Food Waste
An article in today’s paper is titled “Help the Climate—Waste Less Food. They note that in 2019 a third of the U S food supply, 80 million tons of it, went unsold or uneaten. The climate repercussions include the cost of growing, fertilizer usage, transport, and disposal. One solution might use tech; software that predicts what retailers will sell. They claim that combing through data they can predict with high accuracy what will sell on a particular day in a particular location. We can always trust tech, right?
This subject sounded familiar and indeed, I wrote a KTK on it in 2018 called Waste Not, Want Not which covered the subject pretty well. At that time we on the HOA board were trying to implement improvements and presently we have compost bins throughout the complex and they are being used.
Re-reading that story I recalled that as I wrote it (July) we were seeing smoke from several fires. The west is in a drought and our county and the whole Bay Area is expecting water restrictions this summer. Our complex has a well but the city has threatened that we may not be allowed to use it. Thus no irrigation, and brown grass.
There are now discussions about cannabis growing in the area, which is legal, and whether vineyards and pot fields can co-exist, and the proper proportions of each. Statewide, pot was a $4.4 billion crop last year. Wine yielded $43.6 Billion. Letters to the editor are mostly adamant in restricting outdoor pot growing, claiming that pot requires 6 times as much water as vineyards. And that the smell is horrible and ruins outdoor living wherever it is grown. I suspect the water issue will come more to the foreground this summer.
I’m not growing pot, but peas in a pot. The tendrils reach around and grab supports and it’s a temptation to “direct” a tendril to what I perceive as the proper support. This sometimes works but usually they go their own way.
The usual earworm is a bit of a song that sticks with one till it can be replaced with another. My latest one, however, is a whole symphony, which has been playing in my head for a week. It’s very lovely.