorts. My plan with this post is to focus on the workshop experience, some of the intentions i had for going, and general observations about Growing Power, the greater food-system, and thoughts therein and since. Future posts will build on those observations and include details of two systems in particular: Micro-Greens and Aquaponics, with relevant tie-ins to some of Growing Power’s other endeavors (e.g. compost and vermiculture.) I might wrap it up with a closing post if there are any loose ends / inspirations along the way.

My greatest intention in this series of posts is to celebrate and share the work of this visionary team–so far ahead of the curve in so many respects when it comes to food access and security in urban communities. However, I also want to take opportunities to point out some of the vulnerabilities in the greater food system that become apparent in a localized instance, even one as advanced as Growing Power. This is not to fault them in any way, and if my conclusions in this regard are not resonant with the views of staff, or Will, or any 3rd party readers, that is OUTSTANDING and I encourage you to respectfully dialogue in the comments so that we may all see our collective food system more broadly as a result.

That all being said, let’s get on with the report:

Deciding to go, why I (ultimately) went, and getting what I wanted (and more, almost).

My preference for a workshop is to leave at the end feeling like a (well used) wet noodle, (if you have a more ag-oriented metaphor, please let me know ) meaning the end result of the activities equal or exceed my desire for mental, physical, and (bonus) emotional exhaustion. Bioneers is like this (for me) annually, as was Integral-Sustainability (in 2006, website no longer available) and The Un-Money Convergence in Seattle in 2007. My concern in signing up for Growing Power’s offering was that it would not live up to my high-expectations of how dense an experience can be.

Looking at the schedule–two breakouts consisting of eight possible choices overall–I almost decided not to attend, as I kew I always hold a workshop to a high-bar, and at $350 for the event plus travel and accommodations, this would be a significant outlay for a self-funded consultant in “tight times”. I wondered if my precious resources wouldn’t be better spent on self-study and equipment/infrastructure, but, I realized the importance of this opportunity, and the idea of being there for two days and observing and learning was, in the end ample motivation. I decided to go.

I will save the suspense and say that the trip was worthwhile. The “but” to that statement is that I was encouraged by a confidant to realize beforehand that this trip was actually for one or two “gems” plus the fine detail I could witness by being at Growing Power in person for two days. According to this wisdom, if I went with this intention I could actually get quite a bit out of the experience–in spite of my reduced (typical) expectations. This was all that I needed, and in light of this intention, I got just what I went for… and a bit more.

[That is not to say that this is not a call to all event producers--including Growing Power--to offer a "granularity" of experience, so that the individual attendee may select for their own "wet noodle" multiplier. When I have my way producing workshops and retreats, there is an offering of core programing around which an ancillary offering is presented (and still further encouragement of 'de-central' [spontaneous] meetings) so that, depending on the motivations of the particular agent participant (no longer “attendee”), an event can be as full as one desires it to be, without being left wanting for a lack of programing. [Think: SxSW the aforementioned Bioneers and (potentially) the 2010 Integral Theory Conference. With a bit of tweaking, Growing Power workshops could be a VERY full experience. (Perhaps a wrap-up post topic?)

Experience and Observations:

The Organization

Growing Power is part farm, part living museum, "idea factory", leadership incubator, and urban agriculture/aquaponics center.  Lead by Allen, the operation is run by a beautiful, diverse, and capable team--some of them working and growing there since single digit ages, now budding young adult leaders in their own right.  And that's my first emphasis to share: I had been so focused on Growing Power's growing fields and systems, and the soil, food and other products that come out of the small two acre site, that I was taken by surprise by what is quite possibly the most important and powerful product of this organization: strong and confident young-adult leaders

During intros Sunday morning, these young community leaders were standing before the workshop, taking pride in their production (over 100 were reported in the general workshop, and another 20 or so had returned in the 5 month course). Others are clearly experienced in their field, such as Rick Miler, chief aquaponics officer. Together, they are professional food producers, processors, distributors, preparers, administrators, and--last but not least--educators, and together they represent the "value chain"--from compost to soil to seed to plate--to which we should all give thanks and gratitude every time we sit down to eat.

