Are there new technologies that will zoom local production and improve our resilience?

Of course.

In fact, nearly all of the technologies we need, will be developed by people tinkering with solutions and sharing the results online.

Tinkering?  Yes.

Tinkerers working in networks invented airplanes, light bulbs, and personal computers.  These networks operate on the simple idea that:

• Lots of people prototyping solutions to problems and
• sharing their results with lots of other people
• can quickly invent amazing solutions to difficult problems.

The Challenge

Here’s an example of a tinkerer that has a pretty slick solution to a difficult problem:  Is there a resilient way to generate energy from biomass?  Yes.  A couple.

One of the solutions we’ve begun to explore is the conversion of a septic tank into a biogas system (see the earlier letter, “Don’t throw away your Wealth” for more).

Another solution is to develop a furnace or stove that uses (technical language alert — beep, beep) gasification and pyrolytic processes that allow us to:

• use nearly any type of biomass feedstock (wood, husks, etc.),
• in a smokeless/clean way (nearly zero smoke/fumes),
• and produces biochar (an extremely useful soil amendment produced by pyrolysis) as its primary waste product.

The closest I’ve seen to a simple technological implementation that would be appropriate for this is the Lucia Stove.  Here’s a diagram for how it operates:

All you need to do with this system is add some wood or biomass and ignite it.  It fires up quickly and burns cleanly after ignition (I suspect an electronic ignition source would speed this).   The wood/biomass doesn’t actually burn, the stove’s heat causes it to char and release gases that burn cleanly at the top of the stove, in a way that’s very similar to propane or natural gas (which suggests that this system could be dual use).  When depleted, the biomass ends up as biochar, an amazing soil additive for your garden.  In all, it’s an amazingly efficient technique that can use nearly any fuel to produce clean heat.

While there is a more elaborate injection molded version of the stove available, there’s also an the origami version for disaster relief and development that ships as four pre-cut slats of metal that can be easily cut and bent to build the stove (which means it is easy to purchase and test out as an alternative to a BBQ).   The team at the Haiti Clean Stove Project documented their construction of one here.

Could this stove’s design become the basis of a resilient furnace system?  Perhaps.

With some more work (primarily an automated method for feeding/cleaning it and fail safes to prevent problems), it could be a resilient furnace or stove that you and I would be happy to use.

Your guide to tinkering,

John Robb

PS:  If you have experience with the basic Lucia stove, let us know the results.  Also, if you have any other examples.  Please share them.

How do you and your community avoid catastrophic failure?

To give you a good answer, I need to share with you a lesson I learned while flying airplanes professionally.

I find this lesson very useful in thinking about resilient homes and communities.  I hope you do too.

NOTE:  You’ll also learn why takeoffs are the most dangerous part of any airplane trip.

Energy Management

Flying a plane requires smart energy management.

Translation: a young pilot has a shot at becoming an old pilot if he/she is smart with energy management.

How does a pilot manage energy effectively?

Essentially, effective energy management means keeping energy in reserve for when you need it.

Extra energy allows you to bounce back from difficulties (which is the primary definition of resilience).  The opposite is also true, insufficient energy, can turn slight problems into catastrophic ones.

Let’s add a bit more detail to this.  Pilots have three sources of energy at their disposal:

• Engines (less throttle means more energy is available)
• Altitude (higher is more energy)
• Airspeed (higher is more energy)

These sources of energy are largely interchangeable.  You can trade energy from one source for another.

Want to go faster? Push the throttle up or descend in altitude.  Want to go slower?  Climb in altitude or pull back the throttle.

This also means that if you have enough energy stored in any two sources, it may be possible to lose the third source and recover successfully.   For example:  Lost your engines?  You can use altitude and airspeed to find an emergency landing strip.

NOTE:  This is the reason why take-offs are the most dangerous portion of a flight.  You engines are at max, and you don’t have much airspeed or altitude during the climb.   You are completely reliant on one source, your engines.

Energy Management for Resilience

So, how does this apply to resilient homes and communities?   Simple answer: energy management is a major factor in how resilient your home or community is.

How do you store energy in this situation?  If you are simply thinking in terms of batteries or stockpiles of food, etc., you are thinking too narrowly.    It’s better to think in terms of systems that capture and produce energy on a continuous basis.

