Tag Archive: Gardening

Beyond Revolution has moved to Beyondrevolution.wordpress.com. The reason for this is to fight anarchist in-fighting as well as to acknowledge that though the current global uprisings may be anarchist in nature or that they may be very anarchistic, Most of the elements that have come together to make these movement(s) what they are do not identify as anarchist. In short, this global movement we are seeing today is one of a natural, instinctual character and as so it hopefully will avoid the sectarianism and dogma of any single ideology. The new version of the site, I hope shall demonstrate this. Another reason for moving away from the word ‘anarchism’ as opposed to moving away from its core principles is to avoid unjustified preconceptions of what anarchy means and as such gain an even wider audience. It is my opinion that regardless of what we call this push towards liberty it is that push that is important and not the label(s) attributed to it.


The anarchist urban ecosystem: A rethinking of the urban environment (part two)
By Nathan Revercomb

In this second installment of my series on the anarchist urban ecosystem, I will be taking a look at food production in a sustainable anarchist urban environment.


Food systems are integral to the support of cities and indeed are vital to living things including people. Modern food production in the form of industrial agriculture is incredibly destructive and inefficient. There is a great waste of resources in the form of fuel, time, and other inputs with relation to the rural based corporate farming model. However, those are not the only problems with monocutlural food production.

Industrial monoculture farming requires vast resources to produce food. Note the dust kicked up by the machines which is lost soil.

Carbon emissions from mechanized farming and the subsequent and loss of soil through the resulting erosion are also huge problems. Soil loss in particular is a very terrifying prospect and in my opinion should be of more concern than global climate change because without soil we not only wouldn’t be able to maintain civilization but life on this planet would be threatened in a far more profound way. It is precisely due to industrialized agriculture that over half the world’s top soil has been lost in just the last 150 years. Places like Haiti are the absolute prime example of the devastation that can be wrought by such damaging practices.

The soil loss as a result from industrial farming methods can clearly be seen here.

Deforestation which is a very key cause in soil loss through erosion is the result of the clearing of land for monoculture farming or to produce paper. Hemp could easily substitute trees for the making of paper and can yield far more per an acre per harvest than a forest can and it can be harvested over and over again. Hemp also adds nutrients to the soil and requires very little help to grow. Cannabis after all, is not called weed for no reason and can be grown in almost any climate in any region on earth. The cannabis plant also very useful in may other aspects including food, clothing, building material, oil just to name a few.

As far as practicality is concerned I believe it would make far more sense to grow food in the city than it would to grow it miles upon miles away, especially when considering that most of the food grown in rural areas is for city use anyway. In fact before the modern practices of industrial agriculture most major cities had virtually all their food requirements provided for from within the city limits or very near by. Even New York city (which by no means was small even then) was no exception.

However, today’s cities are ecological wastelands devoid of any meaningful abundance of biodiversity. Such cities are not only sucking the planet dry but are also what could be considered as concrete jungles. Modern man thinks of nature as being someplace else and it is no surprise that many of us love to get out into the woods to alleviate the stress of modern urban or even suburban living. A long distance relationship with nature divorces the average city dweller from a meaningful connection to the earth and subsequently facilitates in the devastation of the planet. By introducing a productive ecological system within our cities we would achieve the vital connection with nature that many of us crave while providing ourselves with a sustainable source of food. Food that would in fact have a higher concentration of beneficial nutrients in it due to the fact that less would be lost in transportation when compared to the current agricultural methods.

Urban farms and especially community farms within our cities would benefit more than just us people. They would create habitat for a large variety of species that under existing conditions have a much harder time finding an ecological niche in the urban environment. Urban based agriculture would also greatly reduce traffic because there would be far less associated with the transport of food in our cities. This would also allow us to reduce funding for road enlargement project which in and of themselves are huge producers of carbon emissions and a drain on resources that could be used elsewhere.

Vacant lots and dilapidated properties that could be used as farm land in Philadelphia as proposed by the Farmadelphia project

Space to grow food in our cities already exists and indeed can be expanded. As In many cities here in the United States (especially in the cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and many others) there already are plenty of vacant lots that could be used for urban farming and community gardening which would not only reverse urban decay but simultaneously provide countless new jobs and would bolster the floundering economy. These new jobs would also dramatically increase the size and scope of the job market.

In fact the space required would be less than what we currently think of due to the abhorrent fact that much of the food produced toady is dumped at sea because it has no profit value or to keep the price of food up.