The focus on younger generations is resonant with Allen's approach to farming:

Building the Soil

A few observations in this regard:

First: Soil is a capital investment, and one of the greatest resources of a community. Food is the by-product of the fertility of the medium (e.g. soil) plus the inputs required of the growing system you run. From the "sprayers and drivers" of Industrial Agriculture, to the globally sourced "organic" nutrient inputs, there is a legacy of emergy and exergy behind the calories we eat.  In Allen's system, it takes a full year for food and brewery waste and yard/tree clippings to compost and be eaten by worms and turned into castings for soil building and food growth.

While Will himself says you can be marketing micro-greens "within a week", the truth is that the feedstock to establish that enterprise is 1 parts worm-castings (a full year in compost) to 1 part coconut husk (from Sri-Lanka) times your anticipated capacity. So, to go to market "in a week", you actually need to locate the above feedstock with one of the following: a.) have invested one year (plus cash) into the creation of this feedstock, b.) you get surplus from some source, or 3.) you will need to buy it in order to begin operations. (And then there's always the locale / facility cost to consider.)

The operation seems like dirt and seeds and water, but it's a bit more than that.

The Growing Power Micro-Greens system is quite innovative, as once it is established and harvested, it feeds into a recycle loop with only supplemental nutrients, which I will outline/diagram in the (forthcoming) Micro-greens post. Again, the point above is not that Growing Power is not answering questions of import, but only that there are still significant barriers to entry for young food producers seeking right livelihood.

Second: Presently most communities pay to export food and municipal waste on “garbage trucks” and pay (again) to import compost and vegetables/nutrients. A Growing Power style approach cuts out unnecessary transportation of nutrients from and back to the city, creates local “green-collar” jobs, and increases a community’s access to fresh local and healthy food by processing this “waste” within or near city limits and converting it to a resource.

Growing Power processes 100,000 lb. of food waste and recycling per week from points of source around Milwaukee. Read that again: 100,000 POUNDS PER WEEK. That's good news and bad news.

(I have anecdotal evidence that Will is quoted in Fresh (the movie) as saying 1M LB/year, which would double that figure.) The good news is that that's 100,000 lb. of compost matter that is going to a higher and better use than it had before, feeding people and forging community rather than being landfill or "bio-gassed" at some far off facility. In my eyes the bad news is like the sixth-sense of agriculture: "I see dead [dinosaurs]” (i.e. fossil fuels).

Here’s one of those stark realities I promised to shed light upon: the truth is, as far as I can see, the backbone of the success of Growing Power–and any Urban operation relying on a global agricultural feedstock / value chain for its soil compilation–is as inherently vulnerable to supply shocks as the rest of the fossil fuel economy. Because it relies on feedstocks made possible by OIL, same as any other modern system you see, even if the local site-operation is run solely upon wheelbarrows and wood heat (it is, and it’s not, respectively), the throughput (food waste–>compost–>worms–>food) is based on an inefficient system (the food waste) and the availability of (relatively) cheap energy.

While it is leveraging an extremely wasteful system in a manner more beneficial than before, I am reluctant to slap the “Sustainable Urban Agriculture” label on this (or most) endeavors just yet, because while the growing is ostensibly local, the footprint of the farm–the nutrient, seed, and energy feedstocks required to run it–are global in nature, same as “industrial chemical agriculture”.

This is an issue to return to in the future posts (particularly my forthcoming look into Growing Power’s Aquaponics). To understand this perspective, here is a recent post I wrote on a key pattern to comprehend: The Dissipative Structure and Energy/Resource Mapping.

Closure, for now

To counter-balance all of the above, I can’t say enough about the work that Growing Power is doing, and I am glad that there is so much good stuff going on there that posts such as this can push the edges of this work, hopefully helpin us all to advance our work in the production of regional and thrivable food systems. Make no mistake, we have our work cut out for us if we are to support the population that is presently eating fossil fuels, but thanks to Growing Power, Will Allen, and countless others before us, we have a head start on addressing the predicament.

Thanks for reading.
Together on Earth,

Chris

Ya’ll know about Blackle? It’s a custom Google.com page that is black themed rather than white. The madness behind the method is that the black pixels cost less energy than white ones.

