Friday, May 25, 2007

Is vertical farming the answer?

The mad scientists are at it again! The great minds of the world reckon that by the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people. More than 300 million hectares of new land will be needed to grow enough food to feed them. So what do the mad scientists think up as the solution?
The Vertical Farm. Have a look at www.verticalfarm.com and see if you think it's a crock.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Farm tour by Conservationists

Members of the South Gippsland Conservation toured the Freeranger farm on Sunday to see how we do things to achieve low environmental impact - as well as producing top eggs!
We had a discussuion about the mobile sheds, flocks of around 200 hens - each protected by a Maremma guard dog, no off-site nutrient inputs etc and then headed down to the Bass River to look at the vegetation.
This is part of the only remaining riparian forest left on the Bass.
On the way down we could see the vegetation on adjoining land, which had been identified as habitat for the endangered Giant Gippsland Earthworm. It has now been trashed by the sand extraction company which owns the land by running a herd of massive Simmental catle in the bush!
We looked as water flows in the creek which rises on the sand company land and flows through our property to the Bass. In the height of summer (particularly during drought periods) our creek is one of the only permanent contributers to the river flow. That will almost certainly end when sand extraction starts.