Martian Agricultural Organization - "Farm Village" is a Good Model for Mars

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-01 17:11:26

Martian settlements will have to produce enough food to sustain their members. The "Farm Village Concept" that is being developed by Champlain Valley Cohousing may be a good model for organizing the agricultural production systems of Martian settlements.

Scott

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The Farm Village Concept

What makes Champlain Valley Cohousing a "Farm Village" rather than a regular cohousing village? Well, it works like this. Usually, when a parcel of land comes up for development in Vermont, the issue that burns in many people's minds is, "Do we allow housing on this land, or do we preserve it as farmland?" The answer in our case is--both!

How will we do this?

This idea is the brain-child of numerous residents of our area: farmers, gardeners, residents of the rural farmland around Burlington, and other interested people. Here are the basic components:

We will develop the minimum number of homes that we can afford to, in order to reduce the impact of housing on our beautiful farmland.

We are building on a small portion of the land--less than 10% so the rest can remain open farmland.

We are founding a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business. This is a farm that we subscribe to, paying a yearly fee. In return, the farmer grows our organic vegetables and fruits (except, of course, for those we wish to grow ourselves).

Home ownership in our community comes with an obligatory CSA share at a reasonable subscription fee (administered much as a condo fee would be). This is to provide the farmer with a secure base income. Part of this fee may be bartered in exchange for produce you may wish to contribute to the CSA.

We will supply some of the infrastructure the farmer needs to run his or her business: irrigation pond, small barn, fenced paddock for livestock, small greenhouse.

The farmer uses land from us and/or land leased from other landowners in our area to produce additional organic food for sale to CSA subscribers or markets in the surrounding community.

The community has set aside one "farmer unit" for the use of the farmer. Although the farmer must pay for the unit, we are doing our best to find outside subsidies to make this housing more affordable and thus to reduce the burden on the farmer.

The benefits to a farmer are obvious: stable base income, land without high acquisition fees, reasonable housing, a ready market, a ready labor pool (such as our teenage sons and daughters as hands on the farm, or anyone as participants in canning parties), and community support in hundreds of small ways.

The benefits to our community are obvious, as well: organic use of our land, a job market for us and our children, opportunities and outlets for other home businesses (homespun wool, canned goods, and goat's milk, for example), the many benefits of a working farm atmosphere, and the opportunity to do something really good for our community are just a few. In addition, by using this approach we think we have found a way to link our houses and our whole way of life with the land we live on. Such a link is harder and harder to find in today's world.

Phobos · 2002-11-01 20:58:46

Whenever I think of professions that will be most needed and perhaps most common on Mars, farming is the first thing that comes to mind. Personally, I wouldn't mind being a Martian farmer. Go out and harvest/nurture crops by day and write essays and shortstories for the Martian Chronicles by night/spare time. If we have a settlement on Mars there has to be a publication called "The Martian Chronicles." It just wouldn't be Mars without it. Whether it's paper or electronic I'll leave to others.

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-01 21:24:12

Personally, I wouldn't mind being a Martian farmer. Go out and harvest/nurture crops by day and write essays and shortstories for the Martian Chronicles by night/spare time.

Phobos:

If most crop land on Mars is underground and artificially illuminated then day-time harvesting will probably be the norm. However, if most crops are in sun-lighted greenhouses then, for radiation safety reasons, harvesting will probably be done at night.

Scott

Palomar · 2002-11-02 09:18:51

Whenever I think of professions that will be most needed and perhaps most common on Mars, farming is the first thing that comes to mind. Personally, I wouldn't mind being a Martian farmer. Go out and harvest/nurture crops by day and write essays and shortstories for the Martian Chronicles by night/spare time. If we have a settlement on Mars there has to be a publication called "The Martian Chronicles." It just wouldn't be Mars without it. Whether it's paper or electronic I'll leave to others.

*I had a dream last night about Mars; the first dream about it I can recall. I was doing something in the dream similar to farming. I was surprised to see a blue sky and "real" clouds. My companions and I had a large "safety box" nearby, which was apparently a shelter of some sort [in case of danger]. I also dreamed that large expanses of pine forests had been discovered on Phobos and Deimos.

I didn't read your post, Phobos, until this morning. I guess you're not the only person who has Marsian farming potential...

