Friday, December 31, 2010

Commitments

The word commitment has many different connotations. In one regard it means a marriage or taking the plunge. Another means to attend an event. Still another means to budget one's time. The other day, I was pondering why I felt so stuck in my life when this word came to me. I had just read about commitment in my last Psychology chapter before Christmas break. My last assignment was to describe a goal I have and ways I can increase my commitment. It was just an assignment...or so I thought. This assignment had major ramifications for re-evaluating my commitments.

I realized that commitments are not just big, easily identifiable things like a marriage, an event, or time budgeting. Rather commitments are prolific and infiltrate our entire life. I also realized that most things in our life are commitments. For example, if you buy something you commit to using it. If you have something you commit to using it; if you do not use it you commit to storing it. If you cook something you commit to eating it. If you have a child you commit to rearing it. If you have a garden you commit to tending it.

Simple enough yeah, but my ah-ha moment came when I realized the sheer degree of broken commitments in my life. I have book shelves of unread books. I have many projects started but never finished. I have many supplies to make things but have never made them. I bought kiefer starters recently to clear up my digestive flora but never made it. I bought a dehydrator a few years back and rarely use it. I bought a Vitamix but rarely use it. I could go on, but the point is I have many things or commitments that I do not properly utilize. I use the excuse of "I'll get around to it" or "I am just too busy now, but [fill in date] I'll be finished with [certain thing] and then I will do it" or something along those lines.

My life is filled with broken commitments. Broken commitments are clutter and clutter brings us down. Clutter is accumulated when we have things we do not use. Oh, but we have the best intentions to use them...someday. Someday. I am so committed to my projects and self betterment that I recently filled an entire 24' moving truck, had to leave stuff behind, and had no furniture in there. What was in there...all the stuff I found necessary to better myself, things I thought I needed, toys for my daughter to make up for my childhood, and basically a lot of baggage.

As I am evaluating my commitments I have "committed" to divesting myself of commitments. I moved from a much larger house than where I am now so more than half of my stuff remained in a storage area. I have decided that if my stuff will not fit within the confines of my small space, then I do not need it. Slowly, but surely the Goodwill is benefiting from my divestment. I am beginning to see the light as I now question all my stuff. If I cannot part with it then I commit to doing something with it; if I fail to do something with it by a certain date then off to the Goodwill it goes. I have to be ruthless otherwise I will never unbury myself from broken commitments.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Forest Gardening: Feeding the World through Sustainability


Self-Responsibility Given Away

Near the beginning of recorded history Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eaten (Eden) . In Exodus 20:18 the people of Israel said to Moses, who had delivered them out of oppression in Egypt, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” This set a precedent where people decided that they were unable or unwilling to take self responsibility. In today’s world this is no more evident than the problems of world hunger and the resulting reliance on big business to feed the masses. The production of food requires intervention oriented cultivation which is unsustainable and exploits the environment. This dilemma and solution mimics the ancient Cahokia society as their exploitation of the land to feed their growing population ultimately led to disaster. Is this where present society is heading? Will the earth ultimately retaliate and spew natural disaster to destroy man-made infrastructure? “Climate change and the recent financial crisis clearly show that humans have entered an unprecedented era of fast and possibly dangerous changes” (Lichtfouse, Hamelin, Navarrete, Debaeke, & Henri, 2010). Entry back into the Garden of Eaten requires food production to epitomize the original conditions and for humanity to adopt awareness, responsibility, and motivation to change.

The Cahokia Mirror for Modern Agriculture

It is said that history repeats itself, unless the lesson is learned. In an eerie parallel to modern agriculture, the tale of the Cahokia Indians offers a prediction of doom if attitudes of exploitation do not change. Around 1000 AD The Cahokia Indians populated near what is known as St. Louis. It was the largest tribal settlement in the United States. Their population had grown so expansive that they had nearly eradicated wild animals to hunt. To feed the growing population, an agricultural system was established to grow maize; this system was very similar to modern monoculture. As the population grew and more maize was being grown, the Cahokia quickly overtaxed their stream’s capacities. Their solution was to divert water from a nearby stream into their water supply to create a river. For space to grow they practiced extensive clear cutting of the surrounding forests. This move served to increase maize production and population growth. However, this was not a sustainable enterprise.

