Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 90 posts

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#11

Post by iammisc »

philips wrote: post #3
iammisc wrote: post #2

Great hobby (I really mean that... my wife and I grow, process, and preserve a significant portion of our own produce in our front lawn), but ultimately, these are only marginally less wasteful than lawns. The distribution costs (environmental and otherwise) of having many small farms easily overpowers the current situation, which allows for more efficiency. Plus, it takes quite a bit of intense effort to farm enough…

Do you have any references to back up these claims?

For my first claim (that rapid decentralization will not achieve the climate ends), this is my own analysis based on the fact that growing enough food to feed the world requires fertilizers as inputs. Currently the fertilizers are transported in trucks to farms and spread over large swaths of land by machine. The alternative is for it to be packaged up and spread by hand or with small machines. This would require more resources, for packaging, distribution, and machine production, so would seem intuitively worse for the environment.

For the meat (not saying you should consume a meat based diet but rather one that's mostly plants that properly incorporates meat as necessary... i.e., a traditional diet): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-015-9577-y .

Also, as an aside, if you don't want to turn veggie farming into mining with some extra steps, you need to raise animals that you can grind up into fertilizer. Otherwise, you have to mine petrochemicals or bat poop, which is extremely bad for the environment.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#12

Post by mc32 »

clairity wrote: post #4
iammisc wrote: post #2

Great hobby (I really mean that... my wife and I grow, process, and preserve a significant portion of our own produce in our front lawn), but ultimately, these are only marginally less wasteful than lawns. The distribution costs (environmental and otherwise) of having many small farms easily overpowers the current situation, which allows for more efficiency. Plus, it takes quite a bit of intense effort to farm enough…

beyond the fact that farming & industry use most of our water in CA, shouldn't greywater/runoff recapture+storage (instead of using fresh water) help with water usage? and because it's a hobby, there is little wasted opportunity cost, in either land or labor. and though it's unlikely to make any difference in the farming calculus, south LA is underserved by fresh grocery, so this seems a nice little intersection of e…

Is grey water treated enough to ensure we don’t get e-coli from its use?

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#13

Post by [deleted] »

iammisc wrote: post #7
clairity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

beyond the fact that farming & industry use most of our water in CA, shouldn't greywater/runoff recapture+storage (instead of using fresh water) help with water usage? and because it's a hobby, there is little wasted opportunity cost, in either land or labor. and though it's unlikely to make any difference in the farming calculus, south LA is underserved by fresh grocery, so this seems a nice little intersection of e…

Growing more things in the place of lawns in Southern CA ain't gonna cut down on water usage. I was born and raised in SoCal and the only thing meant to grow there is the natural chaparral. Definitely not leafy greens.

[deleted]

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#14

Post by iammisc »

burlesona wrote: post #8
pkaye wrote: post #5

Seems like it would be better to subsidize a local grocery store in these food deserts regions.

Seems like food desert is a very relative/subjective term. The article mentions there being a major grocery store one mile away. On a recent trip to Atlanta I visited a neighborhood where there was no significant grocery store for more like a 5 mile radius. That’s quite a lot worse. And there are plenty of outer suburban/exurban locations where the a particular neighborhood may be 10 miles or more from the nearest gr…

Yeah, the other thing is that these food desert studies fail to take into account ethnic differences. For example, hispanic corner stores often basically are a mini grocery store, with fresh produce and stuff. They are not the equivalent of a 7-11. But these studies often only count the Safeways and Albertsons. And plus, I grew up close to these areas and was often in South LA, and they're not food deserts. I have no idea what people are talking about. There are grocery stores everywhere.

Another strategy they use to fudge the data is not counting grocery stores that are not 'traditional'. For example, this map (http://www.povertyusa.org/stories/homelessness-food-deserts-...) has a food desert in Pico Rivera that contains a Food 4 Less.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#15

Post by clairity »

iammisc wrote: post #7
clairity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

beyond the fact that farming & industry use most of our water in CA, shouldn't greywater/runoff recapture+storage (instead of using fresh water) help with water usage? and because it's a hobby, there is little wasted opportunity cost, in either land or labor. and though it's unlikely to make any difference in the farming calculus, south LA is underserved by fresh grocery, so this seems a nice little intersection of e…

Growing more things in the place of lawns in Southern CA ain't gonna cut down on water usage. I was born and raised in SoCal and the only thing meant to grow there is the natural chaparral. Definitely not leafy greens.

the article says that one of the gardens uses 8% of the water of the grass it replaced. the point is that, while it's not gonna significantly reverse socal's water deficit, it is a net benefit.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#16

Post by briefcomment »

iammisc wrote: post #11
philips wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any references to back up these claims?

