Notes from the Michael Pollan Lecture

A quick post, I have been reading like crazy for the thesis and will be posting some academic book reviews (read: excerpts of my annotated bib.). Stay tuned.

So the other night I was lucky to go see Michael Pollan. He was giving a lecture put on by the California Lectures series with the question being presented by AG Kawamura, the Secretary of Agriculture for California.

I originally got tickets with the intent to scribble notes down furiously for my thesis, however not much was said that I could use but the event was intellectually stimulating none the less. Not to mention tons of fun as the reception was catered by Grange and Frog's Leap and I was able to chat and goof with some of my best food friends.

Pollan brought up many topics but seemed to make a focus of the idea of how we farm; mainly that there is no one right way. He noted that organic doesn't mean best or even healthiest. He spoke about one farmer he met that was unable to be certified as organic by the government as the feed he used for his cows wasn't organically grown, however the feed was local and the farmer felt it had less of an ecological footprint as it didn't have to be shipped from far away.

Another farmer he met had created an seemingly Orwellian system in which he had a two acre greenhouse. In it there were various manure piles which would heat the greenhouse. Large tanks filled with farmed tilapia were kept and the waste water was used to fertilize the plants in the greenhouse. The plants then would give off more oxygen for condensation to help create a mini-climate system of sorts (my terminology might be wrong here, if so I apologize). Furthermore parts of the greenhouse were tarped with plastic to simulate different growing regions all in one space. Crazy, no?

Pollan also talked about a cycle farming system used in Peru where cows would graze on a space for three years. The cattle would be moved and grain or corn would be planted. The amount of nitrogen from the cattle would sustain the crops for three years. Afterwards it's harvested, the ground allowed to chill a bit and grow sod, and the cycle restarts.

Basically, he encouraged the idea of many different flowers. There is no singular method to farming that will help feed the world.

AG and Pollan lastly went into the depravity that is Federal school lunches. Created when the government noticed that potential soldiers weren't getting enough calories and the Ag. industry had excess crops we turned our children into little waste disposing units. Sixty years later we are doing the same but with the farm excess worse than ever and certainly not nutritional.

Furthermore, with cuts in school funding and school years losing weeks of teaching time kids aren't being given a holistic - let alone effective - education about nutrition.

He talked about so much more but to go into every detail would be far too difficult. NPR should have a recording up soon. I'll be sure to post it when it is.