Four Bold Predictions by Andrew Blume
I’m feeling a bit exposed in penning these predictions. Admittedly, the safer bet probably would be to gamble your money against them. While a voice in my head tells me not to publish what I have to say; a much louder voice in my head has totally drank the kool-aid of urban agriculture.
That louder voice is full of optimistic energy, the sort of stuff that is foundational for genuine change. So perhaps my title is someone misleading; I don’t necessarily prognosticate these four points will happen in the future – but rather – I dream of a world where this is our future:
1. By the year 2037, it will be mandated that all students take cultivation, nutrition, & wellness courses during their primary or secondary school education.
I think it’s safe to say that every parent in the world wants their child to be healthy. I have a hard time imagining a parent would ever say, “No thanks, I don’t want my child learning about how to become a healthy human being.” What I can easily see though, is how the devil is in the details.
Who will pay for these school programs and what will they really look like? Those are valid questions indeed, and I will circle back to my opinions on the larger topic of public governance during my 4th and final prediction; for now however, I want to stay on my point that the mindset and political will for this education reform will develop.
Stephen Ritz, a personal friend and the undisputed champion of cultivation in education, is already pioneering this path. If you ever have heard him speak, you know his momentum is something like a freight train of green values. Yet Stephen’s Green Bronx Machine isn’t the only community pillar fighting this good fight: there is also Teens for Food Justice, Community Healing Gardens, the Kitchen Community, and countless other organizations. Behind these community organizers’ continued action and advocacy, the momentum for teaching our growing children to become children who grow will continue.
Click here for info on Stephen Ritz’s book, The Power of a Plant
As our friends on the frontlines of education plant more seeds, the movement towards healthier children will mature. Connective tissue will be formed through new data and evidence. Studies and analytical comparisons of classrooms where students grow will prove that these children are learning about more than just plants. Waistlines will shrink, behavioral issues will decrease, and perhaps most importantly for fueling this change from an administrative point of view, test scores will increase.
Since traction begets traction, this data will be necessary to form the political will for reformation of our education system to incorporate cultivation and wellness into the curriculum. However, alongside the political will, a mature industry will need to be in place to ballast the change.
So to overcome the potential speedbumps of this evolution between now and 2037, the urban agriculture industry will need to develop to support a political push. Which brings me to my second prediction…
2. Urban Agriculture Will be Totally Mainstream Within Ten Years
For the time being, gardening is hard work. Understandably, a vast majority of people don’t have the time, resources, or discipline to get outside and cultivate their own sustenance. Yet seemingly every day, a new kickstarter or major company announces a step towards trailblazing a new path forward in our sprouting sector.
Those new products, companies, and implementers will push the boundaries of how and where people garden. Farmbot, Agrilution, and the food computer are all great examples of ways to easily garden that would not have been feasible even five years ago. These revolutionary cultivation solutions will popularize “Agritecture”, the merging of agriculture and architecture. As people start to see Agritecture design amenities pop up in trendy real estate developments, a snowball of more people and investment will be attracted to the field. As that snowball grows, innovation via augmented investment is inevitable.
The Farmbot is capable of taking the work out of gardening.
Steve Jobs was the prophet of end-to-end user experience. With significant advances in materials science, machine learning, nanotechnology, and biotech on the horizon, our sector can and will converge with the forefront of innovation. At that point, end to end user experience will integrate into maintaining domestic and commercial Agritecture installations.
At the risk of sounding like a naïve millennial, I imagine a connected future where cultivation can be as easy as pushing the popcorn button on your microwave. Once we have that level of end-to-end UX integrated into how we cultivate, once it really is that easy, Agritecture concepts will be in every home, restaurant, office, and structure with wifi. So to circle back to my first prediction, why wouldn’t it be in our schools too?
3. Kimbal Musk’s achievements will be noted in history as on par with his brother Elon’s
I know what you’re thinking. Talking about the next Elon Musk is so cliché. It’s like talking about the next Apple… But hear me out:
Elon is currently undisputed champion of innovation for this generation. He is the man behind Paypal, Tesla, Solar City and SpaceX - which means he has had a hand in disrupting currency, mobility, energy, and even the final frontier of outer space - four seriously complex sectors for one entrepreneur to redefine.
