“The Japanese think of the City in the way that Englishmen used to think of Mighty London. It is either one or the other. Rice paddies or the Ginza.” (p35)
I am reading the wonderful author Donald Richie’s The Inland Sea, first published in 1971. Richie is the ultimate American expat in Japan, who stayed from [...]
Posts Tagged ‘agriculture’
30 Nov
City and Country, 1970s and now
6 Nov
White House bee hive
Michelle Obama has brought beekeeping to the White House, and the New York Times has a lovely three minute video story about this activity that connects the president’s home with Washington DC’s seasonal trees and flowers, and school children. The honey is eaten at the White House and offered as a gift to world leaders.
With [...]
3 Nov
Stop Big Ag in the White House – Say No to Monsanto and CropLife
Food Democracy Now is organizing an online petition to stop Obama and Congress from nominating and approving industrial agriculture leaders to key government food and agriculture positions. The petition seems organized for United States residents. Nonetheless, appointing executive level GMO and pesticide advocates to senior US government positions will certainly have a global effect on [...]
3 Oct
Mebiol: Hydrogel Agriculture Technology
I recently had the chance to meet Professor Mori Yuichi of Mebiol, an agriculture technology company in Kanagawa. This research professor at Waseda University started Mebiol in 1995 exploring first medical and then agriculture uses for hydrogels. I was intrigued by his Hymec system for indoor farming and Skygel for rooftop gardens.
Hymec looks like a [...]
24 Sep
Worms and soil
Recently I heard Robert Blakemore talk about earthworm biodiversity, ecology and taxonomy. Blakemore, a fellow at the Soil Ecology Research Group at Yokohama National University, reveals that less is known about soil than the oceans and even outer space. Soil is the foundation of our food and human life, even though in the mega-cities it [...]
3 Sep
Visiting Nagano and Niigata with Nodai
Last week I visited Nagano and Niigata prefectures with Nodai. It was my first experience seeing the incredible beauty of the countryside, the rice fields and satoyama ecosystems, steep hills, wood houses, and small towns. The focus of the trip was rural revitalization and experiencing history, both centuries-old and more recent, in landscape.
Although I had [...]
13 Aug
NTT Facilities’ Green Potato
From City Farmer’s amazing blog, I found this photo and story about NTT Facilities‘ growing sweet potatoes on rooftops in Tokyo. This urban agriculture project makes use of wasted urban space, reduces the heat island effect, and provides local and safe food. Sweet potatoes apparently thrive in harsh sun and strong wind. The Agence France [...]
10 Aug
Vancouver’s Olympic vegetable gardens
In 2006, the Vancouver City Council created a challenge to add 2,010 vegetable gardens before the 2010 Winter Olympics. As of the end of June, they had reached 1,800 new food-producing gardens, only 210 gardens from their end of year goal. Working with the Vancouver Food Policy Council, the city government urges new gardens to [...]
10 Aug
Image of Tokyo residential vegetable garden in 1944
This is an image of a residential vegetable garden during the war in Tokyo from March 1944, published by Life Magazine. It comes from an amazing urban agriculture website called City Farmer, out of Vancouver, Canada.
United States residents are aware of our country’s World War II “victory gardens,” recently revived by the Obama White House. [...]
6 Aug
Kajima and bees
Yamada Yuriyuki (山田順之) , a biodiversity specialist at Kajima, one of Japan’s largest construction companies, appears in a video on Japanese TV about Kajima’s beekeeping and biodiversity education work. Kajima has started a hive in one of their buildings, and is studying how and where bees travel.
Yamada-san makes the important point that “greening” is not just [...]
2 May
Affiliation with Tokyo University of Agriculture
I am thrilled to receive an affiliation with Tokyo University of Agriculture for my Council on Foreign Relations Hitachi fellowship. Also known as Nodai,Tokyo University of Agriculture is one of Japan’s most respected schools, with strengths in agriculture, the environment and landscape design. I will be hosted by the Department of Landscape Architecture Science.
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