More sustainable methods of farming needed as populations increase, people migrate to cities

With the world’s population estimated to reach 9.8 million people by 2050, is vertical farming a viable option for feeding our rapidly growing cities while keeping us from committing climate suicide?  

City life is in demand. According to the United Nations, 3 million people all over the world are moving to cities every week, and this number is expected to keep increasing. The UN predicts that, in 15 to 30 years, two-thirds of the world will be living in cities.

The U.S. is no different — we love our cities too. Today, 82% of Americans live in medium or large-sized cities, and this percentage is expected to spike in the future as well. Where we get our food to feed these growing cities will play a major role in whether we achieve our climate goals under the Paris Agreement or not.

According to experts, up to 23% of our global greenhouse gases can be traced back to agriculture and land use. That’s almost a fourth of our total greenhouse gas emissions. But that only accounts for production: food then needs to be transported to the big cities, and in many cases, that means taking big diesel-emitting 18-wheelers across the country, or exporting food out of the country altogether.

California’s agriculture industry is huge. We have 77,500 farms producing more than 400 different commodities, and we produce two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts. We export one-fourth of our total food production to other countries. And all this comes at a carbon price we might not be able to afford as the food demand for our hungry cities increases.

A simple solution to reduce our food mileage — the distance food travels from production to consumption — is to grow food near our cities. But an even better solution could be to grow food right inside our cities.

Vertical farming is the act of growing food in vertically-stacked layers indoors year-round by controlling light, temperature and water, often without the use of soil. Two of vertical farming’s biggest perks are its climate control mechanisms and potential to make production more efficient.  

As climate change gets worse, many places where we’ve been able to grow food for years will start experiencing unprecedented problems. Rain seasons, drought years, flash floods and irregular weather patterns can become less predictable. Habitable areas for insects will change as well, which could introduce pests and disease to new areas. The ability to grow food indoors, and without soil, gets rid of these future uncertainties.      

Growing food indoors without concerns about climate or soil means extreme-weather Chicago, congested New York and even dry Las Vegas can become independently sustainable food producers, grow food year-round and feed themselves locally.

Soil-free agriculture will eliminate any use of pesticides and herbicides, which would make consuming food much healthier. It also alleviates the problem of dealing with the declining health of our soil. According to the UN, half of the soil usable for agriculture has been lost in the past 150 years, leaving us with only 60 more years of viable soil.  

Vertical farming also brings potential for solving our current and projected water issues in California. By using hydroponic system technology, water is constantly recycled and uses 98% less water per item than traditional farming. Adopting this technology would be greatly beneficial for our future, considering that California’s agricultural sector uses 40% of our water.

Vertical farming also means potential economic profit for farmers. With 3.5 million workers maintaining the fields in the U.S., labor comes at a price. But vertical farming can automate most of its production, meaning that more businesses can afford to jump into the market and bring the cost of food down.

  Ecologically, vertical farming can  help the land harmed by deforestation and desertification to regenerate and return to its natural state. This would allow many species to retake their natural habitats and help slow the alarming rates of extinction.

While vertical farming has the potential to solve a lot of our current and future problems, it’s still very early in its development, and there are many questions we don’t know the answers to. Will the food grown under LED lights be as nutritious as the food grown under the sun? Is the carbon footprint of substituting the sun’s energy with LED lights sustainable? Where will the energy to run these vertical farms come from?

Vertical farming is not the answer to all of our problems and is not a technology meant to replace conventional farming altogether. But it can allow for our growing cities to take some load off farms and become more self-sufficient.

I am optimistic that this technology will keep improving and, with innovation and the free market, create new and more sustainable methods for bringing food from our farms to our mouths.

Written by: Daniel Oropeza — daoropeza@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.

Why does violence hold such mass-market appeal in our entertainment culture?

A few weeks ago, I replayed one of my favorite games of all time: “Uncharted 2.” It’s the game that fully introduced me to what video games could be –– a masterful way to tell stories in a fun and engaging way. I tried to keep in mind an often-heard criticism about the main protagonist: Nathan Drake is essentially a mass murderer, killing hundreds of enemies throughout the game. “It’s just a video game,” I would tell myself. But is that a valid excuse?

Throughout my playthrough, my admiration for the game remained unchanged — it was as enjoyable as it was before. But, a constant question remained: Why is violence the default gameplay objective in the industry? And why does violence hold such a large stake in our mass media culture and entertainment as a whole?

A quick Google search of violence in video games will lead you to an unending debate over whether or not violent video games cause violent behavior in young people. However, what I find more interesting is the overwhelming frequency of violence (guns, brawling, violent acts) as the default for gameplay. Why are developers and gamers so comfortable with killing?

The 10 best-selling games of last year reveal how dominant violent games are in the video game market. Eight of the top 10 games from 2018 featured violence as the main form of gameplay. This phenomenon isn’t just limited to video games — eight of the top 10 movies from 2018 featured violence as well. But it certainly feels more prevalent in the interactive experience that games provide.

Mowing down hundreds of enemies seems routine for the majority of video games. And sure, most enemies will kill you if you don’t kill them first — that’s the conflict game designers always give us. But that’s part of the issue, too. Why are game worlds designed so that killing is often the core mechanic? Many older games like “Tetris” and “Pong” featured zero violence. But, as graphics and gameplay capabilities advanced, games became more violent — or at least seem more graphic in comparison. As games like “Contra,” “Mortal Kombat” and “Call of Duty” have found success, the default mode of conflict has turned to killing.

