June 2008 Archives

According to an article in The Guardian today the royal parks are considering having demo allotments. They are also thinking of adding a few veg to the flower beds. Great ideas but that will not feed London.

There is already a waiting list for every allotment site in London; showing people what they can do without giving them the land to do it is simply not enough. And neither is doting a few veg around the flower beds.

If the royal parks want to be radical and address the real food crisis then they will give some of their vast space to make large, organic community gardens. That way people could grow significant amounts of food and London would take a step towards greater food security.

According to an article in The Guardian manure from farms that have used a hormone based weed killer is causing damage to food crops where it has been used on allotments. The active ingredient is aminopyralid and is found in the Dow products and Forefront and Pharaoh. There have been lots of cases where veg crops have been affected.

"The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has been inundated with calls from concerned gardeners who have seen potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables wither or become grossly deformed. The society admitted that it had no idea of the extent of the problem, but said it appeared 'significant'. The affected gardens and allotments have been contaminated by manure originating from farms where the hormone-based herbicide aminopyralid has been sprayed on fields.

[...]

Aminopyralid, which is found in several Dow products, the most popular being Forefront, a herbicide, is not licensed to be used on food crops and carries a label warning farmers using it not to sell manure that might contain residue to gardeners. The Pesticides Safety Directorate, which has issued a regulatory update on the weedkiller, is taking samples from affected plants for testing."
Pharaoh.

As a further warning I would add that some years back I took over an allotment that had been sprayed with a glyphosate based weedkiller. I had exactly the same problem with raspberries that were stunted and grew distorted leaves.

The moral of the story is simple; there are no safe pesticides,  Whatever the companies claim about instant breakdown in soil.

There are two news stories today which show a different attitude to the food crsis, both come from Malaysia.

In The Star there is a report about the Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen.

Green realm: Ng (right) walking in her garden with her 88-year-old mother.




















"Gardening is a subject close to Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen's heart.

She takes it so seriously that she grows all the fruits and vegetables that her family consumes." Read more



Growing Own Food On Home Lawns to be launched on 29 June 2008.

"A "green earth" project will be launched tomorrow  to have lawns of houses turned into small gardens to meet the food needs of families.

Secretary-general of the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry, Datuk Dr Zulkifli Idris said the project was to encourage people to grow their own food like vegetables and "ulam" (local salad) or breed fish."  Read more

To see a government take these issues seriously, and to actively encourage people to grow food, shows what can be done if there is the political will. That seems to be sadly lacking in the UK.  When will our government wake up?

This is an article in Time magazine. It is is the title of a book and a project. I have always thought lawns were a waste of space and energy. Digging up your lawn to plant food is one of the best things to do! Have a look at the project.

"London's allotment gardens are an unusual and vibrant system of community gardens that grow across the city. Tended by immigrants, retirees, chefs and fans of fresh food, the allotments make up a kitchen community like no other."

The opening paragraph in an article on NPR.  "(National Public Radio) is an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming."

There's an article, audio file, several photographs and some recipes. But allotments don't begin and end in London, so let's hear it for all the other plots in the UK

An article in The Times Online warns of another threat to food production, lack of phosphorous. Phosphorous is one of the major nutrients, N-P-K, which are essential for plant health.

N - Nitrogen: promotes the growth of leaves and vegetation
P - Phosphorous: promotes root growth
K - Potassium: promotes flower and fruit growth

" ... "Peak phosphorus", say scientists, could hit the world in just 30 years. Crop-based biofuels, whose production methods and usage suck phosphorus out of the agricultural system in unprecedented volumes, have, researchers in Brazil say, made the problem many times worse. Already, India is running low on matches as factories run short of phosphorus; the Brazilian Government has spoken of a need to nationalise privately held mines that supply the fertiliser industry and Swedish scientists are busily redesigning toilets to separate and collect urine in an attempt to conserve the precious element..."

Once again this is a result of the idiotic dash for biofuels which has increased demand for fertiliser. And yet again it highlights agriculture's total reliance on synthetic fertiliser.

There is nothing much to do in the garden now apart from harvesting and weeding; so, it's time to resurrect some half forgotten projects.

One thing I have been meaning to do for a couple of years is to install a composting toilet. We need one as it is not really polite to ask volunteers and visitors to use the bucket behind the shed! I bought a copy of The Humanure Handbook by Joeseph Jenkins a couple of years ago. There are some plans in the book showing how to build a sawdust toilet. It seems quite straightforward especially as the local DIY store will cut the timber to size. Watch this space, I'll tell you how it goes!

The other urgent job is to complete the solar powered irrigation system. I have the solar power, the water and the pumps; it just needs connecting up. There are 4, 1000 ltr pallet cage tanks and 3, 30ltr rain water tanks. That will provide around 1750 liters. With some rain in summer there should be enough to keep the garden watered. The tanks are filled using another pump from water that appears at the bottom of the garden when it rains.

The other thing I have been thinking about is a solar food dryer. I want to preserve food but not rely on a freezer. The design comes from the US and I am not sure how well it would work in UK summers. This year it would have been a solar powered freezer! I'll maybe leave that idea for a while and see how things go.

Gardeners often talk about the weather. It is always too wet or too dry; too hot or too cold. This year is is too dry and cold. Last week we had a slight frost and have not had significant rain for weeks. Most of all it's the cold that is holding back many crops. Luckily I decided not to fill the polytunnel with tomatoes this year and tried some climbing courgettes in one side. They are doing well and have been cropping for a week now. Nothing unusual about that but up here in the frozen wastelands of North Derbyshire it is considered to be a bit early.

Courgettes in the tunnel



More under cover cropping is needed but the planners would not take kindly to another tunnel, or a larger one, so the the only option is to make more use of the 5 solar pods I made a few years back and possibly add another. This would mean 5-6 beds 6ft x 4ft (2m x 1.2m) and the tunnel which is roughly 15ft x 10 ft (4.5m x 3m).

The solar pods come from Solar Gardening: Growing Vegetables Year-round the American Intensive Way.

This is a view of a 'pod farm' from the book.

















I followed the plans in the book but made mine 6ft long instead of 8ft. As the glazing and insulating materials are not available in the UK I used thin sheets of twin wall polycarbonate which seem to work OK.

I hope that some careful thought about over winter crops will see us with a reasonable supply of fresh greens for most of the time. I had hoped for a good pumpkin, sweetcorn and French bean crop this year but it looks as if the cold weather might conspire against that.

So what are the real reasons for the increase in food prices? The answer is simple, the massive increase in energy prices over the last few months. Modern agrochemical agriculture is very energy intensive so as energy prices rise so the price of food rises. Something the UK government cannot control.

Here is a press release from the Soil Association which is well researched and referenced.

And an article from Reuters New threat to food system: pricey fertilizer which says:

"It's estimated that one third of the protein consumed by humans is a result of fertilizer. So high prices and spot shortages are yet another stress on the world's ailing food system."

And this from Foreign Policy magazine:

"The higher demand for energy in poor countries has added to the pressure that led to record prices for oil and gas. In turn, these high energy prices have pushed up food prices--not only because they have made the transportation of agricultural products more expensive, but mostly because they boost the cost of fertilizers produced with hydrocarbons."

Maybe the Government should read the papers to find out what is really going on?

It seems the UK government has been totally seduced by the hype from biotechnology companies and wants to push GM crops in the UK according to The Independent on Sunday.

The Government thinks that the use of GM could lower food prices. This shows a complete lack of understanding of the biotech industry. Which biotech company is going to invest millions of pounds in research and development to give away a product that reduces costs for someone else? The ONLY reason that GM companies have spent so much money, time and effort over many years trying to convince us that they are the saviours of the world is to MAKE MORE PROFIT!
 
It is no coincidence that the debate has resurfaced in a new form at a time when people are worried about food prices. A few years back the arguments were about environmental impacts and food safety. Now all that is conveniently ignored. Saying that GM is the way to lower food prices is both simplistic political opportunism and a very cynical manipulation of the circumstances.
 
If the UK government is serious about increasing local food production then it needs to adopt farming policies that encourage farmers to produce more. It should not be seduced by large multi-national GM companies who are out the exploit the situation to make a fast buck.

There is a counter argument against the GM hype here which includes the following.

Scientific evidence of health impacts of GM crops:
Despite GM industry claims, over a dozen GM feeding trials (12 animal, 1 human) show negative health impacts of GM:

• Russian rat trial of GM soya: high mortality and stunted growth in offspring (Ermakova, 2005)
• Italian mice trial of GM soya: metabolic effects on body organs (Malatesta et al, 2002 and 2003; Vecchio et al, 2004)
• FSA-commissioned human trial of GM soya by Newcastle University: GM DNA transfers out of food into the body's gut bacteria (Netherwood et al, 2004)
• Monsanto rat trial of GM maize: changes in body organs indicating toxic effects (report by Monsanto, 2002; review by Dr Pusztai, 2004; Séralini et al, 2007)
• Aventis chicken trial of GM maize: mortality doubled and significant change in composition of meat (reports for the Chardon LL hearing, 2002; review in "Food safety - contaminants and toxins, CABI publishing, 2003)
• Aventis rat trial of the novel protein of GM maize: reduced body weight and metabolic effects (same references as for Aventis chicken trial)
• UK study on sheep: in a few minutes, the genes in the GM maize move into the bacteria in the mouth, changing their characteristics (Duggan et al, 2003)
• Monsanto rat trials of GM oilseed rape: reduction in body weight and increased liver weight (significant as the liver is the organ of detoxification) (US FDA, 2002; Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms, 2004)
• Australian mice trial of GM peas: allergic reactions, including inflammation of lungs (Prescott et al, 2005)
• Calgene mice trials of GM tomatoes: gut lesions and 7 of 40 died within two weeks (review in "Food safety - contaminants and toxins, CABI publishing, 2003)
• UK Government-commissioned rat trial of GM potatoes by Rowett Research Institute: gut lesions (Ewen and Pusztai, 1999)

Growing up in post war Britain in the 1950s and 60s would seem harsh to many kids today. There was no fast food, little or no TV and schools where the teacher's discipline was absolute.

Going to secondary school in the early 1960s was not easy for me as the school was built on the field my father rented! But at least the school had a big food garden and horticulture was on the curriculum. The food we grew went into the school kitchen. What a superb idea it was  -  teach kids to grow food and then use it on site. It's a real shame that it no longer happens in the UK.

In the US some schools have discovered the edible school yard. What a joy it is to see modern kids growing food, cooking it and eating it. The video says its all, it's from http://www.edutopia.org/edible-schoolyard-video

Enough of the doom and gloom, here is a positive example of what we can do from the Dervase family in California. It came from City Farmer in an update mentioning a CNN film about a family in Pasadena. Just another urban food garden I thought but after following the link to their site and then to YouTube I was truly amazed.

This family are a real inspiration and a testament to hope. They live the dream of many of us yet do it in a non-judgmental, positive and happy way. They grow over 2700 kg of food a year on a one tenth of an acre urban garden! They call what they are doing 'the path to freedom', how right they are. Please have a look at their website,  it is well worth it.

The YouTube video is here

At last some sense prevails. From The Guardian today:

"Britain and Europe will be forced to fundamentally rethink a central part of their environment strategy after a government report found that the rush to develop biofuels has played a "significant" role in the dramatic rise in global food prices, which has left 100 million more people without enough to eat.

The Gallagher report, due to be published next week, will trigger a review of British and EU targets for the use of plant-derived fuels in place of petrol and diesel... "

Read more

I found this table today, it's in "Eating Fossil Fuels" by Dale Allen Pfeiffer and can be found at From The Wilderness Publications.

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).⁷

Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:

31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer
19% for the operation of field machinery
16% for transportation
13% for irrigation
08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)
05% for crop drying
05% for pesticide production
08% miscellaneous

Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, and household cooking are not considered in these figures.

The latest round of price rises gives a strange picture of our society. Inflation in the UK reaches an 18 year high. According to The Guardian "Milk, cheese and eggs have increased in price by nearly a fifth since May last year along with cooking oils and fats. Meat and bread were up by 9% with fish and vegetables rising by 7%. But fruit increased by a more modest 2.4%."

