There is a revolutionary (and yet wholly elementary) occurrence taking place in our country this summer. In June, through the efforts of Yale fellow and artist Mary Mattingly, New Yorkers will be able to forage for free food on a literal moving edible forest traversing the waterways of the city.
The project and the vessel is named Swale which is derived from an Old English term for a low marsh.
This floating and free buffet will feature 80 varieties of plants, producing foods including apples, figs, pears, scallions, rosemary, radicchio, arugula, bok choy, oregano and Chinese mountain yams.
The buoyant 80-foot by 30-foot structure — designed by Biome Arts and students from Stuyvesant High School, Dwight-Englewood School and Fairfield University — will be made of recycled shipping containers from The Port of New York and New Jersey, Tech Insider reports.
I can, as a Progressive idealist, whole-heartedly get behind this concept and wish it to become global and commonplace. That is not coming from a place of sentimental altruism. It stems from a logical root.
Imagine healthy and free food being readily available to communities everywhere.
What would that affect? Let’s begin with:
Healthcare costs- general nutrition-which would for example, raise children’s performance in school-which would in turn produce greater numbers of educated people- which would then supply the population with the next and future innovators- and so on, and so on.
This type of thing appears to be well within the perimeters of possible.
But- will we see this come to fruition?
Is there any reason to believe that this would be undesirable?
The realists among us may expect some push back from the usual suspects…
There is enormous profit in need.
We can hope.
The elimination of want is the elimination of oppression.
