Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.
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Saturday, March 28, 2015
Doing it different
This was one of the first alt-farming videos I saw demonstrating that there is a movement to change things substantially.
One of the big issues, as this person says, is knocking the global addiction to fossil fuels. Right now the world's food supply is totally dependent upon oil. But whether you believe in Peak Oil or not, this is an enormous problem.
And something that is probably too politically incorrect for the BBC to mention, kicking the world's fossil fuel habit would also render the threat of Islam null. Right now, the only reason the Mad Mullahs have become a resurgent threat is the oil money buying the bullets and bombs.
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Oh, yes. The unintended consequences of giving over everything to the Machine to feed and take care of us. I'm reminded of a letter from JRR Tolkien:
ReplyDelete"There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualise desire, and so to create power in this World; and that cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour. And in addition to this fundamental disability of a creature, is added the Fall, which makes our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil. So we come inevitably from Daedalus and Icarus to the Great Bomber. It is not an advance in wisdom! This terrible truth, glimpsed long ago by Sam Butler, sticks out so plainly and is so horrifyingly exhibited in our time, with its even worse menace for the future, that it seems almost a world wide mental disease that only a tiny minority perceive it."
(The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, no.75.)
It destroys beauty too. Industrial farming in East Anglia has stripped away so much of the features that made the tended landscape a sort of subcreation, a beautiful and harmonious combination of both Creator and creature. Fortunately in other parts of England the hedgerows and stone walls and little brooks and patchwork plots still remain, making the agricultural land look like one vast garden.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful to see that since she filmed that documentary six years ago, Rebecca Hosking has put those regenerative farming principles she learned into practice on her farm in South Devon. I've been planning to visit Devon this year and would love to see what she's doing with the place. http://www.thevillagefarm.co.uk/
ReplyDeleteI grew up on a farm in Minnesota and have heard from my dad how farming has changed in his lifetime. He will be 60 years old in May. Fewer farmers are raising livestock, much has gone to a small number of big operators. Less hay is grown, less silage is cut (silage is the corn cut with the stock and the entire plant is then fed to cattle.) Corn and Soybean fields are sprayed with herbicide and are rarely cultivated because of the stronger chemicals. Farmers are taking care of more land because of larger machinery and often are renting fields from others who used to farm their own land.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get a little smallholding or homestead or whatever, one of the very first things I'mna do is buy me a donkey and a donkey cart.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how long I've wanted a donkey and a cart. When I moved here, I knew I was really going to get into my eccentricities. Really just let myself go, completely.
Donkey.