Food prices have risen because the cost of commodities has risen. We all know that but what is interesting is that inflation would have been higher if the price of other goods had not fallen:"...  inflation would be considerably higher were it not for falls in other goods such as flat-screen TVs, computers, clothing and footwear. TV and hi-fi prices were down 13% year-on-year, and clothing down 6%.!"

Forget the new flat screen TV and start growing your own food!

The headline on the front page of the G2 section of The Guardian today is "How global food giants control our diet with just a handful of crops". It relates to an article by Felicity Lawrence on p.4. It is interesting reading! That so few companies now control much of the food we eat is alarming. Such concentration of ownership affects food security. Any mishaps in just one or two places could have profound effects.

The link for this article came from City Farmer. It shows how successful Cuba has been in overcoming the extreme difficulties they faced when the Soviet Union collapsed. They had their peak oil and loss of food sources in one go. The subsequent widespread use of organic farming and gardening came from necessity. Cuba has shown the world how to adapt and survive and, more importantly, how to move to a low carbon society which has proved to be much healthier in every way!

"Small is beautiful" is a well worn phrase. Now it seems that it should be changed to "small is bountiful." An article by George Monbiot argues that the best way to feed the world is to go back to smaller, mixed enterprises. He mentions an unexpected discovery: "It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen, (2) and has since been confirmed by dozens of further studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield."

He cites evidence from Turkey that confirms small farms are more productive: "A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are twenty times as productive as farms of over ten hectares (3). Sen's observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Phillippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere."

(References from the original article.)

This flies in the face of the official line of many governments including the UK. There is a universal policy of concentrating agricultural production into bigger and bigger units. The reasons given are simple; to survive in the world market you have to be big and efficient.

Free trade is the mantra for all involved in agriculture and is seen as a way of providing food wherever it is needed. Our own government is totally hooked on this and has abandoned food security to 'the supply chain'.

Monbiot offers compelling arguments against this stance and says that small farms are more efficient because they use their land more intensively and are therefore more efficient.

Championing small farms is not something new. For many years biodynamic farming has seen the smaller, mixed farm as the ideal agricultural unit. The farm becomes a closed loop system with livestock providing milk, meat and muck. The muck is then used to grow field crops thus drastically reducing, or even eliminating, the need for outside inputs. Ironically the massive rise in the cost of artificial fertiliser has prompted many farmers to re-evaluate cow muck as a fertiliser.

The article also says that there is a large amount of prejudice against smaller units and that; "...big business is killing small farms."  I could not agree more and have argued this point for many years. We are caught in a trap that could be our downfall. The major sources of food in the UK is controlled by less that a handful of supermarkets. They operate on an industrial scale and need industrial agriculture to supply them. Break that iron grip and the Country could have a better production and supply system that is more resilient to outside influences.

This is nowhere more evident that in livestock farming. Beef, milk, pig and sheep farmers are facing a huge crisis. Many are leaving with their products replaced by imports. Supermarkets argue that food is just another commodity which they will source from anywhere at the right price. With the ever rising cost of fuel, and the effects of climate change, that might not be so easy. There is also the prospect that in times of a world wide shortage countries will supply the home market and stop exporting. That has already happened this year with rice.

George Monbiot is absolutely right. We need to look at ownership of land and move towards the most efficient way of using it. If that is a move towards a more 'peasant' based economy then it should be applauded. We need to change our mindset and value the small producer, better still we should all become small producers and I would be more that happy to be called a peasant! At least I would have food.

Sainsburys are hailing their latest naf idea as a big plus for the environment. They claim that selling milk in plastic bags reduces packaging by 75%. The trouble is that it is easy to recycle the existing plastic milk bottles but virtually impossible to find anybody that will take plastic bags. Wake up Sainsbury, that's why so many people want plastic bags banned!

The sceptics say that climate change is a myth, that it's part of a natural cycle or even an elaborate conspiracy. They squirm and slide this way and that citing any argument to justify their inertia and inaction. Today BBC TV news screened graphic reports of famine in Ethiopia. Children are dying again and no doubt the sceptics will say that we have seen it all before as it happens periodically. It's also happening in India, a more prosperous country labelled as an emergent economy.

