Section Headings

Introduction
Permaculture
Organic Farming
Animal Husbandry
Slow Growing
Regenerative Agriculture
Resource List

 

Introduction

The argument in support of more and more direct human intervention in nature is that unless we do so there will not be enough food for the rising population on planet earth – when this writer was at school, the planet’s population was barely 2 billion, it is now 6 1/2 billion and projected to reach 9 1/2 billion by 2050. Many of today’s arguments in support of technological intervention in nature where advanced then, we saw the Green Revolution, which proved a false promise; we today have the cry for genetic modification, which raises the spectre of plant and animal genes being spliced together to create, for instance, a cucumber that will survive freezing, or wheat that will remain unaffected by blight because some magical alteration to its genes has madeit impervious to attack. Most of the claims around this technology have proved either false or exagerated, and cannot possibly be justified in the light of our poor understanding of the fabric of life.

The side effects of an agriculture that has become an industry heavily reliant on chemical intervention are well documented and hair raising in their implications.

If we removed the artificial direct and indirect controls imposed on farmers around the world and went back to the tried and tested methods, which do not provide profits to intermediaries, and we improved distribution methods, there would be little hunger in the world and we could with confidence await the day the 9 1/2 billionth child was born. This is not the place in which to list and discuss some of the changes that could be introduced very rapidly once the world’s peoples so decree; they will be discussed and documented at the Laboratory.

The remainder of ths Section will show a variety of initiatives that are taking agriculture back towards more natural roots, and will include the occasional film providing authoritative warning about where we are heading if we don’t change direction. We need to learn to upscale the wonderful initiatives here shown and revert to the traditional values of food growing that served us well before the profit motive made companies and individuals realize that the best markets to seek to control are those provide that without which humanbeings cannot sustain life – food and water.

Permaculture

Agriculture done right respects, and harmonizes with, planet Earth and its total environment. The following video with Bill Mollinson, one of the great masters of permaculture, explains -

 

Organic Farming & Slow Growing

The following video provides a feeling of what an organic farm achieves and how it differs from one run on the lines of an agri-business (from the series on Sheepdrove, probably the UK’s most successful organic farm created by Peter & Juliet Kindersley) -

 

Animal Husbandry

The following film provides thought-material on how we need to deal with humanity’s insatiable appetite from meat. The presenter is a Member of the Parliament of the Netherlands representing the world’s first political party dedicated to representing the interests of animals, which does not mean that she is not making some very valuable points – as 18% of greenhouse gases originate from animals – more than all transport emissions.

Resource List(/strong>

Prof Chris Rhodes
website : www.freshlands.com
Blog : http://scitizen.com/future-energies/regenerative-agriculture-the-transition-_a-14-2954.html