On top of all of those reasons to be skeptical that Kimbal will genuinely rival Elon, I have never met Kimbal, nor do I pretend to know much about his venture Square Roots. While my employer Blue Planet Consulting did complete a successful consulting engagement with Square Roots, I was not directly involved in that project in any way.
So why am I audaciously prognosticating that Kimbal Musk – a man I’ve never met – will one day rival his brother Elon; a proven once-in-a-generation entrepreneur? I have a simple answer to that: My religion is food.
I found this religion because, like you and every other human being on earth, I eat everyday. During this daily experience of consumption, I attempt to be mindful that I am merely an organic body ingesting other organic matter. This organic matter that I am absorbing and metabolizing will fuel not just my corporeal body, but my spiritual mind as well.
Yet eating isn’t the only ritual in the ‘religion of food.’ Procurement of ingredients, dining selection, and cooking are also critical cornerstones. In these processes, we create authentic bonds with ourselves and our loved ones.
Yet many, lack the ability or discipline to tap into the potential of the emotional capital in our kitchens. The constant battle to avoid choosing to ingest food that is easy, inexpensive or mouthwatering seems difficult or impossible for many; while for others, the choice for healthy food simply doesn’t exist. For anyone who falls in the above two categories, from what I can tell, Kimbal is on a path attempting to help.
In this way, I’m placing my bet on Kimbal more as a wager on the sector of food, rather than as a gamble on an individual. I am confident that an improved food system will generate massively positive outcomes, and since I’ve seen Kimbal place a stake along the same line, I trust he will go far.
So Kimbal, if you’re reading, I’d like to work alongside you in improving the food industry! I feel that your cowboy swagger is exactly the type of leadership our movement needs if we are to elbow a new mentality into the callous food system we’ve inherited. Let’s talk sometime about the path forward for how you can catch and even surpass your brother’s impact imparted on our species?
4. There Will Be a Turning Point in History Known as The Organic Revolution
Americans today are living Donald Trump’s America. It’s a bizarre world where all of our public resources seemingly channel away from logic or compassion. Yet Donald Trump and those infected by the 1980’s consumerism-at-all-costs mentality will only be in the driver’s seat of America for a limited time. In time, there will be a changing of the guard, and millennials, the largest consumer class in history, will be guiding the path forward.
Just as I have a significant amount of faith in food as my religion, I have conviction that our millennial cohort is more caring and capable than any before us. We were raised as the most linked generation on earth. Our connections and communities in the virtual world endow us with fresh power to realize whatever we can imagine.
Ideas can and will spread through our cohort at the speed of light. Thought leaders shaping those ideas will transcend beyond the confines and conventions that bounded those before us. New ways to crowdsource helping our fellow citizens will emerge and our future leaders will use those channels to more effectively rally resources. The empathy and means to help one another will be more available than ever before!
Our current 240-year-old system of governance was founded during an epoch of pen and paper, horse and carriage, slavery and mercantilism. Since inception, it has morphed time and time again. The current incarnation is perhaps among the ugliest, however as a bright green eyed millennial, I still believe the next manifestation of structure can leap us towards utopia.
Somewhere in between the polar opposites of what we have now and the singularity-minded future we have the potential to develop, we will require a new lexicon to describe our movement. What better way to define that approach than as The Organic Revolution?
By Andrew Blume 4/19/17
Follow Andrew at @ABlumeTweets
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** Author’s note: During certain points in this post, I referred to “agritecture concepts or the agritecture Movement.” I use the term agritecture not necessarily in reference to the Agritecture Platform that I co-manage with Henry Gordon-Smith, but rather because I feel the term agritecture is simply the most practical term. I often find terms like vertical farming, urban agriculture, building integrated agriculture, and other related lexicon to be overly narrow or clunky. **
