MANIFESTO
Scientists warn us this industrialised planet is heading towards ecological breakdown. But we believe, by joining the global conversation and crowd-sourcing solutions, it’s possible to turn things around.
LET’S VOTE WITH OUR FORKS
Eating is an agricultural act – our food choice can turn into a daily initiative of change. By insisting on local, organic, clean, seasonal, delicious food we create pressure on The System and become co-producers with local farmers. Swap Supermarkets for Farmer’s markets, join community supported agriculture programs, and cultivate something at home. Let’s break The System – calory by calory.
LET’S CLAIM THE ENVIROMENT AS THE END ALL AND BE ALL OF HUMAN ACTIVITY
Western Civilization moved from church to nation state to economics as the primary organizing structures for our lives. As we are heading towards ecological bankruptcy it is time to abandon the dictatorship of quantitative economic growth and move on to a holistic principle of an economy nested in society, and society nested in the environment.
IN FOOD LOCAL IS THE NEW GLOBAL
Food production, allocation and consumption has to shift from global chemical to local organic. Every region needs to explore, maintain and refine its culinary traditions, work with delicious, local, seasonal ingredients and promote and support regional producers. The resulting diversity of indigeneity and deliciousness will promote resilience and health of the regional economies and people.
ORGANIC POLYCULTURE SHALL REPLACE CHEMICAL MONOCULTURE
Polyculture farm systems are proven to be not only regenerative ecosystem benefactors but are also more productive in the long term. Call on governments around the world to stop subsidizing “The System” and divert subsidies to incentivize organic polyculture farming and to support agroecology research projects to improve and spread our knowledge of regenerative agriculture systems. We need land reforms in favor of young farmers. And “farm service” instead of military service.
TURN AGRICULTURE INTO AN ART FORM
In most languages “farmer” has become a derogatory term over the past century of urbanization. Let’s make working the land aspirational again – celebrating the fruitful co-existence of animals, land and man in the delicate creative dance of regenerative agriculture. Working the land is a form of Art – let’s put culture back into agriCulture.
PRESERVE AND WORK THE WILDERNESS
Wild lands are disappearing fast. Keeping wild territories wherever possible , in primary forests, steppes and untouched waters is essential to biodiversity and human survival. Thoughtful and gentle harvesting of the wild following ancestral hunting and gathering practices will help preserve wilderness around the world while adding a delicious contribution to our food requirements. It’s time to incentivize “rewilding”.
LET’S BRING PEOPLE TO THE LAND, AND LAND TO THE PEOPLE
Polyculture farms are complex interwoven production cycles that need a higher “eyes to acre ratio” than industrial farms. Let’s bring more people to the land.
Working with the land has a curative power – for the land and for the people. Many civilised pathologies are connected to the alienation of people from the land and animals, the disconnection from the “community of life”. Work sabbaticals, volunteering, internships and agriculture trainings will become elements of the future agricultural workforce that truly has the potential to feed the world.
LET’S HEAL THE COMMUNITY OF LIFE
We are intricately connected to the rest of life. Darwin showed us that we are the (interim) result of 4 billion years of evolution. An intricate web of life that has unfolded over billions of years, interwoven and intimately connected through millions of biochemical transactions, many of which we have not yet come to understand. This community of life and our special role as stewards and custodians in it can become the base for a new spirituality.
The idea of life as a holistic structure with humans representing a special kind of mental ability – consciousness and abstract conceptual thinking about the past and the future – endows a responsibility upon us. The responsibility of knowing. It can become the foundation of a new collective spirituality and awareness. The end of “them” and the beginning of “us”.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead