Is farming about to become an underground activity? In England it already has. Ten storeys deep, under the streets of London, a World War II bomb shelter is being used as a farm, producing lush harvests of leafy vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, spinach and broccoli.
Where thousands of terrified Londoners once cowered from German bombs, rows and rows of trays filled with plants flourish under artificial light. In a relatively small and crowded country like England this makes good sense.
The population grows while the living space remains static.
In the competition between people and cabbages, people usually win because cabbages don’t make the decisions (although I sometimes wonder).
As a Karoo-bred boytjie I find the notion of underground farming totally unacceptable. I’ve always believed that food was the product of sunshine and soil.
You don’t get much of either 10 storeys under a city. Another reason I dislike the idea is that I don’t regard leaves as proper human food. Leaves are what food eats.
I realise this notion is not shared by everyone in these politically correct times and several of my friends have shunned flesh-eating. I respect their choice.
Thank goodness we South Africans still have enough room in which to make such choices. We’re still a long way from having to burrow underground to grub for our food by artificial light.
Besides, Eskom makes artificial light a scarce product now. Maybe the next agricultural revolution will be the introduction of subterranean chicken farms, where the old gold mines of Gauteng can house millions of chickens in faux daylight, fed on pellets of London sourced broccoli.
I still visit the old Karoo from time to time and watch happy sheep, each allotted a whole two hectares of wide open veld and feeding on aromatic Karoo herbs under the blue sky and sunshine.
I think this is a more humane option than eating unhappy underground cabbages that have never felt the warmth of the sun on their leaves. I realise this is a personal choice.
Back here in Cape Town I own a small worm farm where my family of red wrigglers live in permanent darkness and seem to thrive on a purely vegetarian diet. So far they have not complained about their conditions of employment, so I assume they’re happy worms. It takes all sorts.
Last Laugh
Two laboratory rats were chatting. One bragged to the other: “I’ve got my scientist pretty well trained now. Every time I press that red button he brings me a snack.”
* "Tavern of the Seas" is a column written in the Cape Argus by David Biggs. Biggs can be contacted at [email protected]
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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