Free Download Shows One Way to Start Rebuilding Local Food Systems
PHILADELPHIA, PA, April 2009 : To help channel the energy surrounding Earth Day into constructive activity, SPIN-Farming® is offering a free download that helps show people how they can take food production into their own hands. “Lettuce Rethink How To Farm”, a 15-minute do-it-yourself Power Point presentation, can be accessed by clicking “Spread the Word” at the SPIN-Farming website-- http://www.spinfarming.com/spreadtheword.
According to Wally Satzewich, the developer of SPIN-Farming, Earth Day brings people together to think things through again, make certain re-appropriations and create a new ideal. “Part of this new ideal is to re-engineer the current food production system to one that is more locally oriented, and therefore easier to control and monitor, and which contributes positively to the environment and produces fresh, healthy food. This do-it-yourself presentation helps like-minded people begin to champion, conceptualize and implement local food systems.”
Roxanne Christensen, co-author of the SPIN-Farming online learning series, says, “The issue at stake for those who want to create a sustainable world is: What is left when living is less about adding new products to the stack of stuff we already have? Part of the answer involves redefining status, luxury and success, and then mass marketing that new ideal.” According to Christensen, SPIN-Farming is serving as a platform for creating a value system predicated not on products, but on practices. “This free presentation shows how SPIN-Farming can inspire a more sustainable way of life that is not based on turning stuff into green stuff, but that is about changing people’s thinking, habits and behaviors.”
The Power Point highlights sub-acre SPIN farms in three different contexts. Brick City Urban Farms is an inner city farm in Newark, NJ; Community Roots is in a subdivision in Boulder, CO; and City Garden Farms spans multiple backyards in Portland, OR.
SPIN (S-mall P-lot IN-tensive)-Farming (www.spinfarming.com) is a non-dogmatic, non-technical, easy-to-understand-and inexpensive-to-implement farming system that makes it possible to generate significant income by growing common vegetables on sub-acre plots of land. It is organic-based and can be practiced on a single plot or multi-sited on several residential backyards in urban or peri-urban areas, or as part of a larger acreage in the country.
SPIN-Farming LLC is a multi-national cottage industry. It publishes the SPIN-Farming® and SPIN-Gardening™ online learning series and conducts workshops in partnership with leading farming, gardening and environmental organizations. The company is powered by user-generated inspiration and is dedicated to providing farming and gardening how-to that can be learned and practiced across all economic classes and geographical boundaries. It aims to foster engaged agriculture in which farmers and gardeners rebuild local food systems that are human in scale and joyful in spirit.
I have personally downloaded the Power Point presentation and other information from the site and must say that it make interesting viewing and reading. I am looking to applying some of the principles to my food growing at home for...
While it is, to a degree, aimed at doing small urban farms, basically, the system can be translated to the back yard and garden too, for family consumption rather than sale and commercial operation. Obviously, if there is a surplus of fresh produce that cannot be made use of by an individual family then, well, why not sell it to others or use it in barter trade.
Michael Smith (Veshengro), 2009
<>
SPIN-FARMING OFFERS FREE DO-IT-YOURSELF PRESENTATION FOR EARTH DAY
