I love that communal harvest came up again. Techniques like rotational swidden agriculture in the tropics are cool but the concept of food and work being a shared, connecting experience is so much deeper.
I loved the anecdote of the "field day" at the one farm mentioned; teaching by interactively showing examples is a genius pedagogy. I would have loved to see large pictures demonstrating what the farm and crops looked like in each season!
Cover crops are the topic of my project proposal in senior seminar, so that stood out to me. I was interested that peanuts were grown after a cover crop had been planted because peanuts are a legume and can be used as a cover crop themselves!
This also stood out to me: the soil in Central Valley, California is basically just hydroponics- if enough nutrients and water are applied, stuff can grow. The land is missing soil, the living, dynamic medium from which plants grow.
I've never heard of a soil physicist before, and while I've heard of ethnobotany, I haven't actually seen an example of a scientist in this niche.
The chapters in this book highlight people who have a holistic, dynamic view of life, not the individualized, manipulated view of conventional agriculture, colonialism, etc. The concept of composting human waste as fertilizers for plants that will then feed the humans, etc is symbolic of this holistic, cyclic perspective. I shared the system of fish in rice fields with my best friend because I was so excited to learn about it (he wasn't nearly as excited as I was). Fish inhabit the rice fields and eat weeds and insects and even release a chemical that prevents some diseases; personally, I think this is way cooler than the classic bees and flowers symbiotic relationship example. Also, the paddling of ducks in rice fields stimulates the rice to be stronger; just one more example of why nature-mimicking, holistic take on agriculture is superior! I've never heard of Howard's Law of Return, but I sort of laughed that some English dude wrote a rule that the entire Earth has been living out for gazillions of years. (Sir Albert Howard is considered the father of modern organic agriculture, so I'm not trying to be disrespectful to him!)
I've personally been working through how much humans should be manipulating nature for agriculture. I would love to just forage food, fish, and hunt or just let my yard follow natural succession and not mow. I am not as much a fan of monoculture, GMOs, or synthetic fertilizers (I'm not saying these are bad, I just love the goal of being as natural as possible). These chapters have given examples of a compromise between the two extremes. Hedge rows are pockets of "nature" but next to agricultural fields. Drip tape was also mentioned, which is a system of irrigation made of a network of small flexible plastic hoses/pipes that sit on the ground next to plants and slowly drip water out. I'm still thinking through all this, but I appreciated these examples of holistic agriculture that still involved rows of crops and human-made synthetic irrigation.
To wrap up, I noted this definition of climate change: a "profound imbalance".
1 comment:
I also liked the idea of the field days. I think these should be more common because it lets farmers learn new things and can help to build communities where they can support one another.
I think that the best way to at least begin making change is to make these "compromises" between modern agriculture and nature more known and available. Mixing modern technologies with older knowledge and natural systems lets people work with nature while also increasing efficiency and (at least trying) to decreased some of the workload.
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