In other words, there’s less dino-power in a black pixel than a white one, hence a black google multiplied over the aggregate page hits it represents equals significance translating to financial and carbon efficiency.

Well, I am personally calling the feng-shui over fung-shon (“function”) and flipping this site back around to minimalist white until i can befriend or hire a designer that can pull off the “eco-black” look. Don’t hate me ‘cuz I’m a carbon spendthrift.

It’s the classic eco design dilemma: does esthetic (ever) trump over utility (assuming they’re not resonant)?

Is it ultimately: feng-shui, or function?

This a a dissipative structure.

This pattern is indispensable when considering the resilience/sustainability and/or points of weakness in a given “system”.  It’s the first point of view to consider when “closing loops”.

It is an archetype studied in great detail in GreenMBA‘s, Systems Thinking, Permaculture and elsewhere.*  For me, it is helpful to keep this pattern / structure / archetype / mental model in mind when assessing and mapping the throughputs (feedstocks) that passes through (metabolism) a system (form), giving it its dynamic nature. For example, when one is observing and surveying the operations of a farm, ask: what is required from off site in order for the farm to function, and what (financial/environmental/social) losses are incurred as a consequence of its operations and effluent flow?

The modern industrial equivalent of this perspective is _perhaps_ the Profit and Loss statement, where the in/out flows are monetized and considered in isolation (as “line items”), with energy and materials becoming “feedstock costs” to “value creation”, and product and waste (“non-product” in Gil Friend’s nomenclature) are separated into revenue and expense distinctions.  In this system, the consequences of not establishing a waste to food relationship is either a cost of doing business or an externality.

But in a resource aware economy, employing this perspective goes a long way in expanding awareness of critical dependencies in proposed solutions, and when used in conjunction with Liebig’s Law of the Minimum, is an excellent way to assess and design resilient and thrivable systems. (e.g. The dependence of “Renewable Energy” schemes on Rate Earth Metals availability.)

[This perspective is rarely taught or seen in policy leaders, and it is why I continue to thump that Donella Meadows' Thinking in Systems, Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline, Lovins x 2 + Hawken's Natural Capitalism, etc. are the cannon of ecological and social regeneration, as they are the vision and language that are required to "grok" the whole systems in play.]

Now, if we take a step up into the “meta” perspective of the greater network, what we see is a web of relationships. Of course, industrial capitalism rarely does this, (although “value chain” awareness as a risk mitigation is quickly becoming more widespread,) but ultimately what we are realizing is that the lone cowboy of hyper-individual American wild-west capitalism shoots itself in the thigh from the saddle when it realizes that it is actually dependent on a host of dependencies… it just didn’t know it thanks to cheap energy and (other) externalities.

In an ecosystem or some other such “natural” network pattern, each of the inputs and outputs are themselves in relationship with another structure (pattern) and so on, (theoretically) ad infinitum. This is “waste equals food” or–at the meta level–”the web of life”.

So, when presented with “sustainable” systems or proposals, I use this structure to critique processes because it helps me to conceive of the “footprint” of a given endeavor.   It is a handy, but at times discouraging toolset.  That is, when we see how interconnected the network of dependence of our modern system is, and furthermore how most of these processes–even when they profess to be “renewable” or “sustainable”–are actually dependent on the keystone species of the modern human ecology: Oil, then we truly see the daunting task at hand.

Remember this structure, because after we get all fired up about Growing Power Aquaponics in a future post, I am going to use it to blow a hole in the footprint of the system, and then ask for collective help picking up the pieces and potentially rearranging them in such a way that we address this vulnerability and make the systems that much more resilient by bringing the various feedstocks closer to home.

More on Dissipative Systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissipative_system

* the work of Gil Friend, CEO Natural Logic and Author of The Truth About Green Business also comes to mind as a personal influence.