What are causes of the current problems? In India it is not shortage of food but the cost. People cannot afford to pay the high prices. In Ethiopia it is a combination of severe drought and high prices. There are other common causes across the World:

• The effects of climate change are being felt - rainfall has become unpredictable, droughts more common.
• The number of natural disasters has increased from 200 to 400 a year.
• The ever rising oil price makes farming more expensive and adds to the cost of food distribution.
• Speculation on commodity prices pushes up the cost of food.
• And then there is the biofuel lunacy.

The world will respond and lives will be saved, this time. This is not just a short term blip, it will happen again. The UN forecast that food prices will remain high for 10 years. See the BBC article here.

How many people will suffer and die before governments take the tough measures needed to combat food shortages and the effects of climate change? Will the UK government do anything at all until it happens here?

Yet another way to make a food garden. This idea comes from Africa but can be used anywhere. Here is an explnanataion of how to do it from Durham Organic Gardeners Association. They will have one at Gateshead Summer Flower Show.

"The rich soil of a keyhole garden needs to be constrained within a wall or fence. Hence, we will be constructing a circular wooden fence which has a small gap for access (the keyhole) to a simple 'basket' in the middle. We plan to make the 'basket' with wooden posts and string or wire. To make a keyhole garden the best soil, enriched with as much compost and manure as are available, is built up inside the retaining wall and rises as a mound to the central point - ie the 'basket'. Waste plant material is placed in the central basket and is watered with rain and/or grey water. Thus the garden is both watered and fed from the central moist composting material outwards towards the retaining wall/fence.

The idea for this garden came from the charity Send-a-Cow and we are indebted to them for advice and information leaflets." The Send-a-Cow web site has full instructions showing how make one.

How about having a keyhole garden in every UK school? It would teach kids where food comes from, supply fresh veg to the school and could be used to link to African schools.

All this talk of oil price rises, energy security and global recession can make you depressed and leave you wondering to do. One reaction is to say there is no way to change things, sigh, and get on with 'normal' life. But there IS something we can do. Yet another article in The Guardian by Michael Pollan is full of positive advice and ideas. The bit that interests me most is about food gardens - of course!

Pollan says:

"... Rip out your lawn, if you have one, and if you don't - if you live in a high-rise, or have a garden shrouded in shade - look into getting an allotment. Measured against the Problem We Face, planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact it's one of the most powerful things an individual can do - to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind."

(It doesn't have to be a full sized allotment, think about sharing one with friends. Or if you have a small garden use small raised beds or containers to grow at least some food.)

"A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food, we forget, comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. Years ago the cheap-energy mind discovered that more food could be produced with less effort by replacing sunlight with fossil-fuel fertilisers and pesticides, with a result that the typical calorie of food energy in your diet now requires about 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce. It's estimated that the way we feed ourselves (or rather, allow ourselves to be fed) accounts for about a fifth of the greenhouse gas for which each of us is responsible."

That's what I have been saying for years. The only thing I would add is a plea to make all food gardens sustainable by not using artificial fertilisers and pesticides. Now all we need to do is convince a few million people to have a food garden...

Portugal is building the world's largest solar farm. The Guardian reports that it will generate 45MW which is said to be enough for 30,000 homes. They are also part of the construction of the World's biggest wind farm. That is good news but what is really depressing is that the article included a league table of renewables which puts the UK at the bottom.

Top

Sweden 2005 39.8%, target by 2020 49%
Latvia 34.9%, target 42%
Finland 28.5%, target 38%
Austria 23.3%, target 34%
Portugal 20.5%, target 31%

Bottom

Cyprus 2.9%, target by 2020 13%
Netherlands 2.4%, target 14%
Ireland 3.1%, target 16%
Netherlands 2.4%, target 14%
Belgium 2.2%, target 13%
UK 1.3%, target 15%

Just what are we doing to change this abysmal rating? Nothing apart from talking about more nuclear power plants which are many years away, dangerous and uneconomic.