Here’s what I mean.  We have three primary ways to capture and produce energy:

• Food abundance.  Growing a garden that captures and traps solar energy.  Composting biological waste for use in a garden.
• Heat, fuel, and power abundance. Producing energy through a biogas septic systems, wood, solar thermal (both passive and active), or solar photo-voltaic panels.  Omnivorous energy consumption.
• Water abundance.  Actively and passively harvesting rainwater and using it effectively.

Homes and communities that maximize the production of these sources are much more resilient than those that don’t.  They can bounce back from nearly any disruption without so much as a scratch.

Dusk or dawn?

We are currently in the equivalent of a plane’s very dangerous take-off phase on our journey to resilient communities.  Why are we in danger?  We don’t have enough energy to recover from a failure.

Most communities, even those working hard at becoming resilient, don’t produce much “energy” at the local level yet.  This means that even small disruptions might become catastrophic, let alone big ones that turn supermarkets into food deserts (a supermarket only carries enough food to provide its customers with three days of supply).

Fortunately, change is coming.  We’re learning how to become producers again and we’re getting better at it every day.

Sooner than later, we’ll be able to handle nearly any disruption an out of control global system can throw at us.

Your hoping we’ll all be able to grow old in a resilient community analyst,

John Robb

IS the global financial system still breaking down?

Given the drumbeat of news we are getting, it’s just getting started.

We see the breakdown in Europe, where Spain is nationalizing banks in a futile attempt to prevent bankruptcy and a bankrupt Greece is playing political lotto, on its way out of the Euro.

We also see it on Wall Street, where JP Morgan reported a multi-billion dollar loss due to risky bets on financial derivatives they didn’t understand.  For our purposes, the news from JP Morgan was particularly interesting, because it demonstrated:

• The big banks are still making lots of risky, highly leveraged bets.  Why?  It’s a sure thing.  If they win, they keep the money.  If they lose (and they will), the public bails them out.
• Wall Street still doesn’t understand the $700 trillion derivative market (that’s 10 times the global economy!) it created.  To wit: JPMorgan’s risk management software is THE industry standard and it’s supposed to make this type of loss impossible.
• The government didn’t “fix” the global financial industry at all.  This article by Matt Taibi shows how the process of reform was thoroughly corrupted.

Becoming Resilient Isn’t an Option

Why did I bring this up?

I think it’s important to remember that becoming resilient isn’t merely a lifestyle choice or a neat thing to do.  Instead, given what’s ahead of us, it’s an imperative.

It’s the way to protect ourselves and our loved ones against a turbulent future.   A future filled with financial, environmental, resource, health, political, and economic disruptions.  Disruptions that nobody can stop.

What happens if you become resilient?  

Perhaps I’m being hasty with this.  You do have a choice.  You can either:

• Do nothing.
• Become resilient.

What happens if you do nothing?   Given what’s ahead of us:  You will suffer, complain, protest, stagnate, and fail.

Why?  You’ve attached your future to a system in decline.

In contrast, if you choose resilience: you, your family, and your community have a good chance at prosperity.

My personal choice?  I choose prosperity.  I choose resilient communities that have human scale local economies and direct connections to dynamic global networks for innovation and insight.

I have too much to do to protest or complain.  Too much to build.  The future awaits and it looks amazing.

Your very happy to be on this journey with you analyst,

JOHN ROBB

PS:  If you are on the Iberian Peninsula and want help transitioning to resilience.  You should connect with my good friends in the Las Indias network.   They built a road map for transitioning to networked resilient communities.  More on their efforts later.

Today’s letter is from Arun Prabhakaran, an entrepreneurial member of our rapidly growing resilient network.

In it, he interviews Michael Froelich, the founder of the West Philly Tool Library (here’s a previous letter on tool libraries for background), to get an inside look at start and running a tool library.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

______________
Resilient communities grow faster when they provide ways for members to reduce their expenses while increasing their productivity at the same time.

One great way to do that is through a community tool library.

A tool library works on the same principle as a book library.   Simply, that most of  tools that people purchase go unused for the vast majority of the time.   So, a library that makes it possible to share these unused tools, allows the community to gain access to a broad set of general purpose and specialized tools without having the expense of purchasing and storing a large collection of tools.

