As Seen on Triple Pundit: Current Trends in Agriculture
As an MBA candidate in sustainable management at Presidio Graduate School, I’ve had the opportunity to be a contributing writer to Triple Pundit, a business-oriented media company that “cultivates awareness and understanding of the triple bottom line.” Two of my Triple Pundit pieces have focused on food production and distribution.
In May of this year, I was living in San Diego and helping a group called San Diego Growers determine best-practices for a regional food hub and distribution center. The formal USDA definition of a regional food hub:
A centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.
During my time working with San Diego Growers, I was able to conduct surveys and compile economic data on various food hubs around the country. I turned my economic analysis into a Triple Pundit piece on the developing movement. The story, titled “San Diego Regional Food Hub Cultivates Local Markets,” was picked up by others within the good food movement, the food hub movement and USDA.
For this month’s Triple Pundit contribution, I focused on growing food in urban areas. The 3p article, titled “From Skies to Soil: A Brief Review of Urban Farms,” weaved together many agricultural trends, juxtaposing growing food in multistory buildings with aquaponics, hydroponics and other greenhouse technologies with “the myriad countless dirt lovers and permaculture do-it-yourselfers that thrive on personal relationships with the detritovores that comprise the web of life.”
The premise of the article: Waste = Food. I traced the vertical farming movement from Nancy Jack and John Todd’s groundbreaking 1993 book “From Eco-Cities to Living Machines: Principles of Ecological Design,” to The Plant, a 93,000 square foot salvaged meatpacking facility that is vertical farming’s current embodiment.
By the way, here is the link to all of my Triple Pundit contributions. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment or contact me for more info.