The Obama's very public White House victory garden, and the summertime boom of farmer's markets across the U.S. are proving the point: we're a lot more concerned about what we're eating and where it comes from.  No longer content with bulk beef from big-box stores and milk produced by antibiotic-filled cows, people are trending toward organic, locally grown produce and other food farmed in a humane, sustainable manner. 

Sustainable agriculture promotes food from small, family-owned farms, while organic food focuses on biodiversity, ecological balance, and natural pest control along with sustainability.  Either way, consumers are hungry for natural, additive-free food, and they care where it came from.  And organic products produced on large industrial farms that meet the bare minimum for organic certification doesn't cut it with the folks who really care.  But small farms, especially urban community gardens and family-run sustainable businesses have had a hard time making a profit, despite the public's increasing awareness of their benefits.

While sustainable and alternative agriculture has been gaining momentum, profitability has often been an afterthought.  But at the upcoming Agriculture 2.0 Conference taking place in New York on September 17th, alternative agriculture entrepreneurs will be introduced to the investment community and business leaders.  The conference is hosted by NewSeed Advisors and SPIN-Farming LLC.

Conference organizer, Roxanne Christensen, president of the Institute for Innovations in Local Farming, and co-author of the SPIN-Farming online learning series, said that while urban farming and community gardens have major social benefits, “Most stall out because they cannot sustain themselves financially.” 

Christensen added, “We're going to present the ingredients for successful alternative farming, and and most cities have the first two: farmers, or native talent, especially from rural areas or outside the borders; and appropriately scaled markets.  We're going to take a closer look at more high-tech approaches to alternative agriculture, such as climate-controlled growing systems that close the loop on waste processing.” 

As people become more aware of the issues of sustainability, urban gardening is on the rise with communities throughout the world producing new types of city gardening techniques.  “Green roofing” projects have started up places like Montreal and Chicago, urban rainwater catch projects are underway in Melbourne, square foot gardening is helping gardeners with limited space increase their growth, and community gardens have sprung up in cities everywhere as proof that agriculture is not just limited to large, rural areas. 

The Northeast Organic Farming Association which just held its largest ever summer conference in August, reports that as more people understand the energy, nutrition, and farmland preservation issues, interest remains strong in smaller-scale organic farming and chemical-free production.

According to NewSeed Advisors, which invests in and advises sustainable companies, the Agriculture 2.0 conference will expose alternative agriculture's potential to the mainstream financial community.  NewSeed believes that alternative and sustainable agriculture (ASA) will reduce farming's environmental impact, is healthier for the consumer, provides better economics to small farmers, and uses fewer fossil fuels for transportation. 

The firm defines ASA as a specific niche within the larger agricultural industry, and goes further to explain sustainable farming as: economically viable, socially responsible; ecologically sound; integrates natural biological cycles and controls; protects and renews soil fertility and the natural resource base; reduces the use of nonrenewable resources and purchased production inputs; and produces products which are non-toxic to consumers.

AlternativeAgriculture.org defines the field of alternative agriculture includes everything from organic and biodynamic farming to calendar farming, lunar farming, and sustainable agriculture.  The main point of all of these newfangled yet also decidedly old-fashioned methods of planting, growing and harvesting is that they produce food in a way that doesn't harm the environment, without chemical pesticides, is humane, uses clean water, provides farmers with a fair wage, and supports local farming communities.  Agriculture 2.0 promises to be a fascinating comingling of old and new technologies along with farmers and financiers.

Other cool stuff on Celsias:

Farm on Wheels (+ Video)
Reaching Drought Stricken Communities in Madagascar

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