Raw Milk, SWAT Teams, and Your Freedom

The local food movement has taken root and is steadily growing. Part of this movement is focused on  raw products which have more nutrients, bacteria, and/or enzymes our bodies need. For example, raw milk contains the enzyme "lactase" which breaks down "lactose". It's kind of one of those things nature has provided us for free. To be clear there are some risks with raw products, but if handled correctly these risks are minimized.

Highly industrialized food systems try to minimize these risks as well, however, in doing so they also minimize the nutritional benefits. In the past month alone, we have seen 36 million pounds of ground turkey, 60,000 pounds of ground beef, and 8,000 pounds of smoked salmon recalled. Simply put, the claims of a safer food through industrialization aren't being realized. Here are the links to these outbreaks:

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/08/03/36-million-pounds-of-ground-turkey-recalled-after-salmonella-outbreak/?iref=allsearch
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/15/ground-beef-recalled-on-e-coli-concerns/?iref=allsearch
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/27/salmon.recall/index.html?iref=allsearch

What is crazy here is that raw milk is actually illegal. Food policy around the subject is not favorable for small farmers, or communities. This has huge implications for the most recent form of New Urbanism, called Agrarian Urbanism. Quite simply, Agrarian Urbanism is illegall. Maybe this is part of the reason we haven't seen an Agrarian Urbanism site yet.

The following is a link to a story and short video clip of a raid in CA. A SWAT team was brought in to shut down a small market selling raw food. This isn't the first time raids have happened, but really? A SWAT team? The owner's bail has been set at $125,000, which according to the story is more than a rapist in LA.


http://wholenewmom.com/reaching-out/swat-team-invades-raw-milk-farm-arrests-3-dumps-safe-milk/

Solar Sprawl and Agrivoltaics

We kicked the class off with a slideshow of sprawl. Here's another picture to jog our memory.

http://asifpeoplemattered.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/sprawl/sprawl-2/

I have had solar power on my mind lately because of the movement here on campus to start a green fund. Here is one of the "latest and greatest" solar projects out of Chicago.

http://www.illinoissolar.org/events?eventId=198024&EventViewMode=EventDetails

http://www.illinoissolar.org/events?eventId=198024&EventViewMode=EventDetails

Now, to this project's credit the solar panels were placed on top of a brownfield. Instead of remediating the brownfield, a solar plant was installed. Solar plants of this scale are encouraged as a "sustainable" alternative to fossil fuels, but this plant doesn't look like what I imagined "sustainable" to be. It serves only one purpuse, to generate power.

What other functions do solar panels have? I started thinking about the opportunity for an agirculture/photovoltaic intercrop where the solar panels could provide shade to certain shade loving species. After some time of researching, I found this.

http://wcca2011.org/news/Issue4.html

Behold, an agrivoltaic system. The first of these systems has just been built in Montipellier, France. Preliminary modeling shows an increase in overall efficiency of land use. The researchers will produce findings after a three year study. For more information, look at C. Dupraz, et. al. (2011), Combining Solar Photovoltaic Panels and Food Crops for Optimising Land Use: Towards New Agrivoltaic Schemes,out of Renewable Energy.