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No Longer Keeping Up With the Jones’ In Boulder, Colorado, Kipp Nash is one of many people who have uprooted their grass in favor of growing crops. Utilizing every last square inch of their front and backyards, suburban farmers like Nash turn to their neighbors, instead of moving to the country, when they find that their minute acreage is not enough to sustain the farm-size yields they wish to produce. In true co-op style, neighbor bands with neighbor to create checkered plots of crops, which are then harvested and shared among the farmers and their cooperative neighbors. In terms of sustainability, this is one way that Americans can combat the urban leeching of resources from outlying communities and even other countries that our decidedly unnatural urban-planning has produced. There’s nothing like buying and growing locally to reduce our carbon footprints, especially as resources like food are outsourced to distant lands. As with most sustainable projects, suburban farming is as unconventional as you can get, and as Kelly Spors of the Wall Street Journal reports in the video that inspired this post, some neighbors may not like the way tilled front yards look next to their prized rose bushes, but sustainability has never been about being pretty. Rather, sustainability is about the compromises each of us, and our governments, are willing to make to ensure that our environment is protected and sustained. Sure, a brown front yard may not look like much at first glance, but come harvest season, those crops sure are a pretty site.
Last update: February 24, 2009 09:51 pm
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