For more insight, let’s take a look at the West Philly Tool Library.

This library, founded in 2007, offers 3,200 tools to the residents of West and Southwest Philadelphia (although there is no residency requirement).   The library’s mission is to provide tools to community members so that they may “perform simple home maintenance, tend their yards and gardens, build furniture, start projects, and learn new skills in a safe and affordable manner.”

How the West Philly Tool Library Got Started

The idea for this tool library started with Michael Froehlich, a West Philadelphian with a background in community organizing.  At the time, he was living in the Bay Area, studying Law at UC-Berkeley School of Law.  While there, he became aware of the tool-lending libraries at the Berkeley and Oakland Public Libraries. He quickly became a regular and saw what a great resource it was for the Bay Area community.

Naturally, he thought: “West Philly could have a tool library, too.”

So, upon completing his degree, Mike moved back to West Philadelphia. A few years later, he began organizing to start the first tool library in Philly, starting with a flyer promoting the concept that he handed out at the Clark Park Farmers’ Market in West Philly.  The flyer worked.  Eight people came to the first meeting, and after some spirited discussion, the tool library was off to the races.

From the beginning, the West Philly tool library was designed to operate with a low-overhead:

• volunteer-run,
• cheap (or free) rent,
• mostly donated tools,
• in-house tool maintenance and repair,
• and a great deal of know-how applied with a can-do attitude.

Operating a Tool Library

The West Philly Tool Library (WPTL) runs on a budget of less than $20,000 per year.  It raises this money through a combination of annual membership fees, late fees, contributions, and grants. About 25% of operating expenses are covered by small grants that are $5,000 or under.  Most of the grants support its operations and its annual community education series — which is typically done in conjunction with a neighborhood community association.

The remainder of the expenses are covered by contributions coming in the form of:

• Dues are on a sliding scale from $10-$50 per year.
• Late fees are $1 a day per item.
• Donations.

Overall, there is very little need for larger revenue generating functions.   In fact, in the last year or so has the Tool Library’s grew so large it is now exploring the financial requirements necessary to hire a part-time administrative person.

The tools.  Approximately two-thirds of the tools they offer are donated. Power tools, however, are mostly purchased new.

Although some tools are not returned promptly–much like a regular book library–the Tool Library sees a very low rate of non-return or theft. So, for the most part, they don’t buy or replace tools because so many get donated. In fact, they receive many more tools than they can store or that anyone would borrow.

So every year in March, the Tool Library holds its annual garage sale, sells off its excess tools–most for only a $1 each.  This sale generates about $1000 a year.

While most of the tool maintenance and repair work is done in-house on a volunteer basis, this is a pretty frustrating process and the Tool Library is considering hiring out this function.

In terms of administration, WPTL opted to work with a fiscal sponsor, the Urban Affairs Coalition (UAC), a $30 million nonprofit organization that is the fiscal agent for over 75 nonprofits, large and small.  By leveraging the UAC’s 501(c)3 umbrella, the Tool Library was able to further reduce overhead expenses by reducing the amount of time required spent on administrative work (this has proven to be a great decision).

The Tool Library maintains an advisory board that monitors the organization. It was a pretty informal body, holding its meetings almost always with beers in hand. As things have grown, things are becoming a bit more formal, meaning that beers have now become an after-meeting refreshment, and are no longer consumed during meetings.

Growing Community Membership

The get members, the tool library promoted itself through word of mouth, flyers, emails, and the Internet as well as signage outside of the tool library.

People who liked libraries or cooperatives were the first tier of folks that joined. The second tier were mostly college educated folks with jobs– young couples, people who bought fixer-uppers, etc. After the word got out, the Tool Library started to attract more working class and poor residents from the neighborhood. Although no demographic data is officially collected, Froehlich estimates that currently, the membership is about two-thirds individuals and families who would be characterized as middle class or “professionals” and one-third working class or poor.

The Tool Library had limited hours in the beginning based on the availability of their volunteer-led team. Later, they expanded hours by bringing some part-time paid staff. Now, the Tool Library operates Monday through Thursday from 6:30pm to 8:30pm and Saturdays from 9:00am to 3:00pm.

