Want to Do Something About the Future of Humankind? Grow Your Own Food
Nature is failing. That has been the headline of a national geographic post on Facebook recently. This headline, in its shortness, is a perfect example of a mindset that prevents its readers from taking personal and realistic action into account. The first message is: ‘Something happens around us. We are victims.’ Nature is so gigantic, abstract, and thus out of reach of my own power that we quickly discover the second message: ‘I can’t do anything about it. It is just happening.’ And then there is a third message: ‘It is nature’s fault. Not mine. Not anybody’s.’ It removes my responsibility and therefore denies me the power to act.
All that is nonsense. What I am telling you is: You can act. You can change the world around you.
So, let’s step out of this little zone of powerlessness and take a look at reality. I wanna give an impression of how I perceive the current situation we humans are caught in. From there, I will propose a simple way to act. This way will improve your health, benefit your social connectedness, reduce waste and restore your power to act.
Capitalism devours the planet
The pressure to grow infinitely on limited resources has begun to show the results of an exploited environment already decades ago. Consumerism is the basis of this system. When I buy an item, I am directly or indirectly securing my own workplace and my salary. My salary ensures my physical survival on this planet. In a nutshell, this is the rat race that many of us are part of. So, since we have started to understand that our world and our living environment stand on the brink of devastation, why don’t we stop right there? Of course, is because we cannot leave the system without risking our physical survival. A sneaky side aspect of the rat race is that it has separated us from our ability to take care of our most basic needs. The famous story of the benefits of specialization, of the division of labor, has led us into a spot where we need the system for securing our very livelihood. Yuval Noah Harari has called this “the luxury trap “in his book Sapiens.
Maslov knows the answer
Charles Eisenstein, in his book ‘Sacred Economics’, has impressively described capitalism’s hunger to monetize everything on this planet. Water, Genes, Air (CO2) are just the last prominent objects on a long list of things that were successfully turned from commons into private property and, therefore, tradable units. He also proposes ways how to diminish the realm of capitalism. One approach is to extract parts of my everyday life and needs from the market, back under my own rule.
How do we escape the luxury trap, how can we follow Eisenstein’s advice? I wanna move deep down on Maslov’s hierarchy of needs and take a look at the first level of the pyramid, where we find the physiological needs. There, a way to act awaits. Become independent in fulfilling your physiological needs, and you become free, actually in the act of becoming independent, you are already leaving the system in parts.
Food is one of those needs. Yes, I am telling you to become a gardener, a farmer! Back to the old days!
Relax, I am no ‘back to the stone age’-evangelist. Actually, I am talking about part-time farming that can be integrated with other activities and life models. So, how would this work? Just do it.
Every beginning holds its own magic
There is absolutely nothing that you can do wrong. Except not to start. If you have no land available but a balcony, that’s enough. Get some pots, buy some garden soil, choose the two or three vegetable plants you love to eat most, and seed them. A bit of reading about each plant’s needs and location requirements will help but don’t exaggerate the theory. Practical experience is the most valuable thing in the context of gardening. The sooner you start acquiring it, the better. Key learnings are awaiting. The first time I planted some herbs inside my apartment, it was November. The sprouts took a glimpse above ground, didn’t like the lack of light, and withered away. So please understand that the coming and going of the seasons is relevant for more than just your next holiday destination.
In case that you actually have some land available, my advice is just the same. Proceed! In my latest forest garden, we are using light-proof, yet air-permeable plastic blanket on the future, yet overgrown patches. After six months, even the most tenacious weeds will have given up, the ground ready for something else to be planted. Knowing your soil, and understanding the light and water situation will help to decide about the fitting plants. But again, try out what works best. Welcome to the life-long learning process of farming and working with nature! Ups and downs included. One highlight definitely is harvesting and eating. You will find that self-grown vegetables carry so much more flavor that you will quickly reconsider your spicing habits. Just last week, my family and I again made that experience encountering the supermarket and my mom’s home-grown version of kohlrabi only three days apart. Such staleness from the counter!
A way to efficiently grow your own food
Now that you have begun your part-time farmer’s career, you might find that watering and weeding are a heck of a hardship. Especially when you wanna go without chemicals.
But there are ways to do productive small scale farming and food gardening, that come with a moderate workload, no chemicals or artificial fertilizers, and also a low to zero use of machinery. I am talking about urban gardening and permacultural concepts that are being propagated since the mid 20th century. Permaculture is a collection of ideas that are based on integrating human activities, be that food production or house construction, into the cycles of nature.
Looking at nature, we find that it works perfectly without any controlling or managing external force. There is no need to water plants in a forest or to fertilize any ground. There is no waste. So the idea of permaculture is to imitate nature and to integrate a project into natural cycles as much as possible, thereby creating a self-sustaining garden that requires few to zero watering, fertilizing, or weeding, and that is resistant to diseases or pests.
In the case of my own garden, the very first step to implement some permacultural thinking had been:
Cover up everything! I am using hay and straw, putting it on every bare patch of ground. This provides several benefits, one is highly reduced evaporation, another is the denial of light to the awaiting weeds. Which means way less hardship for my farmer’s back and knees. A third benefit is that the organical cover acts as a fertilizer, offering input to the natural rotting processes and therefore nourishing ground life.
The multitude of functions one element fulfills is at the core of all permacultural thinking.
A look at average yard sizes in the U.S. shows an average of 12,632 square feet (U.S. average) ranging widely from Vermont and Montana (about 74,000 sq. ft.) to Texas and California (about 7,000 sq. ft.). So there is quite some space available which is mostly used for lawns and decorative gardening. What would society look like were that all in use for private food production?
The birds that get killed
Growing your own food will kill two birds with one stone, actually more than just two. One is increased independence and freedom from the system that destroys our planet. Another is re-establishing our connection with nature. If we no longer buy the majority of our food in the supermarket, package waste is reduced. Not only our connectedness with nature will reemerge, but also our interactions with our fellow human beings will increase. I can tell you of the warm feeling of generosity that comes with giving away tomatoes for free to our friends and neighbors at times we are drowning in our harvest. Exchanging seedlings, gifting or trading excess yields, all of this becomes possible. You will gain access to food free from pesticides in organic quality. The health benefits of your new diet will become evident. Your relationship with food will change, with so many new plants and recipes to experiment with.
During my last permaculture seminar, we had been harvesting from the forest garden to have a mixed salad. In the end, it consisted of 15 different plants, of which I had known only two previously. Its taste was gorgeous, rich in flavor, surprising with every bite. I felt happiness, just from eating something so healthy and tasty. The most valuable result from this approach is that you again take responsibility to act, take responsibility for your circumstances. The depression from powerlessness will disappear. Doesn’t that sound compelling?
