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19 December 2010
The word "engineer" comes from the Latin "ingenium", meaning "cleverness". My particular brand of cleverness involves writing software, but I consider myself among peers who design automobiles, fancy molecules, and suspension bridges. There's a common ethic among all engineers: a can-do attitude that whatever the problem, there must be a solution.
For centuries, since we first started growing plants instead of finding them, clever engineers were there to say, "I can fix that!" Crops need more water? I'll design a system of irrigation ditches! Monocropping depleting the soil of nutrients? I'll create synthetic fertilizers! Weeds getting in the way? I'll genetically modify crops to be herbicide-resistant so you can kill everything else!
Most of these engineering feats were victories for the profession, and many still regard them as such. They've enabled unprecedented food safety, and resulting population growth, enabling a world of six billion people in which two billion are well-fed. (Yep, another third of the world is considered hungry; another starving.)
But many agricultural innovations have come with a price. Irrigation ditches alter the natural landscape, deplete the soil of nutrients, and waste the water they're designed to divert. Synthetic fertilizers require the burning of fossil fuels to produce and drastically alter the habitats where they're used. GMO crops have all sorts of concerning effects: while the food produced appears identical to that from non-GMO crops, the herbicide used on them is toxic to all sorts of life forms, including humans. Farmers have been sued for patent infringement when GMO seeds drift naturally onto their land. The high costs of GMO seeds, along with industrial pressure to produce as much food at as low a cost as possible, has devastated the financial life of American farmers.
So I feel a little guilty. Engineers like me have claimed they're solving problems while just creating new ones.
Enter Hayes Valley Farm. I visited the farm for the first time last Sunday and took the tour. Brett explained how the berms at the farm are designed to slow the flow of water down the hill. This way the water is absorbed by plants on the berms instead of just running into a storm drain. It's an old technique, but its use on the farm represents the selection of engineering feats that really DO solve problems. I started seeing innovations like this all over the place. After the tour I helped Dave add soil to the potato towers, where adding more and more soil to columns of growing potato plants increases the yield from each plant dramatically. Then I did some work and chatted with Shannon in the greenhouse. She explained how they're experimenting with all sorts of factors that affect the growth of seedlings: the recipe for the planting soil; the age of seeds used; placement of seedlings in the greenhouse. By tracking all these factors, they're optimizing the amount of food they can produce in a small space without the need for nasty chemicals. Planting nitrogen-fixing plants to enrich the soil. Placing nasturtium flowers near food crops to discourage pests. Using a garlic infusion to kill mold on strawberries. The list goes on and on.
I was fascinated by how much science—NEW science—is going on at the farm. There's a lot of experimentation happening, and while some experiments inevitably fail, HVF is developing techniques to produce more food in a smaller space in a self-sustaining way. That's darned clever—what true engineering is all about.
Photo: "Grant Farming" by Lindsey Whited, December 12, 2010
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Over a thousand volunteers, neighbors, and community members have helped coordinate the farm efforts.