Portugal's economics minister, Manuel Pinho dismisses nuclear power. "When you have a programme like this there is no need for nuclear power. Wind and water are our nuclear power. The relative price of renewables is now much lower, so the incentives are there to invest. My advice to countries like the UK is to move as fast as they can to renewables. With climate change and the increase in oil prices, renewables will become more and more important.

"Countries that do not invest in renewables will pay a high price in future. The cost of inaction is very high indeed. The perception that renewable energy is very expensive is changing every day as the oil price goes up."

The UK should be part of the renewable industry instead of the ill-conceived and reckless nuclear power programme. When will the UK government wake up?  When will they stop following the US and realise that the solutions to climate change and energy security are in renewable energy? Soon I hope.....

 

The BBC are reporting from the UN food summit. They say:

"UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged nations to seize an "historic opportunity to revitalise agriculture" as a way of tackling the food crisis.

Mr Ban told a UN-sponsored summit in Rome that food production would have to rise by 50% by 2030 to meet demand."

Fine words and I don't disagree with them, my only hope is that governments will take action quickly. There are enough resources, knowledge and appropriate technology to feed the world now.

We certainly do NOT need GM crops. Already the GM vultures are circling sensing the death of resistance to their misplaced and dangerous products. They are cynically exploiting the situation and pedaling the old 'we can feed the world' myth. We can do that without GM, all that is needed is political will and not dodgy profit inspired, inappropriate science.

See the charity Practical Action for some real solutions!

In 2006 Defra (Department for the environment, food and rural affairs) published a paper "Food Security and the UK: an Evidence and analysis paper". Great we all thought, at last the government were getting to grips with food security issues. We hoped the recommendations would include ways of increasing home production to counter the loss of self-sufficiency. How wrong could we be!

The report is quite clear about the government's priorities; energy security. It says that the any shortages in UK food supply will be taken up by 'the supply chain'. It further states that food security in a developed nation is more about continuity of supply of food at the right price rather than starvation. While there was some truth in that a few years back circumstances have changed.

With the ever increasing price of oil assumptions about 'the supply chain' are, at the least very optimistic and at worst downright negligent. A report on BBC TV news last night showed people trying to stock up on rice as they feared an impending shortage. This is a world wide problem as many countries are not producing enough for local consumption so have stopped exporting. How does 'the supply chain' work in these circumstances?

The Defra paper pays scant attention to the likely effects of climate change. There will be huge effects on food production across the world, as small variations in the climate can cause huge changes in crop yields. This was clearly shown last year as the wet summer in the UK caused failures in staple crops like potatoes, peas, onions etc. By December 2007 some supermarkets were importing onions from South America. That was before the massive increase in oil prices!

These are my questions.

1. As climate change takes effect across the planet how will 'the supply chain' make up the deficit in food production?

2. If the whole of Europe suffers crop failures where will the UK source its food?

3. If oil prices continue to rise, as predicted, how will people afford food shipped half-way round the world?

The answers to all the above is to increase UK production of staple crops from sustainable agriculture.

On EuroNews today there was an interview with an official of the Ethiopian government. He was talking about food security. What he said was simple yet profound. He mentioned the reaction of governments to rising oil prices and their effect on the cost of food. He suggested that instead of using money to keep the price of oil down, governments should help farmers increase production so food prices were lower next year.

Maybe the UK government should listen and learn from countries that don't have a supply chain. We need to increase home grown food production in every way possible. That does not mean more of the same but needs new approach:

• By investing in a shift to sustainable agriculture that moves away from total reliance on oil.
• Large scale farming should not be the mainstay of 'the new agriculture' as mono cropping is more susceptible to pests and disease.
• Growing food close to where it is consumed thus reducing the cost of distribution.
• Supporting and encouraging smaller, more diverse urban farms including;
• community gardens,
• old style market gardens,
• individual self-sufficiency - allotments and similar schemes,
• roof top gardens,
• SPIN gardening
  
• use of public open spaces to grow food,

This should be started now before we have a big food crisis and before we do see the effects of malnutrition in this 'developed' country!