Tips on Starting Your Own Local Tool Library
Froehlich has advised a number of other tool libraries that have sprung up around the country. When asked what would he do differently or how he would advise others interested in starting a tool library, Froehlich recommended a few things:

• Make sure that there is a lot of community interest: Without community support, you’re going nowhere fast. With support, the word of mouth and the goodwill you generate will be strong wind in your sails.
• Raise $10,000 – 20,000 upfront: You’ll need things like a computer, shelves, etc. So, it’s best to start with money that you have raised from the community, which serves to build your base of members and supports that you’ll need from the beginning and for the long haul.
• Plan for it to be a volunteer effort: A tool library has very little likelihood of generating sufficient revenue, especially if you are spending money on paid personnel.
• Find a cheap space to rent or find a donated space. Again, keep your overhead low…this isn’t a money maker.
• Don’t get a 501(c); Work with a fiscal sponsor or another nonprofit: Insurance and audit fees alone are cost prohibitive. Add to that accounts payable and receivable, tax filings, human resources, payroll plus everything else and you’ll quickly realize that it’s easier to have someone else handling the details.
• Use a tool library software: Both the South East Portland Tool Library (SEPTL) and the West Seattle Tool Library have developed software to manage the tool collections. The Tool Library uses SEPTL’s Tool Librarian software developed by and loves it; WSTL’s Local Tool is a great option, too. Evaluate both of them and see which one works for you.
• Become of a part of the wider community of tool libraries: It is a network of DIY folks who are genuinely interested in helping others. They are glad to share expertise, ideas, forms, governance documents, etc. For example, you might join the national tool libraries’ google group. Take advantage of these resources!

As one can see, the utility of a tool library makes it a tremendous community asset.

For less than $20,000 a year, an entire community can access a full spectrum of tools that no one single person would buy or use unless they owned a construction or contracting company. With a little ingenuity, a small but committed team of volunteers and some hard work, your town could have a great tool library, too.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Mike at michaelrfroehlich@gmail.com

______________

Thanks again to Arun for this excellent contribution.

Your extremely happy we have such an excellent community analyst,

John Robb

PS:  The software the West Philly tool library uses is from the Southeast Portland Tool Library.  Take a look at their tool inventory page (which shows if batteries are required and/or the tool is checked out or not).  Very simple and very cool.

Here are two extremely simple ways to get a neighborhood thinking like a community.   It’s always amazing to me how even a small project can grow into a community wide project that is trans-formative.

Put your thinking caps on, we need more small projects like these to spur our communities to take the path to resilience and success.

Contagious Cleanliness 

The first approach is based on a social science concept called “broken windows.”  Essentially, broken windows theory works like this (Kelling/Wilson):

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

So, the theory goes, if you stop the minor problems rather than ignoring them, you prevent the big ones.  This theory became very popular in the late 1990s as a way to stop crime.  Cities posted cops on street corners to crack down on vandalism and minor infractions.  They also attempted to repair damage quickly.  Well, it did seem to work.  Crime did drop due to this approach and other factors.

This approach to community building is based on a reversal of broken windows.   In this approach, a group of neighbors bands together to clean up the neighborhood and keep it spotless (instead of the city and the police enforcing it from the top down).  Here’s a video of a neighborhood went from a dangerous no go zone (militia violence) into a clean, functional neighborhood.

Contagious Thrift

The second approach is a repair cafe.  Essentially, it’s a way to help people in the community save money through repairs to simple appliances they would otherwise throw away.  Why would they throw them away?  Because the repair costs would be more than the value of the item.  Also, due to the centralization of global manufacturing, almost all repairs on small products require shipping it back to the factory at great expense.

The solution?  A repair cafe that can quickly fix minor problems and get the product working again.  A cafe like that operates on the idea that thrift is contagious.  If people are getting things for free or low-cost, others will join in to avoid missing out.

At Amsterdam’s (an example that was recently featured in the New York Times although their story focused on different motivations), neighbors line up to have their appliances, from vacuum cleaners to toasters to lamps to clothing, fixed by community volunteers that like to fix things as a hobby.  Why?  Because they want to avoid spending money on a new product.

The repair cafe idea has become so popular in the Netherlands, it raised $525,000 in donations and has spread to 30 different locations.

