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ware of intensifying world challenges and the basic need of people to feed themselves, we have been working for 40 years to develop an elegant, small-scale agricultural system — GROW BIOINTENSIVE® Sustainable Mini-Farming — that when practiced correctly, nurtures healthy soil fertility, produces high yields, conserves resources and can be used successfully by almost everyone. Our goal is to help this system be known and used locally...on a worldwide basis.

ohn Jeavons spoke at Google in Mountain View on April 12, 2012 about his four decades pioneering biointensive farming and what we can do for food security in the future.

Trench composting is very simple. You dig a trench (we're using the word “trench” loosely here; it doesn't matter what shape your hole is) approximately twelve inches deep, add roughly four to six inches of compostable materials, such as kitchen scraps, spent garden plants, prunings, thinnings, and weeds, and bury it with the soil you dug out of the trench.

80 percent of food in US grocery stores contain genetically modified ingredients yet have no indication directly on the product.

Some off-the-grid communities are little more than subdivisions beyond the reach of any power company, where homeowners fend for themselves. Some off-the-grid communities take the intentional community approach, a gathering of like-minded residents living in a cooperative manner (and if you think that sounds like a commune, well, you’d be right).

Emerald Earth This intentional community on 189 acres Mendocino County near Boonville, Calif., was founded in 1989. The dozen or so people living here share a common house with a main kitchen, eating and meeting areas and shower. There is also a bathhouse/greenhouse with a sauna, showers and garden greenhouse. There are four small cabins heated by passive solar and wood stoves. Solar panels and a gas generator provide electricity. Use of composting outhouses means there is no need for a septic system.

Molten salt is used as an energy transfer and distribution medium for the project. The concentrated sunlight is used to heat the molten salt from 500 degrees Fahrenheit to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The salt then moves through a series of alloy tubes and is used to set water supplies to boil. The steam created is used to power turbines that generate electrical power. SolarReserve notes that this is one of the most efficient ways to make use of solar energy.

The background To begin it is worth reminding ourselves of the impact of climate change, urbanization, economic growth and globalization. Climate change. As we know, the earth's climate is constantly changing – but in recent years there has been a significant change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that global temperature will rise by the end of the century by between 1.4C and 5.8C. Most of the warming that has occurred over the last 50 years is, according to the IPCC (2007), attributable to human activities. The result of this will be a further rise in sea levels (and an increased risk of flooding), problems around fresh-water supplies in many parts of the world, a decrease in agricultural productivity in many areas, and significant health risks. The Stern Review (2006) concluded that climate change presents very serious global risks, and it demands an urgent global response. It will impact disproportionately on poorer countries – but even in richer countries, if nothing is done there will be profound economic consequences. Overall, it could mean the equivalent of around a 20% reduction in consumption per head.