Leave it Better Than You Found It -- It Is Time Embrace Alternative Forms of Agriculture

The Grand Capitalist Experiment has only "worked" for one reason--it broke from the cyclicity of earth, and replaced it with a socio-economic system based upon greed. 

While greed has gotten us lots of things, like cars and clothes made out of synthetic materials, and medical advancements and other wonderful, albeit imperfect, things, it has caused a great rift between humans and the remaining 99% of sentient lifeforms.

Nature is not innately greedy. Nature, when left to its own devices, finds balance. Everything must "eat" and because of this caloric exchange, balance is eventually found when something starves or is eaten, or when there is a surplus of resources, there is a surplus of life.

Even a feral cat that eats too many wild birds will eventually have to migrate to a new area to find food, so the population of birds where it over-killed, will eventually recover. And while this balance isn't a Utopian one, it is a framework that we could learn from. That even when we exist in that precarious space of domestication, we can still work towards balance.

In places where man hasn't left an irrevocable footprint, ecosystems ebb and flow to synchronize with the natural environment. In years where there is less rain, less plants grow, which means mice reproduce less prolifically because their food source is sparse.  The lighter burden of less herbivores allows the plants to have more seeds that drop and go uneaten, in the hopes that the next year has a little more rain, and maybe a few more seeds will sprout.

This is in direct contrast to industrial mono-culture farming. This type of farming does not follow any sort of pattern, other than a very manmade one, that is meant to be the same each year, ad infinitum. This season was a very dry one for most grain crop growers, and because of that there was significant loss of crops. In the current industrial farming paradigm, there is no room for "error" or rather, Mother Nature, to change her patterns.

As our viewpoints and hearts evolve, we must begin to explore alternative forms of agriculture that are more attuned to natural (and often erratic) cyclicity. There are nearly infinite options as to how we can begin to make the shift towards foods systems that support the local region's people, while also reestablishing a coherent relationship with the land.

Small farm agriculture is the main route by which this will happen. People must begin to grow food for themsevles, or build Community Supported Agriculture Co-Ops. These farms are generally "small" and have less than 20 acres of land in active rotation. These farms tend to focus on less grain crops (which are generally grown to provide calories to enormous animal feedlots) and instead grow vegetables, fruits, greens, herbs.

Within this smaller farm paradigm, growers can explore different methods of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, such as:

Permaculture -- Choosing perennials and trees that continuously grow, versus annuals that must be planted each year. This system aims to create a relatively self-sufficient ecosystem that needs much less active management compared to traditional home gardening/landscaping.

Biodynamic -- A idea developed by Rudolph Steiner, this system of gardening is synced with the seasons, moon cycles, and uses many different types of "soil-amendments" that can be made right at home that are meant to replace synthetic fertilizers.

Regenerative -- While this is more so an overarching type of agriculture that focuses on holistic practices, it's primary focus is to "leave it better than you found it." Most conventional/modern agricultural practices do the opposite, where vital nutrients are not actively replaced in the soil, which eventually leads to barren landscapes (a prime example of this is abandoned orange orchards in Florida, where the soil is categorically dead). 

Over the next months, I will explore these different concepts and alternatives to industrial agriculture, and provide insight onto how these systems can be integrated and established in local communities. Regenerative agriculture is my core passions in life, and as I continue on my own life's journey, I want to be able to share the information I've accumulated with the world at large. 

I've lived by the mantra "Leave it better than you found it," based on the principle that we are here not to see how much we can take, but to give as much as we can in a balanced way. As a child the book, The Giving Tree, left a haunting footprint on my heart. And while my viewpoints on the world are not quite that extreme, it is vitally important to find that thing that makes your heart catch fire, and when you find others with an ember of that same passion, help them to kindle that fire too.