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Let veggies sprout where concrete stood
By Wang Yong |
May 17, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
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WHEN they babble on about the politically correct buzzword "low carbon," many politicians, academics and businessmen across the world hardly look beyond solar power, clean-energy cars and measures like that.
They seldom think out of the box - the city "boxed" in cars and concrete jungles - as if the world knows no better way to cut carbon emission than fueling cars and high-rises with so-called new energy.
So long as you seal a city in cars, high-rises and cement roads, you can't be truly low-carbon.
K. Rashid Nuri's article on urban organic farming raises the hope about one aspect of creating a really "better city, better life" - the theme of the Shanghai World Expo.
While the author nudges US President Barack Obama for having seemingly ignored urban farming as a truly green way forward, each one of us needs to be prodded likewise out of our collective ignorance of what benefits farming can bring to urbanites.
Urban farming does not mean turning cities into farmland in a wholesale manner. For most nations, there's no going back to an agricultural society. You can't put the geni back into the bottle. And if you did, you would fall prey to industrialized neighbors, either in trade or in war. That's the ugly side of nation-state politics.
But for the world - industrialized and urbanized nations in particular - sto survive sustainably and intelligently requires a dose of farming in cities.
There's a global consensus that a garden city is more sustainable than a vehicular and concrete one. By the same token, a farm city is better than a garden one, because a farm is more than just a garden.
Urban farming is not just about low carbon and health (farming exercise works better than a poorly ventilated gym in keeping you fit), it's about economic growth as well.
Do-it-yourself farm
On Shanghai's Nanjing Road W., many a shop selling luxury brands changes hands quite often, some disappearing within one year of opening. For most white-collar workers along that avenue, luxury brands or any other consumer goods are no longer an attraction - they've seen the world.
What's in short supply in the center of a metropolitan like Nanjing Road W. is something like a do-it-yourself farm, where you grow your own vegetables and/or flowers and buy them at a discount, or where you flee a morning or a day of air-conditioned office life to relax in shade for some refreshment.
Further crowding an already-crowded city with more shops and cars is no cure for either carbon emissions or declining business. Policy makers need to think beyond the traditional definition of a city to embrace urban farming.
K. Rashid Nuri's article shows that there're great minds in the United States, a country gone too far down the road of industrialization and urbanization. There are great minds in China, too. The economist Zhou Shulian said in an article published in Study Times on May 5 that urbanization should not come at the expense of agriculture and farmers.
But while urban farming has already taken off in the United States, China remains largely obsessed with shoveling farmers off their land and moving them into concrete construction sites in cities big and small. That's one big difference between the two countries.
They seldom think out of the box - the city "boxed" in cars and concrete jungles - as if the world knows no better way to cut carbon emission than fueling cars and high-rises with so-called new energy.
So long as you seal a city in cars, high-rises and cement roads, you can't be truly low-carbon.
K. Rashid Nuri's article on urban organic farming raises the hope about one aspect of creating a really "better city, better life" - the theme of the Shanghai World Expo.
While the author nudges US President Barack Obama for having seemingly ignored urban farming as a truly green way forward, each one of us needs to be prodded likewise out of our collective ignorance of what benefits farming can bring to urbanites.
Urban farming does not mean turning cities into farmland in a wholesale manner. For most nations, there's no going back to an agricultural society. You can't put the geni back into the bottle. And if you did, you would fall prey to industrialized neighbors, either in trade or in war. That's the ugly side of nation-state politics.
But for the world - industrialized and urbanized nations in particular - sto survive sustainably and intelligently requires a dose of farming in cities.
There's a global consensus that a garden city is more sustainable than a vehicular and concrete one. By the same token, a farm city is better than a garden one, because a farm is more than just a garden.
Urban farming is not just about low carbon and health (farming exercise works better than a poorly ventilated gym in keeping you fit), it's about economic growth as well.
Do-it-yourself farm
On Shanghai's Nanjing Road W., many a shop selling luxury brands changes hands quite often, some disappearing within one year of opening. For most white-collar workers along that avenue, luxury brands or any other consumer goods are no longer an attraction - they've seen the world.
What's in short supply in the center of a metropolitan like Nanjing Road W. is something like a do-it-yourself farm, where you grow your own vegetables and/or flowers and buy them at a discount, or where you flee a morning or a day of air-conditioned office life to relax in shade for some refreshment.
Further crowding an already-crowded city with more shops and cars is no cure for either carbon emissions or declining business. Policy makers need to think beyond the traditional definition of a city to embrace urban farming.
K. Rashid Nuri's article shows that there're great minds in the United States, a country gone too far down the road of industrialization and urbanization. There are great minds in China, too. The economist Zhou Shulian said in an article published in Study Times on May 5 that urbanization should not come at the expense of agriculture and farmers.
But while urban farming has already taken off in the United States, China remains largely obsessed with shoveling farmers off their land and moving them into concrete construction sites in cities big and small. That's one big difference between the two countries.
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