I have not seen this documentary, but the 9 minute trailer highlights some very important themes.  The more I learn about urban farming, the more I think community organization and cooperation around neighborhood farms is the answer to our most pressing current problems and more importantly, the severe problems that we will face in the very near future (further financial collapse, peak oil, food shortages, aging population, a big business value system that is destroying local communities and a government that is printing way too much money).

Here are some of our current and future problems:

1. We imprison way too many people for the wrong reasons and thus we have a huge drain on resources (see David Simon Gets It).  This has a lot to do with narcotics being the only industry available to much of the poor population.
2. Our food production is highly centralized, genetically modified, processed and all the rest – we are fat and unhealthy and are slowly poisoning ourselves in the name of convenience and corporate profits.
3. We have a serious financial crises (giant ponzi scheme) that is hemorrhaging jobs at an alarming rate.
4. The baby boomers are entering retirement which means our ability to support pension and government programs will fail (checks may still be sent but the dollars won’t buy anything because dollars will be worth very little).  I am saying that old people who cannot continue to work or grow their own food will starve (see Zimbabwee).
5. Peak oil has arrived.  This means petroleum based food growth and distribution will fail and shipping food 12,000 miles will no longer continue to work.  Many experts predict we will see famine around the world including within the US.
6. Everything in life continues to get more expensive (dollars are buying less because government keeps printing more of them).
7. People in general are lonely and disconnected.

Why not get people working together growing their own food?

1. Provides work for the unemployed.
2. Provides healthy alternative industry within poor communities.
3. Brings cost of living down.
4. Builds communication and relationship within communities.
5. Provides natural, healthy food which makes for healthier people.
6. Protects people from food supply disruptions.
7. Helps the elderly stay alive if things get really ugly.

Edible City is a documentary film that explores the issues of food justice, security, and sovereignty through a comprehensive view of urban farming in the Bay Area a grassroots effort that sees people responding to climate change, rising food costs and gas prices, and increasing health concerns by strengthening connections to the food they eat and reaching out to their local communities.

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