USA

Since 1989, Sting has been involved in protecting the Amazon through the Rainforest Foundation and supports sustainable food initiatives , and now he's putting a camera where his mouth is. The performer is producing a film about vertical farming, starting with documenting the first one to be planted in the U.S.

Sting and his partner in the project, manager Kathryn Shenker, have purchased the film rights to “The Vertical Farm: Feeding Ourselves and the World in the 21st Century.”

The idea lays out a system of farming in which food is grown within tall city buildings as an efficient means of land use and a way to get fresh food to local residents.

Sting's film will document the first vertical farm to be constructed in a major U.S. city. This might be in Newark, New Jersey. The city fathers have discussed moving forward with the plan if the city donates a proposed site on a quiet block overlooking the Passaic River in Brick City.

(Source: www.treehugger.com)

Canada

This year's Ontario Heritage Conference was all about rural communities, with a strong environmental theme. John Ikerd, a retired professor of agricultural economics, laid out a vision of revitalized, relocalized rural communities that would solve energy and environmental problems through the production of "solar powered renewable energy and renewability machines" plants.

John said we are at a critical time in agriculture and also a time of great possibilities. He concluded with a vision of a repopulated rural America.

In the future we will have clusters of dense but small communities, where people will spend most of their lives. New American farms will be built on the insights from the past. The structures of the future may be new and energy efficient, but will be built on the ideas of the past. The preserved architecture is the most visible sign of the viability of a community.

(Source: www.treehugger.com)

UK

UK consumers go through millions of teabags every day to make their favourite drink yet the vast majority are not fully biodegradable , a consumer organization warns. Most teabags are only 80 per cent paper fibre. They also contain heat-resistant polypropylene.

A report published by Which? Gardening reveals that teabags produced by top tea manufacturers are only between 70 to 80 per cent biodegradable. As a result, gardeners are finding the net part of teabags left on their compost heaps.

Which? Gardening said the recyclability of teabags did not seem to be high on manufacturers' agendas, and have found only one brand of conventional teabag which is polypropylene-free.

Bags which are fully biodegradable include those that are stitched rather than sealed. Another green option is increasingly popular Japanese-style pyramids such as tea temples containing whole leaf (as opposed to ground) tea.

(Source: www.guardian.co.uk)

AUSTRALIA

Anyone who has grimaced as they bite down on sandy lettuce may find this one perplexing. But eating dirt is the latest thing in restaurants around the world. It seems some chefs are so keen on communing with the soil that they are putting it in their dishes deliberately.

Some chefs are creating imitation dirt from ingredients like dehydrated beets, or crushed dried-mushrooms. But others are using high tech devices like the Rotavapor—more commonly used in the perfume industry—to distill soil, the essence of which is used to create an earthy foam. The trend isn't just confined to chefs—installation artist Laura Parker asks gallery goers to sniff soil samples, and then taste vegetables that were grown in that soil.

(Source: www.treehugger.com)