More and More, Farming Is Getting Sexier

Late Night Brainstorming Sessions

For any of you following the Bright Neighbor project…

FRESH the Movie

Better than porn.

Leaked Footage of Randy White / Lawns to Gardens editor

Leaked footage of a street interview with me.

Knock Knock, The Future Is Here!

Don’t you love when your pizza finally arrives at the door? Imagine if the delivery driver arrived at your doorstep wearing a solar powered jacket connected to his i-phone that he’s jamming out to.

Knock knock, the future is here!

Credit: World Changing

For years now, I have had people ask me about my Voltaic solar-powered backpack. I use it to charge my phone, which doubles as my camera and music device. I’m a happy camper with a complete mobile ability to stay in communications with the world, and all I need is some sunshine.

Today at Earth Day, Bright Neighbor teamed up with some other great organizations. One of them grows fruit and vegetable starts, and they sell the plants. No big deal, right? What if I told you for every plant they sell, they give away 10 of them to needy families across Oregon? They sell greenhouses to generate funds for making their operation sustainable – so while they are profiting from selling the right kinds of products, they are also giving back 10 X as much to the community at the same time.

Knock Knock, the future has arrived!

Since we began selling soil through Bright Neighbor, we can’t keep up with the orders. We are talking about beautiful, awesome, wonderful living soil. Once the “IKEA” branding of growing food at homes kicks in, capitalism will have completely transformed itself into a lean, mean, earth saving machine – run and managed by more youthful generations.

If you want to order soil, you can do so at the top of this blog.

The point is, that the future HAS arrived, and we are kicking ass. The ship will sail on, even if the banks all fail, oil runs out, and world currencies go away. As long as we have electricity and mobile devices, we are all set! We have music to listen to while we all take turns helping our local communities grow food. Tada!

The future is really, really cool. It looks a lot like Burning Man-meets-the Oregon Country Fair-meets-Capitalism.

Credit: World Changing

A Response to “Pathways to Community Collapse: Can We Intervene?”

This is my response to Kathy McMahon, Psy.D.’s excellent article, “Pathways to Community Collapse: Can We Intervene?“

Kathy,

My adventures in helping to fortify resiliency mechanisms in communities have been eye-opening.

In Portland, we have successfully deployed a community system with Bright Neighbor that augments the modern communications methods used by people: Facebook, Twitter, mobile devices, laptops and desktops.

We have truly become wired into a constant buzz-buzz-buzz about who is doing what. The government doesn’t need laws to institute Big Brother’s playbook, we have done it for them. People want everyone to know what they are doing, all the time.

If there ever were a concentrated effort to overthrow the capitalist system as it stands, everyone would know about it because if it’s cool, it grows and it spreads. Right now, while everyone is so upset about the economy, we still go about our days tweeting and Facebooking about whatever we decide to publish.

Because community has now moved online, and it knows no geography for communications, but it is relevant when it comes to immediate real world needs.

If we need something, we go to the store and get it. Or we ask a friend, or a family member. And we get what we need. Now, we have lots of ways to track ourselves, sell things to one another, and everyone knows we are all in this together.

Whether you are a kid in Tibet, or a spoiled American brat, we all know that we need to change.

We need to stop valuing nuclear weapons as monetary policy checks and balances. Just alone, the cost of all the Air Force plane crashes of the last year could help install enough organic gardens in America to feed every person. The answers are very simple to solve our many crisis situations.

Until, however, that we either make it mandatory or offer incentives for all citizens to go through gardening training courses, we are not serious about solving our greatest problems.

I suggest that the leaders of governments around the world come to gether for a G20 like meeting focused only on boosting global support for instantly focusing all global efforts on soil restoration, water-harvesting mechanisms for both cities and rural towns, as well as local commerce systems based on time-banking and b2b/b2c/c2b/c2c trade.

b2b/
Business to business: All businesses source locally for their raw materials within a 300 mile radius.

b2c/
Business to Consumer: Support local entrepreneurs starting up soil farming, vermicomposting, tilapia farming, urban chicken, or other micro-farming and permaculture based businesses. Give them easy access to loans to start their business, and create a standard for local permaculture guidelines that allow us to reverse engineer bad 1950’s era home policies. We must not only encourage, but give incentives to do things like give up your dryer for a clothes line, or converting your lawn into a micro-farm.

c2b/
Micro-farmers can specialize in their lawns and grow local organic produce to feed micro-livestock. This creates a fruit/vegetable/meat source for city dwellers, while supporting local food commerce. Add in materials providers such as soil makers, vermicomposters, and other positive-impact businesses, and you have a recipe for reversing capitalism to do good for the planet while still making a profit. This can be achieved by home owners becoming lawn farmers, as we have always said over at our blog, Lawns to Gardens. People will eventually go so far as to harness human poop as a raw material and turn it into a profitable soil-building enterprise.

c2c/
Consumer to Consumer: This has been revolutionized by social media. Whether it is two moms connecting to share a newborn’s car seat, or neighbors trading food, skills, firewood – you name it, it is happening in Portland. Bright Neighbor has created an alternative-economy way of thinking and living supported at the government, community, business, and faith-group levels.

These 4-pillars of society are what hold communities together. As the monetary system continues to crumple, we must focus our efforts on connecting around our common agreements, namely food. At the local level, all other arguments can be resolved without violence as long as their is access to food, water, and shelter.

People will always argue over possessions, including ownership of one another. Whether this relationship is economic, erotic, or plutonic – it comes down to each human’s own way they go about the preservation of their life, living standards, and hope for more before they die.

We all die in the end, so I say let’s party and have a great time while we fix this place up and leave it in the best shape we can for the next set of kids that are going to pop out. Religion or not, we should all work together to preserve our entire species, as well as our neighbors in the animal, plant, and insect kingdoms.

- Randy White / Bright Neighbor

When Relationships Turn Economic

So economists are trying to paint a rosy picture, eh? I don’t have access to their data, so let me take a stab at a not-so scientific observation.

If food stamps, social security, and medicare went away tomorrow, what would happen in America? If the supply of oil was disrupted, how would people still earn enough money to pay for the huge spike in prices? How are people expected to pay their mortgages while being told to drive less, buy less, not consume, yet keep their job? If we can’t continue as we were, then who gets what, and why?

And will porn always be free forever, even if the economy completely collapses?

I believe we have entered the era of Friendonomics. This is the time when the snake really begins to chomp on its own tail, and relationships turn economic as people’s personal social networks bloom. And whether the friendonomics relationship is either hiring a friend or being hired by a friend, it’s important to see it from both sides of the equation.

HIRED BY A FRIEND
For instance, let’s say you have a friend, and you like them because of (fill in the blank). But right now, you need some dough to pay for stuff, and you offer to help that friend for money.

That is when that friend owns you.

If you make an agreement and take payment for performing some sort of work, your friend either becomes your customer or your boss. Kind of like marriage. But when you charge your friend money for doing a job, you lose something that was there when there was no economic relationship.

HIRING A FRIEND
“Hey buddy, you know I love you, but I was really hoping you could have had it done by now, done it for way less than market rates, and change some stuff too.”

Hiring friends can come naturally as a friend’s work becomes valued with cash or credit. When I have hired friends, I have found myself to be a driven idealist, looking to achieve maximum impact. Whether the job is highly technical or a simple chore, I want it done right. And if you become a boss to your friends, your demands could be viewed by them as a relationship changer. Because if you are in control, then they feel like subordinate rather than a friend, and the level of social understanding between you changes.

HIRING A FRIEND OF A FRIEND
When one of your friends “Knows someone” who can do what you need, it is a gray area of friendonomics. I’m open to interpretation there.

As the economy continues to morph into something different than what it has been before, many people are going to experience all sorts of relationship changes as debts and social media fuel massive friendonomics. We live in a time when on your computer or mobile device you are actively monitoring the lives of people as they live and post stuff online. Even if it’s something trivial like your top 5 favorite albums or your tweet about whatever, we want people to know what’s going on.

And because we are so connected, many new people are available. Your old friends never really go away – they may just be choosing to unsubscribe you from their lives.

And this is why I hate our current system of capitalism. Because if you are doing things for money, you are a slave. And we are all slaves, trying to keep up with all the stuff we bought. Some work less by managing to get others to work for them. As money is no longer available to people, there are bound to be major social upheavals.

