Heer Virwani
The global field is an agricultural idea that allocates 2000 m2 of fertile land for every individual on Earth. It is theorized that this amount of land is enough to plant vegetation that can sustain each person for every year of their life. It is hypothesized that this amount of space is all that they need. One of the major occupations in Durango, Mexico, is farming. Farming crops such as maíz, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, and wheat are the most common. Huge areas of land are designated for one or two of these crops, taking up a lot of land. Farming is a way many people earn a living, so it’s understandable that they want large pieces of land to grow their crops. In fact, Durango is one of the major providers of agricultural crops to the United States. Unfortunately, this leaves little space for the others of Durango to pursue agriculture, and leaves the small amount of fertile land we have, even smaller.
Implementing a system of global fields, and reducing the size of commercial farms, is a way to help Durango’s mission to sustainability. It would be challenging to make this transition, as it would have temporary economic impacts upon the city, but in the long run, it would make the people of Durango self-sustainable. If we are able to shift commercial farming to plantations that are more so controlled by farmers, rather than the elements, we would make this shift. This could mean implementing hydroponics and vertical farming, as the climate of Durango is very hot and dry, it limits options of farming on Earth. As Durango is mostly made up of desert, desert hydroponic farms are a great way to shift away from the established commercial farms. It is proven that foods grown this way in the desert are tastier, due to the unique minerals the environment provides.
This is known as the Sundrop system, created by Sundrop Farms. Their system stems from the South Australian desert, in which they are able to grow 18,000 tons of tomatoes every year. Hydroponically, they are able to create systems that require no soil to grow vegetation. They also use sustainably sourced carbon dioxide and nutrients to enhance growth. Using 23,000 mirrors that focus the rays of the sun to a fixed tower, they are unable to cut costs on solar panels to grow their plants vertically.
This method is of great inspiration to Vision Durango, in wanting to shift Durango to a more sustainable future. Creating a global field system would also reduce imports of crops needed to sustain human life. Reducing imports would help the carbon footprint of Durango reduce astronomically. If we are able to transition from large, commercially used, monocrop farms, to perfectly sized, individual/family-sized, multicrop farms, we could change a lot of the existing structures in the agricultural sector that affect the sustainability and efficiency of Durango. Moving commercial farms to vertical, desert based farms that utilize hydroponics to efficiently promote plant growth would not only free up space for global fields for the citizens of Victoria de Durango, but also change the unsustainable farming methods in place, and overall change the way Durango approaches agriculture.
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