Let's plant some shit

1. What is my objective?

Friends, comrades, and companions, are you listening to me?

ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?

I need you, to be part of a project. But before I reveal what project it is, please come with me on a trip to the supermarket

We go down the aisle to the fruits and vegetables. The produce appeals to your senses: shiny, tasty and nicely presented. But behind this bright appearance there are some hidden facts: oil dependent, full of chemicals and unhealthy.

First, today’s agriculture is highly dependent on oil. Tilling, fertilization and transportation is all done with oil derivatives. Each calorie of food energy produced and brought to the table represents an average investment of about 7.3 calories of energy inputs.

Second, pesticides used in intensive farming, prolonged refrigeration and preservation agents contained in produce may affect your health in ways science has not yet investigated fully. We are everyday more worried by the quality of the products we consume.

If, after eating an egg plant your face is purple, something is wrong with your food.

And third, we are losing the traditional knowledge of cultivation. This knowledge is instructive for children as well adults. It’s a hobby useful and didactic to learn the sow, cultivation, harvest, rotation, ripening process and pests. When oil is gone, we’ll probably find this knowledge essential for our lives. And Oil will certainly be gone by the end of this century.

(1) OIL DEPENDENT, (2) UNHEALTHY AND (3) RISKY, THIS IS THE MODERN AGRICULTURE.

Growing one's own food would mean (1) decreased carbon footprint, (2) increased health and (3) enhanced enjoyment.

MY OBJECTIVE IS (1) to reduce the environmental impact of growing vegetables; (2) to reduce the distance food travels before reaching consumers; and (3) to provide fresher, better, more nutritious products to urban consumers.

A real opportunity exists to produce significant quantities of food in the heart of the city, (1) efficiently, (2) cost effectively, and (3) in an environmentally sustainable fashion. The climate of Valencia is exceptional.

(1) Front yards, (2) backyards and (3) empty plots, all can be cultivated.

GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD IS LIKE PRINTING YOUR OWN MONEY.

2. Who is my audience?

Fellow Toastmasters

Is not difficult, you can do it.

3. What does my audience want or need?

My audience needs to eat healthier, to consume fresher, better, more nutritious produce.

4. What do I want the audience to do?

I want them to cooperate with me to establish the land work swap and the agricultural school.

5. What is the plan

To establish a (1) network of shared gardens and (2) a school of gardening.

In a land swap there are two parties: one has a plot of land to be cultivated and the other wants to cultivate something. Both are needed. Also, gardeners-to-be may learn agricultural techniques in big farms via a gardening school.

1. I have a plot of land

Do you own a piece of land that you do not use and you want to make it available to someone to cultivate?

Are you interested in obtaining, in return, a portion of the products that are grown in it?

2. I search for a garden

Do you want to cultivate your own vegetables and you don’t have where to do it?

Shared gardens is a tool to help those persons who wish to cultivate their own food, connecting people with suitable plots of land with those who need these lands to cultivate.

Conditions are

1. That the vegetable garden be ecological
2. That the exchange be in kind, mainly sharing the crop
3. That sale of the crop will not be allowed

3. Shared and tutored gardens

To establish a network of gardening schools through which the gardeners-to-be will have access to big farms.

The will have access o a weekly tutorial and support to gardening activities

Initial payment 29€

Monthly payment 29€ (includes right to use a plot)

Your fee will allow you to

• have a plot to practice agricultural techniques in group
• 4 hours weekly of tutorials, following a training and cultivation plan
• irrigation water
• tools
• to cover your self-consumption needs with the garden production
• insurance
• ID card

The training plan will be subject to a training plan closely linked to a cultivation plan. It will be a hands-on, totally practical type of training.

Instructor will be: an agricultural engineer. He will be in charge of assigning the plots designed for a cooperative kind of work

Trainees will be able to participate in a future cooperative of ecological production.

6. What would the results be

The results will be that we will be able to grow our own food. Growing your own food is like ... Wit my plan, if we are the owners, we will get 50% of the crop in exchange for giving in the land. If we are the laborers, we also will reap the fruits of our work (all without a great investment).

What we can say now without any shadow of doubt is that petroleum will be extinct by the end of the century. This rises a difficult question: will homo sapiens be as wise as his name implies? Will he be able to find the way to live without oil, the blood stream of the economy?

The sooner we begin the transition to this low energy future, the easier the task will be.

Growing your own food wii be good for our health, reduce our carbon footprint, be educational for children and save us a lot of money.

We are soil!

So, join me. Let’s plant some shit!