How to Grow and Forage Without Owning Land

This short article was earlier released July 6, 2019, and has been up to date with new details.

Have you at any time desired to mature your individual foods but didn’t know the place to commence? Obtain to clean, balanced food stuff is a human correct, and a person of the finest means to exercise that suitable is to grow your have food. You never have to be a farmer or have a qualifications in agriculture. You never even have to very own your very own land.

The industrialization of our chemical-dependent food items program has triggered issues that are practically insurmountable, including soil degradation, water air pollution, decline of biodiversity, a decline in public overall health and local weather improve. But food output does not have to be globalized, industrialized or even monetized.

Which is the concept environmental activist and humanitarian Rob Greenfield wishes to express in a new venture in which he aims to mature and forage 100% of his personal food for 1 year. The problem is showcased in a two-part film created by Peter Kanaris of GreenDreamsFL titled, “Developing & Foraging 100% of His Foods Devoid of LAND OF HIS Have: 1-Yr Challenge w/ Rob Greenfield.”

The movie, set in Orlando, Florida, displays Greenfield 138 days into his yearlong task of increasing and foraging all of his possess food stuff, and some of his very own medication, too. The best aspect? Greenfield doesn’t have any land. He is rising meals in six privately owned yards and a handful of other spots that full a lot less than 4,000 sq. feet of area.

Greenfield did not go to school for horticulture, either. And, he isn’t going to have any experience in agriculture. He does have a certification in permaculture, but states it never taught him how to basically plant nearly anything. For occasion, he had to discover how much sun is needed to improve carrots, how significantly drinking water kale involves and what time of year is very best to plant specified plants.

Increasing and Foraging 100% of His Possess Foodstuff

Regardless of his absence of practical experience, he learned how to successfully increase a wide range of food items and herbs together with eco-friendly onions, carrots, beets, celery, spinach, kale, cabbage, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro and dill. Remarkably, in a lot less than a person yr (about 10 months), Greenfield was in a position to grow 100% of his personal foodstuff.

But it gets improved. He’s expanding so significantly foodstuff that his task doubles as a neighborhood back garden, where by locals can sample fresh new, domestically grown produce, and go away emotion inspired to consider and grow some of their individual.

“At least which is my hope,” states Greenfield in the film. “I took on the obstacle to not just feed myself, but to inspire other people to try and do the exact. That could imply planting your first tomato plant, setting up an herb garden on your condominium balcony or turning your front or backyard into a total-on backyard garden. Growing your very own food items is a little something we all can do.”

In an exertion to preserve water, Greenfield takes advantage of a drip irrigation program that delivers water immediately to the roots of crops. Drip irrigation is a single of the most productive watering techniques, as it can cut down h2o utilization by 30% to 70%. Greenfield suggests he could improve the foodstuff with no a drip irrigation system, but with all of the different gardens he’s expanding, it would include up to 10 hours additional per week of labor on top rated of the 40 to 60 several hours he currently spends tending to his gardens.

In addition to his gardens, Greenfield also served plant additional than 200 neighborhood fruit trees in Orlando, like cherry, peach, mulberry, avocado and loquat trees. The trees are marked with a signal that claims: “I am a group fruit tree. Please appreciate my fruit.” The local community trees act as a reminder that food stuff can be obtainable exterior of the grocery retail outlet.

‘Food Is a Gateway to Acquiring Men and women to Rethink Everything’

The movie exhibits Greenfield munching on refreshing mulberries from just one of the neighborhood fruit trees he served plant. “Foodstuff is a gateway to getting men and women to rethink anything,” states Greenfield, incorporating:

“The notion is to try and get foods grown freely all all over us. A good deal of men and women when they see foods that is developing no cost, that is wholesome and delectable, for the 1st time, and they know that it won’t have to appear from the grocery shop, that can be a really revolutionary instant.

I am super passionate about escalating meals. But the enthusiasm is similarly as considerably about inspiring persons not just to improve their possess meals, but to glimpse at the world in a unique way, to start off to see the globe as anything to function with, rather than from, in all facets of lifestyle: our foods, our drinking water, our electrical power, our squander and our transportation.

Just every single way we offer with the Earth. I consider food items is one particular of the finest gateways mainly because we try to eat food 3 occasions a day, and some of us, a lot more like 10 times a day. It can be our relationship to our neighborhood. It is really our pleasurable. It truly is our social lifetime. For a great deal of us, we eat to reside and we reside to consume. So, if you can get men and women seriously considering about their foods, I imagine you can get persons wondering about their total lives.”

There is certainly no doubt that Greenfield is an inspiration to us all. He’s a drive to be reckoned with when it will come to boosting awareness about some of the most pressing social and environmental problems of our time, like foodstuff waste, plastic pollution, climate modify, corporatism and homelessness, just to name a handful of.¹

‘Live Straightforward and You Will Dwell Free’

With far more than fifty percent a million “likes” on Fb and virtually 100,000 YouTube subscribers (some of his video clips have sights numbering in the tens of millions), Greenfield has captured the focus of audiences around the world.

His motto “Stay uncomplicated and you will stay free” summarizes his belief that contentment is not derived from money and belongings, but rather will come from the meaningful connections we make with some others, and getting a profound appreciation and respect for our planet’s natural resources and the existence that exists in it.

Greenfield isn’t just passionate about increasing his individual foods and exhibiting other individuals they can do the exact. He’s also committed to making recognition about meals waste and foods insecurity.

Us citizens discard an approximated 34 million tons of food items each and every year — which is like tossing a quarter of your groceries into the trash. The food items squander dilemma is not constrained to America’s property kitchens, but also happens in dining establishments, grocery merchants and on farms.

Through his campaign “The Foods Waste Fiasco,”² Greenfield created consciousness around meals squander by diving into 1000’s of dumpsters to clearly show how almost 50 % of all foods in the U.S. is wasted.³

In one of his video clips, “Dumpster Diving for Food items with Rob Greenfield,” he showed how he was capable to fill an empty pantry and fridge with far more than $1,000 worthy of of properly excellent foodstuff soon after just 5 hours of dumpster diving.⁴ “Which is amassing $200 an hour well worth of food stuff,” he claims.

Greenfield is also a big advocate of showing that individuals are great. In an effort to illustrate this, he bravely traveled to Rio, Brazil, with zero dollars to his name. He was able to journey 7,000 miles to Panama, relying on nothing besides for the goodness of many others, who kindly presented him food items, shelter and transportation.

He even utilised other people’s cell telephones to capture the footage, some of which was used in a six-episode sequence referred to as “Free of charge Journey” that aired on the Discovery Channel. To study far more about Greenfield and his adventures, check out out his site, RobGreenfield.Television set.⁵