Mutual Advancement

The benefits of both approaches is that they get people thinking about the community as something worth improving.

A community that provides you benefits in return for willing contributions.  A community of people who like you, are in it for the long-term.  So, why not move forward together?

IF you have other, better approaches to community building, please share them.

Your still learning about how best to build community analyst,

JOHN ROBB

I met Dr. T.H. Culhane a couple of years ago at a National Geographic conference.

He is on a lifelong mission to help the world’s poor, both urban and rural, bootstrap themselves out of poverty and improve the quality of their lives.

How?  He shows people how to avoid throwing away wealth.

Specifically, he teaches them that the food and bathroom waste they produced every day (about thirty percent of the energy they consume and most of the waste) can be transformed by a biogas digester into:

• the fuel (methane) they can use to cleanly cook their food and
• a composted slurry they can use to fertilize their crops.

DIY Biogas Digesters

Biogas digesters aren’t new.  They are in use in many places.  However, there are many, many more places, both intensely urban or spartan rural, that need them but don’t.

To give you some insight into how these systems work, here’s an example of an in ground biogas system that TH initiated in the Philippines (see TH’s blog for more detail on the entire project).   This system is set up so that the wife/kids can feed the digester biological waste every day and get methane gas and fertilizer in return (he teaches people to treat it as a family cow).

The system they are installing is essentially a septic tank with some minor tweaks that allow it to be manually fed and output methane/fertilizer.

To build these in ground tanks, they bought Chinese molds and shipped them in.  You can see them below.   It cost TH about $8,500 to get them to the island and another $2,500 to get them past the bureaucrats.

The mold takes about two hours to stitch together.  The majority of the labor is digging the hole it is going in and pouring the concrete. Once bought the mold can be used thousands of times.  Below you can see two tubes.  One tube (near the kitchen) is for feeding the digester waste and one is for the fertilizer to flow to the garden.

One interesting twist on the installation is that TH builds vertical walls inside the tank using cinder blocks.  Why?  To provide more surfaces with a greater degree of temperature variation so that more bio films can form.  Bio films are the most productive part of process.  Here’s what it looks like (the photo is a bit blurry, but you can see the walls inside).

If cost is the primary factor, here’s an example of an above ground system.  Note the stand alone tank.  The blue bladder is to hold the methane produced.  Very simple.

Here’s how the methane is used.  Note the tube piping it in.

What’s the bottom line?

• This system costs about $750 in materials, plus labor (mostly digging a hole and pouring concrete).
• It generates 20 hours of cooking fuel a day (or 5 hours of electricity generation) per day, plus fertilizer.
• It operates forever.

 Don’t Throw Away Wealth

What’s the point of this example?

With some creative thinking, it’s possible to turn waste into wealth at the local level.

You can do this yourself (above ground) or with some neighbors (below ground) or you can contract for it.

If the community has the willpower, a municipal sewage system can use large biogas digesters to generate electricity — likely more than enough to operate a sewage treatment facility and power some community buildings.

Your not happy about throwing away wealth analyst,

JOHN ROBB

PS:  Here some of the ways biogas digesters reduce poverty and improve lives:

1. It eliminates biological waste that can cause a health hazard.
2. The methane produced burns cleanly inside the home (as opposed to wood/garbage smoke).
3. It makes it possible for kids to go to school/play, since they aren’t required to spend 3-6 hours a day gathering fuel for the stove.  If they are buying bottled gas to cook, this saves them income.

PPS:  Bureaucratic road-blocks.   Here’s an interesting nugget from TH.  He found that municipal authorities and development agencies are often stopping people in developing countries from building DIY digesters for methane production.  Why?  They believe that they are dangerous.  So, the authorities have been telling people to shut them down and wait for electricity deliveries from a plant to be built-in the far future.  TH maintains, and I think he is right about this, that the small volume of low pressure gas produced by these systems is safer than the alternatives available, and much healthier.

Networked resilient communities aren’t only a great hedge against the global system run amok.  Networked resilient communities are also the future of the global system.

Here’s a very simple reason why this is true.

The decentralized social and economic configuration of networked resilient communities — communities that produce most of what they need locally and network for the rest — brings the management of the world down to a sensible human-scale.

