"Witchy"

What would you like your kids to learn in school? Probably the answer would be how to read, how to do math, maybe some life skills, history . . but not witchcraft, right?

Parents in the Orlando area were surprised to learn that a video series on "witchcraft rituals" was broadcast to students in the morning announcements. 

"The series, called “Witchy Wednesday,” featured weekly segments with instructions on spells, moon worship, and other occult practices."

Last month Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the Orange County Public Schools demanding that students be able to opt-out of this instruction, and that Christian students be allowed to teach their faith to the school -- since witchcraft instructions were allowed.

Fortunately, that was the end of "Witchy Wednesday." 

from Florida's Voice

US ag innovation 2

(cont'd from yesterday's 2021 re-post)

Vertical farm 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) can yield crops at 100x the per-square-foot productivity of a flatland farm by scaling vertically. They use much less water, no pesticides, and weather has no effect.

But light is available to traditional farmland for free in the form of sunlight. Not so for vertical trays or towers of lettuce indoors. Light, in fact, is expensive. Recent advances in LED lighting (a doubling of its efficiency coupled with a big drop in its cost) have cut the operational expenses of these farms to the point where they can now provide about 5% of all our produce.

In a mostly-free market like ours, individual customers choose which businesses will survive. They pick the product which serves their needs best and which is offered at a price they are willing to pay. That's the sweet spot these farmer-entrepreneurs want to find.

US ag innovation

America, like The Netherlands and a number of other countries, has been using alternative farming methods for years now.

Check out this post on "vertical farming" from four years ago:

Vertical farm 1

Over 330 million people in the United States are fed by our efficient, productive agricultural system. But the system has been changing as entrepreneurs figure out how to make it better. 

"Vertical farming" breaks traditional farming methods by going vertical (up) instead of horizontal (across the flat ground). These "farms" are located in city buildings where compact plants grow in high stacks of trays or in vertical towers.  

City stores and customers have access to produce that's much fresher than regular produce often coming from hundreds or thousands of miles away. A supply chain that long drains 45% of the produce's nutritional value.

photo

Water usage is an issue: global agriculture uses 70% of the world's fresh water. But vertical farms need much less, up to 95% less water than farms growing produce in the ground. That's a significant difference.

But vertical farming doesn't solve every problem. Trade-offs must be figured in if they are to survive.

(cont'd tomorrow)

from Inc.