Penumbra, the online climate change compendium curated by noted artist, Paul Edmunds, published an interview with the SA Urban Food & Farming Trust’s Executive Manager and Trustee, Kurt Ackermann. The interview, subtitled “Nutritional Values,” ranges widely, touching on the role of urban agriculture, nutrition, agrarian communities, the real cost of food, and carbon cycles, as well as voicing iconoclastic perspectives on the need for large-scale agriculture, the limits of urban farming, and that lower carbon footprints in food are not correlated with local production.
There are so many things in the world under the current dominant paradigm that don’t account for ‘externalities’. All kinds of economic and industrial sectors have these questions where we don’t understand the real cost. One can extend that question to also include the health cost of highly processed foods…If we accounted for not just the production and distribution costs but also the health impacts, and the quality of life and the lost potential of a stunted child, then we’re talking about something that is fundamentally different with regard to costs.
Learn more: Penumbra interview
