Sustainable Design Project: Civic Agriculture. Concepts and Laws

Sustainable Design Project: Civic Agriculture
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Sustainable Design Project: Civic Agriculture
Part 1: The Idea
This section explores civic agriculture as a sustainable design project. Civic agriculture is an existing design and it refers to locally-based agriculture and food production activities that are linked to the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the community (Poulsen, 2016). Civic agriculture is necessary because of several reasons. First, it embraces the concept of citizenship. According to Ulsperger and Ulsperger (2017), civic agriculture promotes cooperation especially in meeting the collective needs of the community while protecting their environment. Thus, instead of everyone working towards meeting their individual needs, like in conventional agriculture, people work together to meet their shared needs. Second, civic agriculture provides people in a community with a sense of identity. Ulsperger and Ulsperger (2017) reveal that locally producing, selling and consuming produces that are unique and specific to a region gives the people a sense of identity, thus fostering community relationships and togetherness. Third, civic agriculture is an economically viable design because it reduces the distance between production and consumption of food. According to Anderson and Burau (2015), in the U.S., produces from the farms travel for over 1600km to reach consumers. This implies that the consumers have to pay for the transport costs. Thus, reducing such costs by regionally producing food through civic agriculture enhances economic development within the community. Civic agriculture also allows the community to create local jobs, thus boosting the local economy. Finally, local communities can work together to preserve their environment because they can get fresher foods and cleaner water (Anderson & Burau, 2015). As such, civic agriculture promotes sustainability within a community.
Part 2: Concepts and Laws
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be destroyed or created; it can only be changed from one form to another. The second law states that any energy transferred or exchanged, reduces the potential energy that could be used to perform work (Khan Academy, n.d.). Civic agriculture allows plants to cycle the nutrients naturally. Plants transpire water which evaporates into the atmosphere. The water, now in the form of vapor, then condenses to form clouds, and then water comes back to the ground in the form of rain. The plants absorb the water from the ground and transpire, and the cycle continues. This process explains the first law of thermodynamics where water only changes its form into vapor and sometimes solid (ice), but it is not created.
Part 3: How Design Improves upon Existing Designs
Civic agriculture enhances sustainability by impacting the ecological, economic and social contexts of communities. Ecologically, civic agriculture is effective in circumventing the environmental degradation caused by the conventional agricultural system (Poulsen, 2016). In civic agriculture, farm products are produced and also consumed within the community. Further, the community works together to protect the environment by recycling waste materials and d...