It shrinks the world down to a level to where things make sense again.  Where its possible to actually make choices on important decisions and be reasonably sure what the costs and the benefits are.

Meet the Central Planners

In contrast, we currently are dependent on a global system that is beyond comprehension.

A system, which for the first time in all of history, is globally interconnected.  A super system so large, so fast, and so complex that it can’t be understood or managed.

Yet, despite this, we give an incredibly small and increasingly concentrated group of people the authority to centrally manage our future.  This group uses the following ‘knowledge’ to manage our future:

• Soviet type administration and regulation for governance.
• Wall Street equations for finance and corporate governance.
• “Harvard” academic knowledge for economics and other social endeavors.

Where the Central Planners Fall Short

Hopefully, you can see the problem here.

The knowledge these central planners use to run the world isn’t the same as the simple ancestral, experienced-based, and ecological rules we learned the hard way over thousands of years.  You know, the rules that we use every day to make good decisions.

In contrast, the knowledge used by our global central planners is newly minted and highly contingent social science.  For example, think of all of the narrow assumptions that underlie modern economic analysis.

Further, the rules of these central planners are using are mind numbingly complex and lack a meaningful track record.   Ask yourself:  Do these theories produce results consistently over decades let alone centuries?  Do they really reflect reality?  If you aren’t willing to bet your life on either answer, that’s hardly a body of knowledge we should be betting the survival of the species on.

Yet, we do.  And it goes even more wrong with each passing year as we find ourselves unable to control the system we have built.  Unable to mitigate the disruptions that are occurring.

We saw this in 2008 with the global financial system and today in the US and the European Union with sovereign debt.  We are seeing it in inexorable global climate change and rapid resource depletion.  As we are seeing it in warfare with the rise of drone technology and in near misses with global pandemics.  The list goes on and on and on.  Disruption after disruption….

So, what’s the best solution?

Reduce the decision-making process that controls our lives down to a human scale.

How?  By building and living in a networked resilient community.

A community where the systems we depend on to get through the day, can be managed using common sense.

A life not dependent on any flawed central planners using Soviet, Harvard, and Wall Street pipe dreams.

Your willing to build a world that makes sense with you analyst,

JOHN ROBB

PS:  Nassim Taleb, the author The Black Swan, just sent me a draft of the new book he is writing Antifragile: Things that Gain From Disorder.   So, although I didn’t directly pull quotes/charts from this work, Nassim’s ideas are inspiration for today’s letter.

I learned early on that wind matters.

Here’s why: I received my professional pilot training in West Texas.

If you haven’t been there before, the flat terrain of West Texas produces lots of wind.  Enough wind to make learning to fly jets a significant challenge.

The wind of West Texas has other surprises.  It produced a couple of tornadoes and a single three-day dust storm while I was there.  The dust storm looked a little like the picture to the right as it approached, but red.  If you have ever lived through one, the dust gets into everything.  It can even get inside your freezer, yuk.

Anyway, I developed a deep respect for the wind while training in West Texas.  A respect that paid off by saving my life more than once during the rest of my flying career (in the Middle East and other garden spots).

This leads back to the topic of this letter:  Wind matters.

The Negative Impact of Wind

Here’s why wind matters to you and me now.  Let’s skip the positive roles of wind and focus on its (currently) more numerous negative effects.  Wind negatively impacts us in following ways.

• Increased damage.  Extreme or steady winds can do significant damage, both to you and your property — from direct damage to soil erosion to drifts/debris to wildfires  Unfortunately, we’re going to see an ever-increasing amount of wind damage in the future.  Climate change is going to shift the atmosphere into overdrive as it tries to smooth heat distributions.
• Increased energy use.   Steady hot, cold, or drying winds can cost you money and sap your resilience.  How?  Winds can drive up the costs of heating a home during the winter.
• Increased water use and reduced crop yields.  Winds can rapidly desiccate plants and drive up water usage.  They can also make the production of some vegetables impossible and lower yields by twenty percent or more in others.

JOHN ROBB

Nomadic farming — farms that move from location to location — is interesting.  Let’s explore it a bit.

If you are wondering what a nomadic farm looks like, here’s a gallery of photos for a nomadic farm called Riverpark.  It’s located on an empty building lot at Alexandria Center in New York City.

