Building-Integrated Sustainable Agriculture

This past weekend, I attended and spoke [pdf] at the first Building-Integrated Sustainable Agriculture (B-ISA) summit, hosted by Sky Vegetables. There was an impressive group of experts [pdf] speaking on greenhouses, urban agriculture, aquaponics, hydroponics, composting, etc. As the only (?) economist, I was able to offer an alternative vision of how markets, externalities, regulations and political economy might matter [NYT blog on the summit].

Full Disclosure: I am an unpaid adviser to the company, which was not true when I blogged in favor of the idea three months ago.

The B-ISA summit had several goals that I could see:

1. Get support (financial, technical and social) for Sky Vegetables.
2. Try to establish a "B-ISA" standard for sustainable ag that can be bolted onto the LEED certification.
3. Networking among interested people.

It seems that the summit did many of those things, but the second goal troubled me. Many people appeared to want B-ISA standards based on prescriptive criteria (e.g., filter technology) when outcome criteria (e.g., waste water quality) seemed more appropriate.

Bottom Line: It takes time to build a business organically, but that's better than a business that relies on some regulatory or bureaucratic standard.