This
Musk — Elon's brother — looks to revolutionize urban farming
NEW YORK – In sunny California, Elon Musk is
upending America's auto and space industries. And here, in a cold, gritty
section of Brooklyn, his brother Kimbal has embarked on a project that's
just as significant in its own way: Trying to reboot the food system.
The younger Musk is the co-founder of Square
Roots, an urban farming incubator with the goal of teaching young people
how to farm in cities while preaching the importance of locally sourced,
non-processed food.
Having shown its potential during the past two
years in the parking lot of a shuttered factory near public housing projects of
Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Square Roots is ready to branch out. It is
looking to set up plots — each the equivalent of 2
acres of farmland — in cities across the U.S. They're hydroponic,
which means the crops grow in a nutrient-laced water solution, not soil.
The sites in contention, all of which had
to pledge support from local governments and businesses, are in Chicago, Denver,
Memphis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Tampa,
Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and a second site in
New York. Musk and Square Roots CEO Tobias Peggs will narrow the list down to
10 later this year.
In Brooklyn, budding
agricultural entrepreneurs set up year-round farms inside 10
retired metal ocean shipping containers and grow crops like
microgreens, herbs and strawberries.
"I want them to get to know
entrepreneurship through food," said Musk in a phone interview, who
counts both growing business and food as big passions.
In 2004, Musk co-founded The Kitchen
Restaurant Group, which opened eateries in Colorado, Tennessee, Illinois
and Indiana. Musk, who sits on the board of directors of his brother's electric
car and solar power provider maker Tesla, also co-founded Big Green, an
organization that installs gardens in underserved schools and teaches children
about the importance of eating natural food.
With so much on his plate, Musk leaves the
day-to-day running of Square Roots to Peggs. They usually talk twice a day,
Peggs said. The two met while working at OneRiot, a social media
target-advertising company in Colorado, which Walmart acquired in 2011. Peggs
has a doctorate from Cardiff University in Wales in artificial
intelligence but can just as easily switch to extolling the virtues
of freshly-picked peppery arugula.
"By 2050, there’ll be 9.6 billion people
on the planet and 70% of them in urban areas. That’s driving a lot of
investment and interest in urban farming. Our thinking was if we start in
New York and we can figure out solutions ... then we’ll be able to roll
out those solutions to the world," he said.
To initially get set up in Brooklyn back in
2016, Square Roots raised $5 million in — no pun intended — seed money,
Peggs explained. For each of the 10 new locations around the country, slightly
more than $1 million is needed.
Peggs said the farmers find buyers for their
produce, like stores, restaurants and individuals, though they also inherit the
clients list from previous Square Roots participants. Some of Square Roots'
staff of 14 help generate leads, too. Thirty percent of what
they earn goes to Square Roots, and expenses are another $30,000.
That leaves them with an annual profit of $30,000 to $40,000.
A single 40-foot container provides 320 square
feet of growing space. It is outfitted with long, narrow towers studded with
crops that are hung on tracks from the ceiling in rows, like vertical blinds.
The plants get their water and nutrients from irrigation pipes running along the tops of the
towers and their sunlight from dangling narrow strips of LED lights. Besides
arugula, crops include kale, radicchio and pak choi.
"What we’ve proven in
the first phase is we can take young people with no experience in farming and
get them very, very quickly to grow really high-quality food
that people want to buy," he said.
Over the year-long program, the young, mostly
20-something farmers learn about not only agricultural science and farm
management but also marketing, community outreach, leadership and
business, according to Peggs. During a typical week, they spend about 15 to 20
hours doing farm work, 10 hours handling the business side and 10 hours getting
coached by Square Roots' in-house agriculture expert and the team of
mentors the company has assembled.
Last year's group was comprised of 10
people, and this year's has six. More than 1,500 individuals have applied
to Square Roots, the company said.
The program has attracted participants
like Hannah Sharaf, who sells her weekly yield of 25 to 30 pounds of
microgreens to office workers for $7 per 2.25-ounce bag. Sharaf, 27, said
she is fascinated by "how food affects the body," prompting her to
give up a career in international marketing. "I really want to be a
farmer. I'm exploring both urban and soil."
"High-profile, really cool projects are
important, because they draw attention to urban agriculture. They
fascinate people. They attract capital, and that helps to grow the
sector," said Nevin Cohen, research director of the City University
of New York's Urban Food Policy Institute.
Part of the draw is the bold-faced name
attached to it: Musk. That could make urban farming a bigger topic in the
national conversation about local and fresh food, which also is driven by
thousands of small activists, some of whom have been advocating for decades.
"I don’t enjoy the industrial
food system. It's definitely not good for America or the world," Musk
said, citing high obesity rates, the thousands of miles food has to be shipped
and the lackluster taste. "We're very excited to teach America about
real food."
But Musk acknowledged that not everyone can
afford that — including some of Square Roots' neighbors. At least, not right
now.
"It's not something restricted to the
urban elite," he said. "Our mission is real food for
everyone. We need food to be delicious and young entrepreneurs to be
empowered."
International Mother Language Day
History
International Mother Language Day has been observed annually
since 2000[4] to promote peace and multilingualism
around the world and to protect all mother
languages. It is observed on February 21
to recognize the 1952 Bengali
Language Movement in Bangladesh.
The day was proclaimed by the General Conference of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November
1999 (30C/62). In its resolution A/RES/61/266, the United Nations General
Assembly called on its member states "to promote the preservation and
protection of all languages used by people of the world" on 16 May 2009.[5] In the resolution, the General Assembly
proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Languages to promote unity in
diversity and international understanding through multilingualism and
multiculturalism. The resolution was suggested by Rafiqul Islam, a Bengali living
in Vancouver, Canada. He wrote a letter to Kofi Annan on
9 January 1998 asking him to take a step to saving the world's languages from
extinction by declaring an International Mother Language Day. Rafiq proposed
the date as 21 February to commemorate the 1952 killings in Dhaka during the
Language Movement.
Languages are the most
powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible
heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve
not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also
to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout
the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and
dialogue.
— From the United Nations International
Mother Language Day microsite
Timeline
- · 1952: Bengali Language Movement
- · 1999: UNESCO proclaims 21 February (Ekushey February) as International Mother Language Day
- · 2000: Inaugural celebration of International Mother Language Day
- · 2002: Linguistic-diversity theme, featuring 3,000 endangered languages (motto: In the galaxy of languages, every word is a star.)
- · 2004: Children-learning theme; the UNESCO observance included "a unique exhibition of children’s exercise books from around the world illustrating the process by which children learn and master the use of written literacy skills in the classroom".[7]
- · 2005: Braille and sign languages
- · 2006: Languages and cyberspace
- · 2007: Multilingual education
- · 2008: International Year of Languages
- · 2010: International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures
- · 2011: Information and communication technologies
- · 2012: Mother-tongue instruction and inclusive education
- · 2013: Books for mother-tongue education
- · 2014: Local languages for global citizenship: spotlight on science
- · 2015: Inclusion in and through education: language counts (with an event in Paris)[8]
- · 2016: Quality education, language(s) of instruction and learning outcomes
- · 2017: Sustainable futures through multilingual education
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