As you can see from the photos, the entire farm consists of vegetables planted in stacked milk crates.

How to Build a Nomadic Farming Container

The open source wisdom on the topic suggests that the ubiquitous milk crate is the best container to use.  These crates are inexpensive, lightweight, easily moved (they have handles), stackable, and allow drainage/aeration.

They are also easy to converted into a planter by simply lining them with landscape fabric ($10 of fabric + sewing can convert 24 crates into planters) or (in a pinch) a plastic bag with holes.   As an added feature, most nomadic farms add a second, empty crate below the planted one to raise the bed and make it more accessible.

The containers can then be moved from location to location safely, in a shipping container with shelves.

Why Go Nomadic?

The big question we’ve got to answer here is why go nomadic at all?  It’s clearly expensive, particularly in its use of fossil fuels, to move these farms.  They also require more water and watering them can create drainage problems due to run-off.

Despite this, nomadic farms appear to be valuable today because location matters.

Nomadic farms can move right into the center of a city, typically by renting one of the numerous vacant lots (made vacant due to stalled construction, etc.).  Once there, they are able to take advantage of the premium pricing paid for ‘just picked’ produce by numerous nearby restaurants and residents.

Further, the proximity of the farm allows deep relationships to develop, in that the customers can actually talk to the farmer and see the plants being grown.  This cements customer loyalty. So, while this may work today, will it work as things get more turbulent?

Are Nomadic Farms Resilient?

Is a farm that can be moved useful for our transition to resilience?  I think they can play a role. Here’s how:

• They could provide the ability to “pop-up farming” on leased land located in prime locations near to town centers (which allows them to take advantage of the relationships).  This type of zoned property is currently too expensive for farmers to purchase, but it may be inexpensive to lease short-term.   Over time, when the housing/commercial market completely capitulates due to economic distress, the land could then be purchased outright.
• Nomadic farms can be moved under cover to avoid extreme weather — something we are going to see increase with each passing year due to climate change.  While it may not be practical to operate completely in a nomadic way, it may also be useful to keep a high value portion of a standard farm nomadic, just in case.
• They could be configured to provide advanced services such as heirloom crops/aquaponics expertise travelling around in shipping containers.  Think bee keepers, traveling to the location that pays them the most to stay a couple of growing seasons.   Another use is as a farming classroom.  Dropping in on a high school football field to provide the students with life skills they can actually use.

Hope this sparked some ideas.

Your reluctantly-nomadic analyst,

JOHN ROBB

This letter is about ways to become resilient.  However, before you do that, you need to think resiliently.  Here’s an example of what this means.

Almost everyone has heard the Aesop Fable called “the Grasshopper and the Ant.”

Here’s a quick recap if you don’t remember it:

During the bountiful summer months, the Grasshopper goofs off while the ant works diligently to store food.  When the harsh winter arrives, a starving Grasshopper asks the Ant for help, only to be rebuked (Aesop was a pretty harsh guy).

The lessons of this story is pretty simple:  Work diligently.  Save as much as you can while times are good.  If you don’t, you will suffer.

This is also essentially the same story every financial adviser in the world tells their clients.   Save as much money as you can.  Invest in a variety of financial assets.  Get ready for  a rainy day.

Stop here.  Ask yourself: what’s the error in this story?

Here’s what I found wrong with it.

Savings, and particularly financial savings and investments, aren’t a cure-all.  They are particularly risky during times of turbulence.

The reason why?  We are currently in an age of turbulence and crisis.  An age when common assumptions are routinely overturned.  An age when financial assets, companies and governments that we considered bastions of stability can simply evaporate overnight.

In this world, the diligent Ant that makes steady investments in financial assets may end up in the SAME place the Grasshopper during the bad times ahead.   Destitute.  A pauper.

So what’s the resilient solution to this problem?

To invest in local production.  The ability to produce in good times and bad.

Investments in the ability to grow food, produce energy, harvest rain, and produce products are a start.

So, resiliently hedge your savings.  Make investments to ensure you have the capacity to easily produce the basics, both at home or in your community.

Your helping you think sleep well in the future analyst,

JOHN ROBB

PS:  There are 725 fables attributed to Aesop.  Wow.

PPS:  I’m not a financial analyst.  Why would I be?