Agriculture Reference
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out, even those with the resources to grow food often don't (these she calls 'lazy loc-
avors') - we'll need farms of significant scale to (quantitatively and qualitatively)
feed us.
This argument is not meant to derail those calls for carrying out food production
and provisioning differently, particularly those interested in shortening the space
between producer face and consumer fork. It seems to us what is needed, rather, is
greater reflexivity all around, by quality and quantity proponents alike. Before con-
cluding we would like to offer some thoughts about what this balancing act might
look like through the example of vertical farming.
Getting the discussion going: vertical farming
Rarely do you hear those rallying against conventional food, rallying behind tehno-
logy. Where does one ind culture or community in 'cold' tehnology? Tehnology
is about instrumental rationality, about quantity. Yet, if we can admit that romanti-
cized views of the countryside are just that, romanticized views of an invented past -
even Wendell Berry recognizes the difficulties of repopulating the countryside with
farmers - then perhaps we can get over this aversion many food activists have to-
wards capital-intensive systems of food provision. On the other 'side', vertical farms
represent suh a radical departure from how agriculture has been done (I doubt Earl
Butz had this in mind when he was talking about 'geting big or geting out') that
proponents of quantity, likewise, give litle thought to it.
Vertical farms have fired the imagination of some, however, especially those con-
cerned about food security in crowded urban centres (see, for example, Despommier,
2010). Vertical farming may not sit well with those holding romanticized images of
agriculture, for it jumbles up old utopian views that place food production, rurality,
and nature in the same categorical box. Instead of worrying about the geographic
spread of arable land, why not develop farms in the same direction as most plants
go: up.
Vertical farms bring food (and 'farms') to inner city populations since, if we are
to be honest with ourselves, it is unlikely that the reverse is going to happen. Vertic-
al farms could bring jobs to these communities, while also preserving local, cultural
cuisine by growing crops specifically for the community (Slow Food using state-of-
the-art tehnology!). Vertical farms may be more emblematic of the direction food
production will have to go as one part of reconstructing an effective food system
that pragmatically combines the qualitative and the quantitative. At the same time,