--Cindy

turbo · 2002-11-02 19:04:35

I have trouble growing mold, can I change the lightbulbs and still go?
"Green Acres is the place to be..."
I know, sit in the rover like a good boy and don't touch anything.

Phobos · 2002-11-02 20:56:01

*I had a dream last night about Mars; the first dream about it I can recall. I was doing something in the dream similar to farming. I was surprised to see a blue sky and "real" clouds. My companions and I had a large "safety box" nearby, which was apparently a shelter of some sort [in case of danger]. I also dreamed that large expanses of pine forests had been discovered on Phobos and Deimos.
I didn't read your post, Phobos, until this morning. I guess you're not the only person who has Marsian farming potential...

*twilight zone music* Seems you were dreaming of a terraformed Mars and terraformed moons to. I think if Mars is ever terraformed the first kind of advanced plant life we'll see out in the open will be coniferous forests. I've also long believed that a good way to do agriculture on Mars might be to build giant parks that not only provide food but also provide something of a natural retreat. Of course something like that would use gobs of energy and wouldn't be the most efficient way to produce food but it'd be good for the soul.

I have trouble growing mold, can I change the lightbulbs and still go?
"Green Acres is the place to be..."
I know, sit in the rover like a good boy and don't touch anything.

Unfortunately the application states that the ability to grow mold is a prerequisite for going to Mars. However, if your willing to chauffer me around in a rover and get get paid in pineapples I'm sure we could arrange something.

turbo · 2002-11-03 11:05:53

Tell ya what Phobos, I'll drive the rover, empty the composting toilets, AND change lightbulbs. Just how many pineapples are we talking about?

A.J.Armitage · 2002-11-08 00:56:34

I notice nobody's talking about the actual "proposal", just Martian farming in general, and for good reason. You're all too polite to say the obvious. Fortunately, I'm not.

Scott, you're an imbecile.

How the heck is this supposed to be applied on Mars? Everybody lives in a single settlement and they pay somebody to farm? Hey, Scotty-boy: you've left the absurd for the blindingly obvious. Do you suppose putting oxygen in the base atmosphere is a good idea too?

Yes, Scott, believe it or not, the world is not in need of instruction from groups of dirty hippies.

Josh Cryer · 2002-11-08 01:16:00

Well, you failed to say the obvious, and I'm quite perplexed as to what in the hell you mean. So feel free to elaborate. (You must admit your own post was quite incoherent. Focusing on insults rather than constructive criticism.)

A.J.Armitage · 2002-11-08 01:42:14

I did say it, but I suppose since I put it as a question you might have missed it. The only possible way of carrying over his model to Mars is to have everybody living in a relatively small space (as if they had a choice in the matter), and then pay somebody, or a few somebodies, to farm the domed fields around the settlement. Pretty obvious. But in Scott's world, the settlers can't be trusted to figure it out for themselves. No, they need the example of a bunch of flakes in Vermont.

Josh Cryer · 2002-11-08 01:50:49

I don't see why people need to live in small places under this system... and I don't think this necessarily defines how economy ought to work in a higher level society anyway (one which I assume we'd have on Mars). By paying for the land, the community could merely give the farmer food. On Mars, one would think that being given unfettered access (as a farmer) to a huge dome capable of growing a variety of foods would actually be more of a blessing than anything.

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-08 16:08:50

Yes, Scott, believe it or not, the world is not in need of instruction from groups of dirty hippies.

Mr. Armitage:

In previous messages, I have referred readers to the Ecovillage at Ithaca, the Ecovillage of Loudoun County, and the Champlain Valley Cohousing "farm village." The Ecovillage of Ithaca is in full operation. The Ecovillage of Loudoun County is under development. And Champlain Valley Cohousing is in the planning stages.

Please review the websites that these three groups of people have posted. You will see for yourself that they are not "dirty hippies" and "flakes."

Ecovillage at Ithaca
Ecovillage of Loudoun County
Champlain Valley Cohousing

Scott G. Beach

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-08 20:20:24

I don't see why people need to live in small places under this system...

Josh:

I expect that the first two Martian settlements will each be composed of about 30 families. These "small" communities should probably be located within one hour's overland traveling distance so that there is a place to escape to if one settlement suffers a serious fire or other catastrophe.