For my first claim (that rapid decentralization will not achieve the climate ends), this is my own analysis based on the fact that growing enough food to feed the world requires fertilizers as inputs. Currently the fertilizers are transported in trucks to farms and spread over large swaths of land by machine. The alternative is for it to be packaged up and spread by hand or with small machines. This would require mor…

Interesting study. I think most people think the complete opposite. Science communication seems pretty broken.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#17

Post by clairity »

mc32 wrote: post #12
clairity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

beyond the fact that farming & industry use most of our water in CA, shouldn't greywater/runoff recapture+storage (instead of using fresh water) help with water usage? and because it's a hobby, there is little wasted opportunity cost, in either land or labor. and though it's unlikely to make any difference in the farming calculus, south LA is underserved by fresh grocery, so this seems a nice little intersection of e…

Is grey water treated enough to ensure we don’t get e-coli from its use?

my understanding is that e.coli contamination (by the harmful strains) is usually an artifact of cross-contamination from industrial farming. gardeners don't typically have to worry about it. just wash everything like you'd normally do anyway.

edit: also, greywater in this case is usually captured from rainfall, not recycled from sewage, like you might be thinking.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#18

Post by bombcar »

iammisc wrote: post #14
burlesona wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like food desert is a very relative/subjective term. The article mentions there being a major grocery store one mile away. On a recent trip to Atlanta I visited a neighborhood where there was no significant grocery store for more like a 5 mile radius. That’s quite a lot worse. And there are plenty of outer suburban/exurban locations where the a particular neighborhood may be 10 miles or more from the nearest gr…

Yeah, the other thing is that these food desert studies fail to take into account ethnic differences. For example, hispanic corner stores often basically are a mini grocery store, with fresh produce and stuff. They are not the equivalent of a 7-11. But these studies often only count the Safeways and Albertsons. And plus, I grew up close to these areas and was often in South LA, and they're not food deserts. I have no…

I think a much more useful study would be to canvas areas and determine what people eat - as large amounts of home cooked meals basically indicate that there is some source of staples, even if it isn’t one of the “approved supermarkets”.

Around here you can get significant staples from the gas station, and not at bad prices either.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#19

Post by mc32 »

clairity wrote: post #17
mc32 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is grey water treated enough to ensure we don’t get e-coli from its use?

my understanding is that e.coli contamination (by the harmful strains) is usually an artifact of cross-contamination from industrial farming. gardeners don't typically have to worry about it. just wash everything like you'd normally do anyway. edit: also, greywater in this case is usually captured from rainfall, not recycled from sewage, like you might be thinking.

Unless surface to capture rainfall is clean, it can be contaminated with animal droppings. Also if it's treated sewage, I'm not sure if it's treated enough against pathogens.

Contaminated crops usually uptake the pathogens from their water intake rather than from "dirty handling" and given it's within the produce itself, you cannot "wash it off". Cooking solves the issue, of course, but not all produce gets cooked.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#20

Post by tomnipotent »

burlesona wrote: post #10
clairity wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's really no vacant infill in south LA unfortunately, and despite it's bad rap, commercial rents in the area are nearly as inflated as everywhere else in LA. we really need to structurally discourage unproductive economic activity (like rents) to get better outcomes for all.

There’s no reasonable way to have property rights and not have rents. Over time, property rights have proven to be one of the most beneficial elements of systems that efficiently allocate resources and produce wealth for all, so eliminating them is a bad idea. What we need is to fix corrupt local governments that prohibit the supply of new real estate via redevelopment and densification. Having lived in Houston for a…

Rent, as a percentage of income spent, has increased more for American's than almost all other expenses in the past sixty years. By 2015, more 38% of renter households were spending 50% or more of their income on rent. That sounds horribly unproductive to me.
Post reply on HN