Team Lorax Video Project

This is the video segment of my team's final project that we did for our WPI Grand Challenges Seminar. Our project was on alternative agricultural techniques and the potential they have to meet growing food demands in an environmentally sustainable manner. We also focused heavily on the potential these techniques had to reduce global poverty. The video includes many segments from an interview and field visit we had at a home farm with Jono Neiger, an incredibly knowledgeable farmer in Massachusetts who practices sustainable farming. It also contains some clips from the Lorax cartoon to make it a little more entertaining :) Hope you like it!

Oh, and here's our project abstract if you'd like to learn a little more about what we did! ABSTRACT
Adequate food supply is one of the greatest problems that humanity will face in the 21st century. Earths population is expected to hit 9.5 billion by 2050. To support this population with our current practices of industrial agriculture, another billion hectares of land would have to be deforested and transformed into farmland. We do not have this land at our disposal anymore. Modern industrial agriculture is not sustainable. Its methods degrade ecosystems, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, consume 70 percent of the worlds fresh water, and diminish biodiversity. An alternative to modern agriculture, however, does exist: forest farms. They revitalize ecosystems, are independent of artificial inputs, are more productive and biologically diverse, and also reverse greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration. The fundamental principle behind a forest garden is simple: apply the concepts and ecology of a forest to the landscape of a farm. Forests are self-renewing, input-free, biologically diverse, highly productive, and environmentally sustainable. The focus of our project was to explore these benefits and determine whether forest gardens are feasible in terms of economics, productivity, and sustainability. We would like to examine the feasibility of forest gardens in developing countries and their potential contribution to the reduction of poverty and hunger. To understand the true potential of forest gardens, we approached them both as a research topic and as a current agricultural practice that is taking place as close to us as Leverett, MA. We made a field visit to a local forest farm which helped us grasp the complexity and benefits of a forest garden. From our research and field visits, we have determined that forest gardens can significantly mitigate climate change, as well as contribute to the reduction of poverty and hunger across the globe.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• sustainable
• farming
• WPI
• Grand
• Challenges
• Seminar
• Lorax
• agriculture
• alternative
• Jono
• forest
• garden