Where does this obsession and attraction to violence come from? Is violence just the easiest way to create conflict? Is it all necessary? Do we as consumers really demand this much violence?

Maybe the answer lies in the success of non-violent games. Independent games like “Journey,” “Gone Home” and “The Witness” tell compelling stories with engaging game mechanics and without violence. AAA developers — the big-budget industry giants like Ubisoft and EA — seem hesitant to breach into this genre of gameplay on a large scale. Yet these non-violent, independent games found success on a smaller level both critically and financially.

Ultimately, in all forms of entertainment, violence is used to build up adrenaline, conflict and consequence. The ultimate consequence in these games is death. But the infliction of pain in digital death is so often lost in our depictions of violence. Violence is simply the easiest way to create conflict — it’s immediately recognizable. Kill a hundred enemies in a video game or in a “John Wick” killing spree, and they will simply slump to the floor.

We need to reassess what our entertainment-obsessed culture favors and why we watch and play the games we do. I love “Game of Thrones” and “Star Wars” as much as anyone, but I have to ask myself why violence is such an attraction. Certainly there’s a space for it, and many depictions of violence are handled appropriately. What I think about video games time and time again, however, is whether this frequency of violence is really necessary.

When I play games, I usually play them for the story they tell and the characters I meet. My favorite part about games is not the hundreds of people I have to kill in between cutscenes — it’s the cutscenes themselves, simply because they advance the game’s plot more directly.

Reflecting upon the overwhelming frequency of violence in video games, I find myself wanting new experiences that aren’t fixated on running-and-gunning. Diversifying the palate of available AAA games with more varied experiences of gameplay and story can only be good for the industry and for gamers. Often the violent AAA games are so big, violent and boisterous that it’s hard for new gamers to enjoy those experiences, whereas independent games like “Journey” and “Gone Home” offer remarkable, quality experiences at a lower cost for developers and gamers.

Written by: Calvin Coffee — cscoffee@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.

“Accessibility” often feels like an obvious reason to develop roads on public land — but isn’t quite as straightforward as we think

Yosemite Valley is more of a small city than a wilderness these days. The seven-square-mile valley sees more than 4 million visitors annually and houses over 2,000 seasonal employees; it has five lodges and hotels, and the park website warns against hours-long waits getting around the valley by car during the summer.

The numbers alone tell a story that stands in stark contrast to John Muir’s 1899 description of the area: “Nearly all the park is a profound solitude. Yet it is full of charming company, full of God’s thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and eager enthusiastic action, a new song […] with sermons in stones, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful of humanity.”

The writing and activism of Muir and others has brought the Valley both national protections and international fame, making it one of the most visited national parks in the U.S. and a prime example of one of the biggest dilemmas the park system faces: how to simultaneously manage, protect and share the land. A huge part of this dilemma is the question of access.

“Accessibility” is something of a buzzword, popping up in debates about how to use and develop public land in ways that are hard to argue with. Besides allowing companies like DNC Parks & Resorts, the hotel company that does business in Yosemite Valley, to profit, developing roads and trails allows a far wider range of people to access preserved areas than keeping the areas totally wild. This encourages people to engage with and care about our public land, and it’s intuitive that people are more willing to fight to protect land when they have a personal connection to it. Similarly, it’s ridiculous to argue that only people who are physically fit and able have the right to access public land, which is often understood as the practical outcome of not developing parks for easy viewing.

There are ways, however, to increase citizen access without building infrastructure.

Last summer, I worked for a company called Splore, which is based out of Moab, Utah, and takes people with disabilities rafting on the Colorado and Green Rivers. The company has been around since the ‘70s, and some of the trips that Splore offers wind through truly remote areas. This means sometimes putting people with severely limited mobility on class 3 or 4 rapids in the backcountry, where rescue is complicated. To some people, that sounds irresponsible. Maybe it is. But on one of the first trips I worked, there was a man with paraplegia whose favorite part of the day was the biggest rapid. His ear-to-ear grin made me wonder how much “accessibility” is wrapped up in tightly-held beliefs that people with disabilities “shouldn’t” put themselves in danger or make themselves uncomfortable. Since when was rafting supposed to be safe or comfortable for anyone? How often does the argument that we need these things for “certain populations” really underestimate the people who fall under those labels?

One of my biggest takeaways from the experience was the realization that “accessibility” is much more nuanced than we give it credit for. People don’t need a road to walk or roll on; they need the support of people who have the knowledge, skills and sometimes technology necessary to safely navigate wild spaces. These skills and support systems can be actively invested in and maintained to give people access, rather than relegating people without the knowledge to read a trail map or the ability to navigate a trail in their everyday wheelchair to the sidewalk.

It’s true that some disabilities can add more discomfort or danger to backcountry endeavors than is reasonable. But when it comes to natural spaces, building infrastructure fundamentally changes what you are preserving. The idea that building infrastructure makes those quiet, remote, peaceful places “accessible” is a misrepresentation. Rather than increasing access to remote areas, infrastructure just makes places into not the backcountry, and often discourages people from stepping outside of it.

There’s a balance to be struck. I don’t think a mistake was made in developing Yosemite Valley — the role the Valley plays in our world as it is now is a good one, bringing love and publicity to the park system. But the quiet liveliness of the Valley as Muir experienced it is gone. It’s been destroyed, if you want to be dark and honest about it. I’m not saying it’s a “bad” thing; I’m saying we have to make sure there are still quiet, profound places in the world, and make sure to both protect them by not allowing them to be built over and share them as best we can with anyone who wants to see them.

Written by: Anna Kristina — akmoseid@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.