When I look for terrestrial models for Martian settlements, I look at small, relatively self-sufficient agricultural communities. The Hutterite colonies are excellent examples of small, relatively self-sufficient agricultural communities. However, the Hutterites are extremely religious and therefore not a good model for a Martian colonization program that will probably include people from dozens of different countries. I have therefore focused on small secular communities such as the cohousing ecovillages. The planned cohousing development named Champlain Valley Cohousing is a very interesting example because it will, as a "farm village," be able to produce a significant portion of its own food.

After a dozen or so small communities have been established on Mars, larger societies can begin to develop. These larger societies may have government institutions that are similar to the governments of large societies on Earth. I do not plan to propose that large Martian societies have any particular institutions. I do not care if they style themselves as "democratic republics" or "peoples' republics" or "socialist republics" or "constitutional monarchies" or whatever. I will have been dead for a long time before large societies develop on Mars.

Scott

A.J.Armitage · 2002-11-08 21:34:35

Scotty-boy;

I took a look at the sites.

Yep, they're flakes. Your fascination with them is a milder version of the older intellectual fascination with the Soviet Union, or for that matter Plato's "timocracy", second best after the impossible rule of philosopher kings and bearing no small resemblence to Sparta. Yours isn't quite as bad, but the smell of totalitarianism still lingers in your clothes.

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-08 22:49:38

Mr. Armitage:

I do not believe that you actually reviewed the organization sites that I referred you to. If you had, you would have found that the governance systems of those organizations are based on consent. There is nothing "totalitarian" about them. By referring to the people of those communities as "flakes," you are simply trying to denigrate people whose values you disagree with.

Scott G. Beach

Josh Cryer · 2002-11-09 00:38:41

I would love to hear A.J.Armitage's own ideas for a colony on Mars.

Scott, you've won me over with this topic. The ideas you propose seem to coincide with mine in many ways, except that I think that labor specalization is too exaggerated in current societies. Then again, the very post you mention talks about communities getting involved, so I don't think labor specalization is really implied here at all. Just the bit about farmers getting exclusivity is not appealing to me, but I'm sure the overall community would still ?own? the dome in which food is grown and so on.

And don't worry about A.J. too much, they seem to hate anything that even remotely smells of civility. Of course, I don't think A.J. even realizes that your system could easily work under any social system that exists, as you astutely point out. Yes, A.J., a Libertarian Capitalist Monopoly Corporation Slave Camp could just as easily function this way.

Good post, Scott.

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-09 15:56:51

I would love to hear A.J.Armitage's own ideas for a colony on Mars.

Josh:

Mr. Armitage and a few of the other people who regularly post messages in these forums are accustomed to thinking about interpersonal dynamics as they prevail in large societies. They use political terms and ideological tools to describe and analyze Martian settlement proposals. While those terms and tools have their uses, they are not helpful when evaluating proposals to establish very small human communities.

In an isolated community of 30 families (120 to 150 people) there are very few secrets and people exercise face-to-face social control over each other constantly. To a person who is accustomed to living anonymously in a society composed of millions of people, that sort of constant in-your-face social control can feel extremely oppressive; it can feel "totalitarian" even if there are no guns, no police, and no supreme leader.

Mr. Armitage and other people who are accustomed to the interpersonal dynamics that prevail in large societies could make more reasoned evaluations of Martian settlement proposals if they looked at those proposals from an engineering perspective. They could ask, "Will a sociocultural system that is based on this design be able to maintain and replicate itself in this ecological context?" rather than asking, "Would I feel comfortable living in that system?" If they adopted an engineering perspective then their fear of small community interpersonal dynamics ("totalitarianism") would dissipate.

Scott

A.J.Armitage · 2002-11-10 02:53:43

Scotty-boy:

I wasn't talking about them being totalitarian, I was talking about YOU being totalitarian. Your posts here consist of endlessly planning out how everyone is going to do everything. Fortunately you're a little wanker on the internet, not a "sociocultural engineer" that people will listen to when you tell them where to copulate.

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-10 14:08:56

Scotty-boy:
I wasn't talking about them being totalitarian, I was talking about YOU being totalitarian. Your posts here consist of endlessly planning out how everyone is going to do everything. Fortunately you're a little wanker on the internet, not a "sociocultural engineer" that people will listen to when you tell them where to copulate.