This is an example of how agriculture could be incorporated into an already in use urban setting. Note the water treatment and infrastructure capacities as well as the added space for commerce and grated roads which would allow for plant growth which would help to offset the carbon emissions produced by the city and its automobiles. This system also addresses rain water runoff in a productive manner.

There is also plenty of opportunities to incorporate food production systems into the very structure of already used parts of the city. In this way we could maximize the usefulness of every single inch of our urban or suburban environments.

With the rampant problem of poverty, underemployment, unemployment and poor quality of education, urban agriculture could be a very useful tool to minimize these issues. Such problems especially effect people living in the inner-city and often they are minorities. These disenfranchised people often turn to the illicit drug trade for income. However, in an anarchist society or in a post-drug war era they will no longer be able to rely on such avenues to provide for their livelihoods. Without prohibition, no one would buy drugs from any street dealers when they could go to far more reliable clinics or drug shops, and in an anarchist society (one without rulership or its subsequent laws which create crimes of consent) there would be no black market at all. Without a black market gangs would loose much of their relevancy and the violence associated with them and other organized criminal elements would drop dramatically.

With the legalization of cannabis, it would remove the ability of criminal elements to control and profit from it while allowing us to tap it's great potentials.

Farming in the city would provide the vital income to keep these impoverished people afloat and alive. It could also revitalize ares affected by urban decay and transform the “ghetto” into an area of beauty and abundance. Organizations like Food Not Bombs, would do well to implement such practices into their campaigns. Instead of feeding the impoverished “rescued” food they should use such resources for composting so they can provide them with wholesome and fresher and all around better sustenance.

The youth and “unskilled” of today also have a very difficult time finding employment and growing food on a massive scale would greatly alleviate this problem. Permaculture, Masanobu Fukoka’s Natural Farming methods, no-dig gardening and other less labor intensive and higher yielding agricultural practices can also allow the elderly or people with disabilities to participate. In addition to being far less strenuous in terms of physical strain, the aforementioned methods are also great for building soil as they are not damaging to it while they also work with rather than against nature.

One of the great injustices that modern industrial agriculture causes is the loss of traditional farming skills and techniques. This is due to the fact that corporate farms displace individual farmers who cannot compete with them and as a result they must relocate to the city for income purposes. Unfortunately in the process, the traditional skills they have are lost because there are no ways for them to earn a living in the modern urban environment by utilizing their previous farming knowledge. By creating urban farms, we would prevent the loss of valuable skills and knowledge that rural farmers could provide when they migrate to the urban environment. This would also make it far easier for them to establish roots in the city after having to move there.

An example of agroforestry

Maximizing a yield from the space available requires that we do not solely rely on horizontal growing space but that we also utilize the vertical element. One method of doing this is agroforestry which is an important element in permaculture. By planting beneficial or productive trees on the farming or gardening plots, we can provide shade for crops that require it and complete a satisfactory root system to keep the threat of soil erosion at bay. This method has produced very impressive results in almost every climate it has been used in. Trees also are vital to the water cycle and an abundance of them greatly helps to prevent droughts. There is also the vertical space on the sides of homes and buildings that can be taken advantage of by trellising and planting vines. Hops and grapes being ideal for such practices.

There are numerous places that can be used to grow food or other living components that help enrich the urban ecosystem. The roofs of buildings in our cities can be transformed to provide both electrical power and green spaces. This way, not only would the vacant lots and unused spaces in the city become green but the spaces that buildings occupy would as well, which would greatly increase the ecological wealth and biomass of the urban setting.

By themselves, green roofs would offset the amount of natural habitat destroyed by our buildings so when combined with trellising on their sides, any building in a city could easily provide more biomass that the original landscape could have provided for naturally. Vertical farms take this concept and would increase growing space even more. Basically vertical farms are urban high-rise buildings that could produce a massive quantity of food. Their key strength is that they take up a nominal amount of space on the ground but multiply that vertically. A building that covers one-half acre at street level can easily provide several acres of climate-controlled space vertically.

Detail of a vertical farm

Inside a vertical farm

Another view

Winter itself would be far less of a problem in a food production sense if vertical farms were built and with the use of winter farming methods, like some of the ones pioneered by permaculture practitioners, combined with greenhouses in the larger of the urban farms or gardens, there wouldn’t be too much of a need to import food.

Vertical farms would also be the ideal environment for breeding plants for optimum growth in their specific cities and would provide a nice escape for the people of the city from the cold of winter. They could also provide food that could not otherwise be grown in specific regions where those plants were ill adapted for cultivation due to various factors.

