Farming in the City
BY: KURMA DASA
May 12, AUSTRALIA (SUN) — I read with great interest, "Change our Malignant Condition" by Mayesvara dasa. I find statistics such as the McDonald's burger utilizing 635 gallons of water, as staggering.
Whilst modernism has embraced much of the philosophies preached by the hippies of the sixties, such as organically grown food, clean water, and much more, the costs associated with these things have skyrocketed out of control.
Seeing the developed sentiment for such unadulterated products and the money to be made from them, the large food corporations have invested heavily and they to want their slice of this nature based cake, even if they have to cheat to get it.
Over the years and even recently, I have spoken with many devotees who would like to leave the city and to get some land and live an ideal life on a farm. All to often this seems like a dream for many of us, developing the idyllic lifestyle in the country.
It got me thinking about the possibilities of applying farming techniques within in the cities, and how we devotees could network our urban environments and grow organic vegetables fruits, etc., and produce our own pure water for the ISKCON temples worldwide.
Sure, we couldn't keep cows in the city, but as far as growing flowers, fruits and vegetables there is quite a lot we could do thoughtfully and with care, which would contribute to reducing the yearly fruit and vegetable costs to our local temples.
City devotees working, lets say, twenty urban backyards could produce an enormous amount of organic fruits, flowers and vegetables. If done carefully with good water management, etc., the results could be astounding. (One friend I have grew and sold twelve thousand dollars worth of vegetables from his urban backyard here in Australia a few years ago.)
This could also create some wonderful service opportunities. Just some humble thoughts, anyway.
Kurma dasa (not the chef)
