Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
again and again, if we care for it. My vision for the future of soil management and
agriculture in my community would have many of the houses in the village with
plots of land similar to the former crofts, where a cow is kept for milk, cheese,
and butter; hens reared; and food grown. Land for vegetable production would be
shared. This is already happening throughout the United Kingdom in land share
schemes. The farms would become smaller, more labor intensive, with an empha-
sis on biological cycling in complex rotations. Farms would begin to resemble
gardens. More food crops would be grown like oats, potatoes, vegetables, and
fruit. Advanced technology and research would be geared to achieve all these
things. Permaculture might flourish (Whitefield 2009). Permaculture is a system
of permanent agriculture and permanent culture that goes beyond biodynamics
or biointensive farming. It relies on agroforestry and perennial food crops to
give self-sufficiency with minimal amounts of energy and recycles most wastes,
including human wastes. It has its roots in the highly efficient “permanent farm-
ing” practiced for many centuries in China, Korea, and Japan. Soils professor
King (1911) described how every square meter of land and liter of freshwater
were used and how everything from human waste to canal dredging was recycled
in the late nineteenth century. This was combined with an intense economy of
practices by the people in their efforts and lifestyle. Permaculture has an ethi-
cal component in that it embraces care of the Earth, care of the people, and fair
sharing.
Although this vision may never occur, we can make a start now by employing
the same deep ecological principles to start to transform our environment and our
everyday existence. Harvesting the fruit of the spirit allows us to start to identify
the priorities and to realize that everyone and everything interlinks. Above all, we
need to understand that the only way to tackle our basic crisis of overconsump-
tion is to consume less, to recycle more, and to avoid maintaining production by
use of substitutes. Applying deep ecology is much more than choosing lifestyle
options like the purchase of an electric car or going vegetarian. It demands that
we give up things and decrease our selfishness and extravagance. Going green or
being environmental is not an option; it is an imperative. Research has shown that
happiness and fulfillment increase as our possessions decrease and as we renew
our interdependence, partnership, and flexibility and accept diversity. We replace
domination with a return to our basic instincts of compassion and love. All are
the characteristics of cooperation, which maintained our ancestors for thousands
of years.
At the center of all this will be the wise, informed farmer who, through the fruits
of our research, investment, knowledge, and, above all, the spiritual, will start to
move from agribusiness to husbandry and conservation, with increased linkage to
consumers. Farming will need to become smaller scaled. Although ecological inten-
sification will be required, this will be much less dependent on oil by-products and
capital injections and more dependent on good soil. Political and financial trading
systems would favor smaller farmers, especially women in developing countries,
leading to better rural development and greater energy and food security. A major
priority is to use our oil reserves wisely, principally for producing chemicals and
plastics. We cannot recycle oil.
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