This is why before further mayhem ensues, I am training volunteer trainers to help people learn how to use technology like Bright Neighbor and Facebook to build community-based economies. My focus is to continue to work to help people deal with changing living conditions.

So if you get hired by a friend to do a job, perhaps you could work out a deal other than cash, so that your friendonomics relationship isn’t so much as boss/customer as it is friendship/barter.

Companion Planting Flash Cards

Knowing which plants like or dislike each other can make or break your micro-farm! These are hand-made companion planting flash cards. This set of eighteen flash cards will help any wanna-be farmer learn the facts of companion planting to achieve better garden results. Each deck is hand made right in Portland by yours truly.

Pick up your own deck for just $8!

Everything You Need To Know To Be A Farmer In A City

As a micro-farmer, I know how hard it is for the average home owner to get started with converting property to be a productive, home-based ecosystem. As an urban farmer and technology executive, I came to the realization that we have enough communications programs and it really comes down to working with available city land to grow food. Our home was a typical “1950’s Beaver Cleaver” type home, and now it is a productive food oasis, with water systems and beautiful, living soil. With just $10 in seeds, you can create $650 worth of produce!

Since we don’t believe in chemical-based farming, our recommendations are all organic methods. There is no substitute for hands-on learning, however this is a fantastic list of ways you can quickly get started and learn how to be a farmer:

Organic Food Gardening Beginners Manual
87 Page Step-by-step Gardening Manual For Beginners To Learn How To Grow Their Own Healthy, Organic Food – Saving Money And Eating Chemical Free! Revised Edition Just Released.

Profiting From Home-Based Farming
R.h.s. Medal Winning Plantsman Reveals His Amazing Ways. Promote His Easy, Simple Ways Among Plant Lovers & Gardening Enthusiasts & Help Them Earn A Part Time Income Of $500-$1000/week.

Your Very Own Tree Farm
The Complete Guide To Starting Your Own Profitable Tree Farm.

The Container Garden Expert
Finally Have The Benefit Of Years Of Specialist Container Gardening Experience At Your Fingertips And All In The Comfort Of Your Own Home, With Minimum Stress, And Without You Wasting Your Hard Earned Cash On Methods And Products That Just Do Not Work.

Organic Vegetable Gardening
Organic Vegetable Gardening Ebook. Even A Novice Can Start An Organic Garden With This Simple Guide. Complete Step By Step Gardening Guide.

DIY Worm Farms
How To Build And Manage A Worm Farm To Suit The Average Family. Recycle Household Organic Waste Into Fertiliser For Your Garden And Help The Environment Too.

High-density Gardening
How To Design, Build, Set Up, Grow With And Maintain A High Density Garden To Provide You And Your Family With Fresh, Wholesome And Tasty Vegetables.

Home and Garden – Country and Rural Life
Gardening And Birds, Raising Chickens And Goats, Baking Bread… more

Cinder Block Gardening
Learn how to make a super productive garden using cinder blocks and other methods.

Postcard From A Transition Movement Hot Zone

The following is a guest column written for The Oil Drum. Randy White is a municipal sustainability expert, was a member of Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force, and is the Founder of Bright Neighbor, LLC.

It’s no secret that Portland is a pretty radical city. While mainstream America is still learning how to make the leap to full-time sustainability activities, Portland, Oregon is a major hot zone and leader in the human revolution. The intent of this article is to offer an opinion and insight into strategies, collaborations, and technologies that are occurring in our city to solidify life-supporting social constructs.

We All Have Our Problems
Portland is dependent on energy and money just like any other city. With over 500,000 people, we have the 23rd largest economy in the US at $88.6 billion dollars. We have crime, poverty, homelessness, and hard-working people who would love more time off to pursue more joys in life if only they didn’t have debts to pay.

The fact is, not enough people here have the skills, resources, or contribute to the system to say Portland can become a completely self-sufficient city. While science has determined the amount of calories and nutrition needed for human bodies to survive, only each individual can determine what is needed to satisfy each of our own living requirements. Right now, people around the world are searching within themselves to determine what this mother-of-all-market-corrections means in the context of their own life. In countries around the world, people are reflecting on survival, whether it means scrambling to meet basic needs such as food and shelter, or committing one’s life to helping others survive as we dismantle nuclear weapons.

