“The problems in our world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” – Scientist/biologist Bill Mollison.
Humans desire simple things: health, safety, clean air and water, a sense of purpose and belonging and, of course, food. Make that delicious food which we share with friends and family. Our embarrassingly simple solution to fulfill all these desires? Grow your own food.
Sound simplistic? Growing food holistically in our own gardens takes us toward each of these desires, all the while resolving our complex problems. Let’s untangle the knot here.
Health. To grow our food well, we build the soil with locally sourced elements such as fallen leaves, kitchen scraps and chemical-free grass clippings. This infuses nutrients which feed the soil micro biome which in turn feeds the plants enabling them to fend off predators and disease. Healthy plants nourish our bodies and minds. Labouring outdoors to grow food supports excellent health and clear thinking. Hummus-rich soil also holds rainwater as a sponge does, reducing run off that picks up chemicals on roadways and douses our ground water with them.
Safety. Rodale Institute of Regenerative Agriculture states that if we convert one quarter of agricultural land to regenerative systems, we can stabilize climate change. Extreme weather, drought, food security and disease are commonly acknowledged threats associated with climate change. Industrial agriculture practices contribute to this. Regenerative growing practices take us back into balance. Some chemicals used in industrial agriculture are known or probable carcinogens but because human (versus animal) health studies on their effects are limited and lobbyists are powerful, their use has not been checked. We can easily grow wholesome food without these questionable chemicals.
Clean air and water. Eliminating packaging, processing and transportation of most produce reduces our carbon footprint and exposure to the chemicals involved in food production and delivery. Tillage (turning the soil), a practice used in modern agriculture, disturbs the soil life and releases carbon into the atmosphere bolstering climate change. One hundred and fifty years of this practice has also reduced our planet’s topsoil by half. Most of it blows or is washed away and ends up in our oceans. Chemical fertilizers with soluble ingredients like nitrogen and phosphorous leach out into our waterways and cause issues such as algae blooms that choke oxygen and light out of the water, killing organisms including fish. This throws our ecosystem out of balance and hampers air and water quality. Plants naturally capture nitrogen which is abundant in our atmosphere. In healthy soils, they don’t require supplemental chemicals.
Purpose and belonging. In our well-intentioned striving for more time and ease through technologic developments, we have done ourselves a disservice. Many of us realize we feel busier, less productive and less connected than ever before. When we slow down and get back to simpler, more hands-on activities like gardening and sharing food with those we care about, our sense of wellbeing increases. When we get outdoors and grow our own food we experience a sense of accomplishment.
Delicious food. Food grown in healthy soil is nutritious, more productive and more delicious! Healthy plants have a vitality we don’t see on grocery store shelves. Symbiotic relationships with soil life allow lipids to be stored making shiny leaves and “secondary metabolites form creating essential oils and aromatic compounds that make food flavourful and medicinal.” (Jessica Smith, University of Richmond). We all savour the flavour explosion of home-grown produce.
So next time you feel weighted down with the world’s problems, plant a garden.
