Post by @idzie@kolektiva.social

In a recent thread @CedarTea touched on frustration with a certain type of utilitarian environmentalist city-dweller, and I immediately thought of a YouTube video I saw recently where someone confidently stated that people SHOULDN'T grow their own food. People should live in high-rises and leave food-growing to the professionals, who can do it more efficiently.

And I just had to sit with that for a second, and wonder at people who think the only benefit in engaging with growing or gathering food is producing as much as possible, and if the "as much as possible" isn't good enough then you shouldn't do it.

This isn't a knock on city-dwellers or high-rises, or a disagreement that there are reductions in individual CO2 emissions from people living in densely populated areas. But I do feel a great deal of sadness, and feel that people are wildly missing the point of it all, when they decide that engaging with the rest of the living world in a variety of ways, gaining greater understanding of agriculture and ecology, seeing and feeling yourself as an integral part of life, just doesn't really matter very much. Efficiency rules all!

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Zonzonn8

@Zonzonn8@piaille.fr 5 hours ago

@idzie is the one cucumber and cherry tomato that I’m gonna harvest today are gonna feed 2 adults? No. Does it make me happy? Very much so! And it also make my neighbors kids really happy to pick 2 strawberries and 10 blueberries themselves in our otherwise concrete courtyard.

Ryan

@fullywoolly@mastodon.social 6 hours ago

@idzie @CedarTea while I agree that density is better to keep as much land available for undeveloped wild space, it's also a lot of fun to garden and have pride in what you grow. And is there anything quite like picking a tomato off the plant and eating it? It's remarkably different in what is lost in harvest, shipping, sitting on a shelf, or your counter ... And I'd say even magical.

I used to live in a condo and my neighbors had a plot at a P-Patch garden. Also an option.

Abhijit Menon-Sen

@amenonsen@flipping.rocks 14 hours ago

@idzie @CedarTea (Without having seen the original thread) I also wonder which professionals one is supposed to leave the food growing to, because in my experience, small-scale farming can be a frustrating process with highly variable outputs. So maybe it's only corporate megafarms that we should depend on for agricultural efficiency?

Idzie

@idzie@kolektiva.social 12 hours ago

@amenonsen that seemed to be exactly what they were suggesting.

Violet Madder

@violetmadder@kolektiva.social 13 hours ago

@amenonsen @idzie @CedarTea

And all the talk of "efficiency" is honestly batshit when we're talking about disastrously unsustainable farming methods that are wrecking the soil and driving vast amounts of desertification all over the world-- oh, and all while relying on precarious global supply chains consuming staggering amounts of fossil fuels and keeping everybody dependent on shit that comes from places like the Strait of fucked up Hormuz.

The gains of the so-called Green Revolution were very temporary. Concentrated fertilizer salts and tilling do nothing to replenish the humus or maintain healthy soil structure, leading to incredible waste, pollution, and erosion.

Efficient, my ass.

CedarTea

@CedarTea@social.coop 13 hours ago

@violetmadder
Also a piece of that "efficiency" gain came not from actual per sqft output increase but from expanding cultivated areas out into what used to be allowed to be native species because it wasn't profitable to till. Cash crops are so fine tuned now that they can put them where they never used to bother.

@amenonsen @idzie

Naomi T

@enting@wandering.shop 14 hours ago

@idzie I also find growing things (houseplants and gardening) to be an incredible source of both joy and hope, and I would absolutely want as much of both as possible if I were to move back to a major city.

Naomi T

@enting@wandering.shop 14 hours ago

@idzie I will grant that there are few enough pollinators high up that even balcony gardens would likely need careful plant selection (and based on my grandmother’s apartment, any food would need extensive washing), but *even if* one accepts the efficiency argument (which I agree with you is not the only priority), growing a couple of leafy greens and harvesting a few leaves at a time, as needed, is more efficient than buying a large quantity and having half of it just become compost.

abby

@vapaad@wandering.shop 14 hours ago

@idzie
I feel this so much! It's like I can't argue about the efficiency of the argument in question. But people are meant to be with plants and growing food is just such a natural and fun way to do so, even just green onions in the windowsill.

I also think it's really important for kids to help them explore new foods in a low pressure way! I have tons of texture aversions in food but I think I grew up to love most fruit/veg because I got to do so much garden exploring as a kid.