Indeed, finance industries and governments continue to try and figure out how they can game the now collapsing currency market, and around the world thousands of loose-knit social movements and groups are acting together, radically altering the balance between commercial and non-commercial economies. Portlanders are trading sink repair for firewood, worm castings for books, and organizing into sustainability groups, meeting to discuss a multitude of survival strategies. The cool part is that it is in the most relaxed manner I could have imagined. You know something cool is happening when the art community gets involved. To see scholars, artists, chefs, teachers, farmers, faith leaders, bureaucrats and other various communities coming together to discuss survival in a civil manner is surreal. It is also the beauty of the Portland conversation, because empathy, understanding, and cooperation are now winning out over personal greed.

Let’s examine some of the conversations taking place, and how people are organizing to do what we can locally:

Food, Food, Food
Portlanders will practically strip naked and make love to the soil. Our city is full of a diverse ecosystem of people and cultures who love and worship local food, soil, and farmers. The cool thing to ask at parties is “So what do you grow”? Little kids wear shirts that say “I Love My Farmer”. They worship apples – and I’m not just talking about their phones and computers.

As mobile as the city is with its fantastic bus and rail system, we have no problem getting around to all the amazing restaurants that showcase seasonal, locally grown vegetables in their menus. Our chefs strive to use local ingredients, as long as the cost doesn’t put them out of business. Our citizens have one of the highest percentages of CSA subscriptions. The fact is, we love food. So when it comes to loud-mouthed know-it-alls, you can bet Portland likes to brag about it’s success with food.

Using a variety of technologies to list events, food experts are leading the conversation. If you know how to grow food, fix soil, and install edible landscaping, you are all the rage. Take a look at this quick video and you will see what the job of the future looks like.

Presently, Bright Neighbor offers a “Lawns to Gardens” service, helping match people to homeowners willing st share their lawns. We are connecting Gerding Edlen’s newest building CYAN/pdx to Portland land owners to help create more garden activity and boost our local local food system.

Our April 17th kickoff of the Bright Neighbor Community Revolution Tour will include boosting lawn farming production, water harvesting, and permaculture practices throughout the city.

Transportation
This one is real easy. Portlanders either walk, bike, drive, ride, or rail it to and from where they need to be. If you need to get there, you can get there cheap, you just have to consider whether you will be exposed to the elements and how much time it will take. But we know we will get there somehow.

When it comes to fuel supply solutions, some Portlanders have electric vehicles, and many are discovering that you can make ethanol from hundreds of non-food supply threatening feedstocks other than corn. As for ride-sharing, people are getting to know their neighbors to work on cooperative projects and partake in resource sharing. For instance, if you need a ride right now, you can just call up your friends or discover your neighbors via one of the many Internet technologies. You can always use the Internet and phone to find a ride and share resources. The question is which technologies to use will make it easiest for communities.

Fixing our local commerce system
One high-brow conversation among Portland communities is talk of fixing our money system and the restructuring of the economy based on a non-fiat based local currency. The challenge with this movement is an assumption that outstanding debts can or will be canceled or repaid using any new system. The beauty of this movement and conversation is that even if we don’t solve the new riddle right away, the conversation is fascinating and the beer is great. Even thinking about the idea of replacing the world’s current broken money system is exciting in and of itself. The questions being asked have to do with real value, the meaning of real wealth, and property rights. It is being talked about by all political parties, all religions, and all citizens.

We are asking:
Who grows my food?
Who supplies my fuel?
Are my water need secured?
What is worth more, a knife or a variety bag of seeds?
How does the community determine each person’s value?
How do we know who is trustworthy and who isn’t?
How long will dollars matter?
Am I capable of doing what it takes to survive?
What is my purpose if not to make money?

The conversation in Portland revolves around a common realization that our community is quickly developing an entirely new system of accepted social values, logistics, and supply chains. I will end this postcard from a transition hotzone with the opinion that emerging businesses are using a variety of technologies to bring new food supplies into pop-culture at maximum velocity. More of our citizens are contributing real value to the community through hyper-involvement at the neighborhood level, and Portland will continue to lead the way in defining modern community survival trends.

What’s cool that is going on in your city?