Things are looking up for urban agriculture. Way up. Like the hanging gardens of Babylon, there's new/old thinking about producing food in the neighborhoods where people live.

     An op-ed piece in Sunday's New York Times by Dickson Despommier, heralds the day when city-dwellers will be buying their fresh fruits and vegetables from sources just down the block, rather than half a world away. Despommier, it should be noted, is writing a book about vertical farming, and has started a business to promote the concept.

     It's an appealing concept, in many ways. There'd be no hail damage on the 30th floor, for example. Less fuel to harvest, transport and process crops. Bugs? Fuhgedaboudit.

     Despommier likes the climate control, the year-'round growing season, and the fact that, according to his math, every vertically-farmed acre would replace 10 or 20 acres of traditionally farmed earth, which could be allowed to naturally return to forests. Which is something you know actually happens if you've ever travelled to Vermont and New Hampshire.

     The writer doesn't have anything to say about the challenges of growing sunflowers indoor in, say, Seattle, which has approximately two sunny days a year, which is why they drink so much coffee there, which would still have to imported, I guess, from some sunny, tropical outdoor location.

     Nor does he have anything to say about rural ambiance, like birdsong, cows mooing, wind in the rye, and the perfume of freshly cut alfalfa.

     And if you farm with horses? Fuhgedaboudit!

     It's an interesting piece, though, which you can read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24Despommier.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1251284710-O1yLVW2Sl3ZSElYNdyMpaQ

     They don't make 'em like they used to. Used to be if you had a model of your John Deere, your Case or your Allis Chalmers tractor, it looked like a tractor. It was made of metal, it had rubber tires and you could go "Brmm-brmm-brmm," 'til your lips felt funny. Models for kids nowadays are plastic, and lot of them make their own noises. "Toys from the Good Old Days" is a story in Section B of the current edition of Lancaster Farming. It was written by New York correspondent Deborah Jeanne Sergeant, and we understand she was making mouth noises as she wrote it.

     Do-se-do. With tractors. Here's something I should have seen earlier. It's from this year's Pennsylvania Farm Show. Next year I understand they'll be doing a salsa routine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmvhCpEKAjY