Stop caring about your virtual farm and start caring about real ones.
The sun always shines. Pink cows produce strawberry milk. Soybeans take two days to grow and ripen. Something is not right. It’s too clean. Nothing smells. Coffee bean grows next to squash. Millions of first-time farmers plant new crops every week. And—finally!—people pull out their wallets to support local agriculture. Welcome to Farmville.
Farmville has become a viral internet trend since its launch as a Facebook application this summer. It has now grown to 70 million users, making it the number one application on the social networking site. Players sign up and get fields, infrastructure, and cash. They’re tasked with creating bigger, better, and richer farms. The game is a rehash of the addictive Tamagotchi pet toy of the early 1990s, but instead of feeding a little “animal,” you’re caring for a digital homestead with insatiable livestock and crops that need regular clicking and attention.
Slow Food is the organization that first brought me to sustainable eating. It showed me how to enjoy the experience of eating the best in local foods. I learned that often times local foods are easier on the planet than organic if they are grown sustainably and that my diet was one of the best tools in my plight to reduce my carbon footprint. December 10 marks the first annual Terra Madre Day celebration.
Our first stop was Nectar Gardens, run by Scott Pomeroy in Moloaa. He was farming 15 acres of a beautiful, well organized gardens and orchards. Scott has been commercially gardening here on Kauai for many years. He currently sells most of his produce at local farmer’s markets, but in the past has done CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture), sales to local restaurants, and even exporting to Oahu.
Scott uses frequent plantings of cover crops to enrich his soil. They fix nitrogen and add organic material. Some of his favorite cover crops are cowpeas, sudan grass, and buckwheat. He also rotates crops and even moves gardening areas to let the soil recover from depletion of nutrients caused by intensively growing food crops.
Scott’s main vegetable gardening area is an array of beautiful curved rows. He weeds weekly, before the weeds have time to get established. A sprinkler system is used for watering. Scott recently bought a tiller which pushes soil from the paths into raised beds for planting.
After decades of seeing plants as passive recipients of fate, scientists have found them capable of behaviors once thought unique to animals. Some plants even appear to be social, favoring family while pushing strangers from the neighborhood.
Research into plant sociality is still young, with many questions unanswered. But it may change how people conceive of the floral world, and provide new ways of raising productivity on Earth’s maxed-out farmlands.
“When I was in school, researchers assumed that some plants were better or worse than others at getting resources, but they were blind to the whole social situation,” said Susan Dudley, a McMaster University biologist. “I went looking for it, and to my shock, found it. And we’ve found more of it since.”
There is a great new market being held every Saturday at the parking lot of Kauai Community College (KCC), across from Grove Farm in Puhi. Hours are from 10am to 1 pm. The endeavor is sponsored by Kauai Community College and Grow Kauai. The Saturday schedule allows attendance by working people who can never make it to the other local Farmer’s Markets held on weekdays.