Mr. Armitage:

NASA published a photograph of a shuttle pilot and the manuals that people have to study in order to become shuttle pilots. The manuals were stacked up as tall as the pilot.

The first Martian explorers and settlers will have to be as extensively trained as shuttle pilots. A necessary step in writing those manuals will be the construction of full-scale models of spacecraft, bases, and settlements. The way that the first Martians will live on Mars will be thoroughly rehearsed and documented and it is just plain silly for you to equate that sort of planning with totalitarianism.

Your assertion that I am a totalitarian is inane and cowardly.

Scott G. Beach

A.J.Armitage · 2002-11-10 15:42:04

Scotty-boy:

You're such an idiot.

They plan the technical details, therefore we need a wanker coming up with plans for rituals and charts of "positive verbal contacts" based on Communidad de los Fruitcakes and other flake colonies. Looks like an airtight argument to me!

In fact, the truth is that utility will demand that they not be planned out ahead. Sure, they'll have somebody specified to be in charge, but all this crap you been plotting out about rituals and sundials will be a waste of time. Your plans typically have little or no connection to the necessities of Mars; you simply enjoy imagining yourself creating a society in your own warped image.

Palomar · 2002-11-10 17:00:16

Scotty-boy:
You're such an idiot.
They plan the technical details, therefore we need a wanker coming up with plans for rituals and charts of "positive verbal contacts" based on Communidad de los Fruitcakes and other flake colonies. Looks like an airtight argument to me!
In fact, the truth is that utility will demand that they not be planned out ahead. Sure, they'll have somebody specified to be in charge, but all this crap you been plotting out about rituals and sundials will be a waste of time. Your plans typically have little or no connection to the necessities of Mars; you simply enjoy imagining yourself creating a society in your own warped image.

*I could be wrong, of course, but I'd lay my bets that Marsians will have to be really ::practical:: people -- at least in the early days of exploration, settlement, etc.

I'd be more concerned about adequate amounts of breathable air, the quality of drinking water, how the plants are growing in the greenhouses, etc., than about sundials and goofy rituals if I were on Mars. Of course, it could just be me...

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2002-11-10 17:56:17

Heh, funny how when I focused on survival necessities, I was being utilitarian. You can't win with A.J. here!

Scott G. Beach · 2002-11-10 23:17:32

Just the bit about farmers getting exclusivity is not appealing to me, but I'm sure the overall community would still ?own? the dome in which food is grown and so on.

Josh:

The Champlain Valley Cohousing development's plan to have just one farmer reflects the fact that they are not trying to produce all of the food that they consume. On Mars, the first settlement's agricultural production facilities would probably be leased to several families. And aquaculture and ranch facilities would probably also be provided by the community and leased to residents. After those farm and ranch families accumulate capital over the course of several generations, they could begin to purchase the facilities and build additional facilities with private capital. I therefore expect a gradual shift from community-owned/privately managed food production systems to privately owned systems, but that will ultimately be a matter for each Martian community to decide for itself. If Hutterites build settlements on Mars, they will probably not make a gradual shift to private property because they believe that private property is forbidden by The Holy Bible.

Scott

soph · 2002-12-03 18:18:54

i dont think this will work. i think there will be a community farm, with one or two people working there. since the farming can be done with a bunch of huge domes, i can see rows of domes with say, 20 people working to maintain them (maybe 5 acres worth of crops), but them being employed by the government. the only place i see for real wide-scale socialism is in the first stages of mars...when there arent the people to support a free market. once there are around 500 to 1000 people, i would place the land under private control (with regulation), and allow supermarkets, etc.

but i dont really envision a farming community, so to speak. farming will be important, but there will be many things just as important, like science, building, etc.

forgive me if i missed the point, but i was just posting based on what ive gathered so far in this topic.

soph · 2002-12-10 14:19:54

i think that by the time farms are in place that can provide a significant portion of the martian people's diet, there will be enough people there to privatize the industry, and place it in the hands of a group of experienced farmers. i really dont think a community revolving around farmland is a good idea.

there is a difference between our future colonists and the pilgrims: our people will go with their food, and any farms will be an added bonus. the pilgrims expected to launch a permanent settlement off the land, only bringing themselves.

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