What have you done today to lower your impact?

We are washing away the foundations of our existence on every front. It is high time we move from crashing about on the planet like a bull in china shop and find a way to go forward with intent. We must find systems of living based on sustainability. The systems and tools exist, it is up to each of us to adopt them.

Blog Archive

Friday 18 July 2008

One of the next food sourcing models? - video

Donna and Robyn created Your Backyard Farmer in the Portland, Oregon area. They have an innovative approach to Community Supported Agriculture through urban backyard farming.

2 comments:

Rox Sen said...

There is another angle to this model and that is the growing corps of backyard commercail farmers. They are practicing a sub-acre farming system called SPIN-Farming. Developed by Canadian farmer Wally Satzewich, SPIN is a franchise-ready vegetable farming system that makes it possible to earn $50,000+ from a half acre. SPIN farmers utilize relay cropping to increase yield and achieve good economic returns by growing only the most profitable food crops tailored to local markets. SPIN's growing techniques are not, in themselves, breakthrough. What is novel is the way a SPIN farm business is run. SPIN provides everything you'd expect from a good franchise: a business plan, marketing advice, and a detailed day-to-day workflow. In standardizing the system and creating a reproducible process it really isn't any different from McDonalds. By offering a non-technical, easy-to-understand and inexpensive-to-implement farming system, it allows many more people to farm, wherever they live, as long as there are nearby markets to support them, and it removes the two big barriers to entry – sizeable acreage and significant start-up capital. By recasting farming as a small business in cities and towns, SPIN farmers are helping to make local food production a viable business proposition once again. You can see some of them in action at www.spinfarming.com

C Robb said...

Thanks for the comment. I've had a brief look at SPIN farming and it looks good. Is there a franchise fee involved or just a charge for the books?