I have recently been revisiting A Pattern Language, inspired by it’s utility in designing physical spaces from vision and concept to planning and implementation.  I believe there is a similar “language” to be developed for whole systems literacy and design.  Recently I came across 12 Habits of Mind by Linda Booth Sweeney which is pursuing a similar ambition (or so it seems to me).  A confluence of inspirations for me to finally put some more form to this line of thought.  And so…

Since my introduction to Permaculture–of which ‘APL’ is a seminal text–I have been inspired by the potential for Permaculture, and Whole Systems Design / Systems Thinking to be employed as a broader framework, one which considers resilience and the network dependencies within which any endeavor is embedded.  (It already has this potential, mind you, however it is unfortunately best misunderstood as some eclectic Organic Gardening cult and needs a language so that ‘we’ may co-conceive the concepts and apply them to contexts. To that, here’s the general response and the wonky [highly recommended] one.)

I remember this coming through clearly in both meta and micro realizations for me on two separate occasions.  The former upon reading Zones and Sectors in the City and seeing the application of the framework to the broader regional network of nested systems.  The latter was a personal realization about the “zones” of my kitchen sink layout that led to a relocation of a resource (the dish soap) that saved daily stooping (wasted operations energy replaced with design).  From these two realizations, I have developed an internalization of using this patterns-to-principles-to-details perspective for the design of business processes, sites and systems, websites and knowledge-bases, regional economic surveys, currency design, and the list goes on and on… but communicating these concepts betwixt ourselves is still a challenge. We simply do not have the common language to speak of it, and neither the assurance by some check-list or curriculum that we are holding as many of the variables and considerations as possible in our awareness as we consider manifesting a design.

By stacking functions, closing loops, encouraging resilience and thrivability, seeing waste as a design failure and work as a theoretical challenge to overcome, obtaining (in contrast to mining) a yield, and the different importances of energy, emergy, and exergy… all of these–along with a host of other considerations to site specificity, component integration, KPIs and boundary determination–should be at the forefront of “the design mind”.  <rant> and design minds should be at the forefront of our “transition response team” (not kings and celebrities). </rant>

Having a framework of whole systems design that is the functional equivalent of A Pattern Language is the next opportunity to develop for Systems Thinkers, Permaculturists and the related family of Ecotechnolgists out there waging regeneration.

It’s churning in me… you?

Together on Earth,

Chris

I was fortunate to enter the GreenMBA with a stark awakening in 2003. It was as if a light had been turned on in a dark room I had been stumbiling around in, able to feel the furniture, but not quite sure of the layout of the room. That awakening was a Peak Oil symposium, given by Richard Heinberg, Michael Ruppert, and Julian Darley. I continued with some course work with Heinberg, and an insatiable thirst for more information on the consequences of the trends I could not explain away, and–perhaps more importantly–a desire to learn response tactics and skills in the face of what seemed like an insurmountable lead time already in play. The vessel needs time to change course, and sometimes after sighting the iceberg is simply too late… but there are always options.

This piece, while a continuation of Richard’s work for those of us that have followed him over the years, represents a new explicit call to focus on our collective and individual Plan B’s; that is: now that it appears that the consequences of energy demand outstripping supply will be an inevitable dilemma to deal with, what do we do? Read the quote below, and see why I resonate with his current thinking. Then if you are called, leave a comment, or contact me directly.

#214: Life After Growth « Richard Heinberg’s Museletter http://bit.ly/bKoHGq

The world has entered a new era. The project of awakening and warning policy makers and the general public was worthy of the investment of all the effort we could muster…. But it is now too late to avert a collapse of the existing system. The collapse has begun.

It is time for a different strategy.

By saying this, I am not suggesting that we should all simply give up and accept an inevitable, awful fate. Even though the collapse of the world’s financial and industrial systems has started, effort now at minimizing further dire consequences is essential. Collapse does not mean extinction. A new way of life will almost certainly emerge from the wreckage of the fossil-fueled growth era. It is up to those of us who have some understanding of what is happening, and why, to help design that new way of life so that it will be sustainable, equitable, and fulfilling for all concerned. We all need practical strategies and tools to weather the collapse and to build the foundation of whatever is to come after.

Sometimes a disruptive force through a system is a good thing, to shake up the old order.

No, I’m not talking (at this moment) about the economy, but about the snafu that brought down this website.  I am hard at work redesigning and re-implementing this site as the expression of my work and perspective.  Please subscribe (via RSS or email) for site updates.  For now, to learn more about me and my work, please visit my Google profile here:

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