In areas that do not get too cold during such periods, food production could easily be increased by using such techniques and that food could be used for trade. In the rural areas near agri-cities in winter affected regions, the surplus food produced during summer could be traded with regions that either where in the opposite hemisphere and were experiencing summer, or equatorial regions that have year round growing seasons to help supply the cities.

a food forest garden

To add to the richness and diversity of this new urban ecosystem, the re-introduction of livestock (specifically dwarf or miniature breeds) and poultry would well round the over all effect of creating a complete and harmonious system and aid in natural, chemical and toxin free, pest control while simultaneously providing sources of high-quality, local meat, eggs and dairy.

Poultry in an urban agricultural system

By growing food in the city we would provide ourselves with a stronger bond not only to nature but to each other and the cities we live in. We would also create an extremely rich and diverse ecosystem that would be beneficial to our planet. By implementing such practices, we would also address one of the key problems with our ever growing global population. We can begin to achieve this now by taking direct action and creating guerrilla gardens and if we formed urban farming collectives and food cooperatives following the principles of anarchist autogestion, we could achieve this vision in our lifetimes, and possibly sooner than we think. If the anarchist movement got behind this kind of a massive project and especially if we spearheaded it, we could dramatically and positively shift the opinion of the masses regarding our ideology while allowing us the ability to show our cause in its true light.

An example of a sustainable city in a dry climate. Power is provided by soalr technology and wind turbines, there are urban farms and in the background there is park space.



I plan to, in the forthcoming days to create a small guerrilla permaculture plot at the small creek next to my house. The property is public and owned by the city and as such is “illegal” for me to plant there. The first step I will have to accomplish is to find a spot where the city maintenance crew will not just mow over it as well as a spot where I won’t be harassed by the law. I will also have to choose a spot that will minimize the threat of vandalism being used against the garden.

Then I will have to assemble the materials I will require to create my very small, experimental plot. First I will take some old paper grocery bags I have lying about the house and cut off the tops of them leaving about 4 to 6 inches left in the bottom of the bag. I will then fill the bottom of my grocery bag with soil from the garden I planted in my backyard.

Next I will take some mulching materials which I will locate from some source either at or near my house, the cut off part of the bag, a bucket, the clipped bag with the soil in it, a wooden stake about 3 to 4 feet long, possibly some newspaper (if I can find some), the left over morning glory seeds I collected last season, a spade and either a hammer, rock or brick to the plot site I have selected.

I will then clear a spot there, soak the cut off part of the bag and newspaper thoroughly with water from the creek using my bucket. Then I will lay down some of the mulch approximately 3 to 5 inches deep on top of the site, followed by the soaked paper bag trimmings. The bags and mulch will keep the weeds from coming up by depriving them of an easy growth path, sunlight, and oxygen but by soaking them it will make it possible for my plant’s roots to establish themselves below the bag and into the mulch when they mature.

Next I will place the grocery bag planter on top of the prepared site and hammer it into place with the stake which will not only keep the bag in place but will also provide a growing structure for the morning glories when they mature.

I will then soak the soil and planter thoroughly to allow for germination and surround the planter with organic mulch to somewhat disguise it and to prevent “weeds” from over growing the surrounding site which could easily deprive my seedlings of light or even infiltrate the planter from above. I will also very lightly cover the soil with organic material to keep airborne seeds from contaminating it and to help keep the soil moist. The covering mulch will also get a soaking.

From time to time, I will venture over to water this planter and as the seedlings begin to mature, I will add more and more mulch to protect the soil from invasion and keep it moist. Hopefully all will go according to plan and I will keep this page updated with the outcome of my experiment. If all goes well, I will create a much larger plot next season using the same or slightly modified techniques which should be replicable by almost anyone. The cost of this concept is pretty minimal, and should consist of only soil (If you don’t have any that is usable) and seeds as pretty much anything else I will use here can be obtained from home or can be acquired or recycled for free.

The two reasons that I chose this method are that I did not want to have to use to much physical labor and also that I have virtually no money, so this technique can be applied virtually anywhere and modified to fit whatever your needs are. Some variations of this could include contour planting in between rows in a conventional backyard garden with the incorporation of a drip hose system. Just lay the hose under the bags and/or under the conventional rows in your garden and all you have to do then is to connect the hose with your faucet, turn it on and not really have to do much else but harvest or plant.


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