The production of low carbon, plant-based insulating blocks by agricultural workers from farm materials could help to support rural economies and tackle labour shortages, experts believe.
A major new study will test if the materials, for use in local construction, could lead to a “Harvest to House” system of building.
The University of Exeter-led study will show if small-scale farmers could diversify into making sustainable building materials for use on their own farms, or for construction in the local area. This could also benefit their own businesses, communities and the environment.
Arable farm workers in the region will be involved in the small-scale trial of a manufacturing process. Researchers will explore the human, environmental, and infrastructural barriers and opportunities for production through working with farmers and farm workers.
A short animated, visual ‘manual’ of the pilot manufacturing system, in an accessible and easy to digest format that can be readily shared and referred to by time-pressed farmers and workers, as well as people outside agriculture.
The project is part of the Ecological Citizen(s) Network+, led by The Royal College of Art, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York and Wrexham Glyndŵr University, as well as a range of partners from industry, charities, culture and civil society.
//Ed’s note: What they’re doing is designing a social-economic-environmental intervention that attempts to address a number of complex problems simultaneously. Its a business model innovation also to see if small farms can also make sustainable building materials in their offtime as an additional source of income.Note how in all my African and Asian stories, social enterprises usually include farmers in their business models but this is a first in the UK and Europe I’m guessing to think about these things in a holistic socially oriented community-centric manner.
modern Scheherazade reciting summaries of Internet drama to the king
“And that,” said Scherezade, “Is why the saga of Thanfiction is second in fame only to the story of the Snapewives on the astral plane in early 2000’s internet fandom drama.”
Freshly interested, the king rubbed his eyes, fighting the pull of sleep. “The what on the astral plane?”
Scherezade’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you never heard of the Snapewives? Much has been said of their marriage, most of it cruel, but the real story is far more interesting and complex than most remember.”
“You must tell me,” he demanded, and Scherezade knew that she had once again caught him on her hook. All that remained was to reel him in.
“My king,” she said, arching her back in a dramatic yawn, “I cannot; the hour is late, and I am far too tired to do it justice. I am sure I would forget important details, with my mind so clouded with sleep!”
The king chewed his lip, still fighting a battle he had lost many nights before. “Very well,” he said. “We will sleep, and you will tell me about it tomorrow when you are rested.”
Scherezade smiled a secret smile and closed her eyes, safe for another night, already planning how best to bait the king into asking about the story of hivliving.
After his first wife wrote a callout post about him, the king became wrathful and misogynistic; each night he would take a new wife only to cancel her in the morning. When all the unproblematic maidens of eligible birth had been cancelled, the vizier’s own only unproblematic daughter, Scherezade, stepped forward and agreed to marry the king herself.
She’s going to get a solid week of nested stories out of explaining the A/B/O court case.
For all our rivalry, almost every Australian will concede New Zealand got the upper hand the day their Prime Minister responded to news of New Zealanders migrating to Australia with the quip “good, it will raise the average IQ of both countries”
amhrancas 