We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it

[MineralMan]

21. I live in a big city. The Twin Cities of Minnestota

are still surrounded by mixed farming. I can drive less than two miles from my house to find operating farms, and I live in the City of St. Paul. Hmong immigrants are engaged in small-scale truck farming to an extraordinary degree, selling their crops in over a dozen farmer's markets in the city. St. Paul offers free composting of green waste. There's a composting yard just half a mile from my house. This spring, I'll haul my brush and trimmings there.

Similar efforts are ongoing around many cities, and even within cities. St. Paul allows backyard chickens and rabbits, and many people have them. Our short growing season here is used by many homeowners to grow a wide range of vegetables. Most yards in my neighborhood sport fruit trees, berry vines and other perennial food plants.

Further out of the cities, of course, typical midwestern agriculture is a major industry here in Minnesota, but sprinkled among those farms are also organic farms in increasing numbers, along with organic hydroponic growing of other crops, from salad greens to tomatoes.

It's a mistake to say that there is no movement in those directions near our major cities. It's just not true.