Look at all the unused land in the world. There’s actually plenty of land to grow all the food we need and more. Some of it is waste land, desert, deforested and worthless, right? But maybe not so worthless.
“There’s not enough water,” people say, and sure enough, water is a critical and limiting factor of world agriculture. And yet our world is two-thirds water. There’s water in the air, in clouds. In reality, there’s plenty of water.
But there’s no energy to run our machines. We have to cut down our forests to get wood to burn for fuel so we can cook. We are poor! So people say. But as they are talking, the sun beats down upon millions and millions of square miles of surface with enough energy to fuel every stove, heating unit, cooling unit, and electrical appliance on earth. And the wind blows, too.
There’s no shortage of anything except the will to do something about it.
Unfertile soils that won’t grow crops? Amazonian indigenous people figured that out 1,500 years ago when they invented slash and char agriculture. Instead of burning what they slashed, they roasted it in smoldering fires and turned the resulting biologically active charcoal into the soil. Today those soils are among the most productive on earth and here’s the thing: they are self-propagating. The charcoal creates conditions that allow the soil to build up under cultivation, rather than deplete. Today those soils are six feet deep with enormous fertilizing power. Just google terra preta or biochar and see for yourself.
But there’s no water, people say. You can’t grow crops without water! But Peter Hoff has come up with a simple, cheap device that surrounds a growing plant, hordes water jealously and doles it out to the plant in tiny increments—just enough so that the plant strikes a deep root that can make contact with soil moisture. The device even gathers moisture from the night air to replenish its reservoir, even in desert conditions, and all without using energy. Interested? Visit www.groasis.com.
No tractors? No way to turn up the soil? Get with the Permaculture program. This group has been advocating permanent agriculture (food-bearing trees and shrubs) for decades. Just google Permaculture and you’ll see.
There’s plenty of everything, you see, except caring. And that’s where organics comes in. As organic gardeners or farmers, you do care. You care about the health of the planet, the welfare of the plants, animals, and humans on the planet. If you are in business as an organic grower, you care about profit, but not to the exclusion of planetary welfare. What Big Ag and corporate America never tell you is that the value and wholesomeness of what they produce isn’t important. They could be making grommets or galoshes. What’s important is none of that. It’s profit for their shareholders and the people who run the companies. That’s their bottom line.