Heather Flores is proposing a radical idea. Tear out your lawns and good things will happen. She has written a book about how to turn your yard into a garden and your neighborhood into a community, Food Not Lawns.

Turning our yards back into utilitarian spaces may be one of the most important things we do to combat the industrial food machine. It is the very best example of eating locally and has a positive impact on us by cutting down food miles and educating people (most importantly youth!) about the origins of ingredients. An excerpt from the book:

"...Today, 58 million Americans spend approximately $30 billion every year to maintain over 23 million acres of lawn. That’s an average of over a third of an acre and $517 each. The same size plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation, plus produce all of the vegetables needed to feed a family of six. The lawns in the United States consume around 270 billion gallons of water a week—enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables, all summer long.

Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects. In addition, the pollution emitted from a power mower in just one hour is equal to the amount from a car being driven 350 miles. In fact, lawns use more equipment, labor, fuel, and agricultural toxins than industrial farming, making lawns the largest agricultural sector in the United States..."

Related:
- Redefining American Beauty, by the Yard (New York Times)

- Don't be Wasted on Grass

- How to Organize a Seed Swap

Comments (0) | October 25 - 10:09 AM

category: Eco-Kitchen, Studies + Trends