“Eventually, disaster struck. Heavy storms which would have been soaked up by forest quickly ran off the agricultural fields, bloating the river, and causing floods and mudslides in the city of Cahokia. A subsequent earthquake was the last straw which broke Cahokia's back. Within a few hundred years of its inception, the city had dissolved back into the earth. The Indians fled the city and developed a more sustainable agricultural system based on small fields of maize surrounded by managed forests of fruit and nuts. ” (Ana & Mark, 2010, Cahokia: a cautionary tale).

Modern Agriculture: History Problems Repeated

It took over 1600 years for human population to reach 1 billion people and it took scantly 400 years for the population to increase 6 fold to 6 billion people. Currently the population has increased by nearly 1 million people in less than 11 years. While the population growth is showing signs of slowing, the rate of growth is so large that current agricultural production cannot keep up with the demand. “Currently, the World Health Organization estimates that more than 3 billion people worldwide – the greatest number in history - are malnourished” (Berg & Hager, 2007, p. 338). To increase food yields farmers have turned to science to create super-producing crops. While this has met much of the population growth, it is also unsustainable, therefore this high intensity food production cannot continue for more than a few decades (Berg & Hager, 2007). What then? How will the growing population be fed?

Modern farming methods involve monoculture, or long rows of one type of food. To feed the growing population science intervened in plant production through genetic manipulation to increase food yield. These crops require massive interventions such as pesticides, high potency fertilizers, herbicides to discourage unwanted weeds, and special machinery to sustain the food through the growing season and onto harvesting. (Berg & Hager, 2007). Pesticides are used in increasing amounts to deal with the out of control pest populations which monoculture encourages. A monoculture is considered a feast to invader bugs, thus their exploding populations require even more pesticides (Agroforestry Research, 2008). All of these things contribute to pollution by poisoning the plants, animals, and people in the environment. “…Agricultural practices are the single largest cause of surface-water pollution…” (Berg & Hager, 2007, p. 346).

The terrestrial resources needed to sustain such large operations are tremendous. Aquifers, rivers and streams are rapidly becoming depleted from the large amounts of water used to irrigate these high yielding crops. Immense tracts of land are needed to meet current and future production demands. However, all the cultivatable land in the world is already taken and that land is giving way to urban development. Wild animal populations are also becoming increasingly isolated as more land is wrest from forest through clear cutting. Clear cutting contributes to soil erosion and floods because there are no longer natural vegetation roots to hold the soil in place or absorb large amounts of water from rain (Berg & Hager, 2007). Soil erosion also occurs when land is tilled. Tilling disturbs the natural ecosystem of the soil killing much of the microbiology and soil structure (Ana & Mark, 2010).

To offer a complete picture, the economics of such large scale farming also need to be accounted for. It takes huge sources of capital to live in such odds with the environment. Nature will eventually reclaim what it loses thus efforts to keep nature away are expensive. “It seems apparent that continued reliance on monocultures is more of a liability than an asset.” (Agroforestry Research, 2008, p. 6). It would also seem that such huge amounts of work and investment for such limited, or unbalanced food return does not make economic sense. Natural disasters must also be taken into account. The old adage about “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies to reliance on one huge mono-crop; putting that principle to the test. The Cahokia found their solution in gentle land persuasion, otherwise known as forest gardening. Will modern society embrace their lesson or will history repeat itself?

Forest Gardening: An Ancient Practice

Researcher Charles Mann (2006) delineates an alternative view of the history of American Indian land influence. American History teaches that the, “American Indians had a pure connection with the nearly untouched wilderness they lived in” (Anna & Mark, 2010, What American Indians can teach us about permaculture). Mann’s research has shown otherwise stating that the American Indians had significant influence on the structure of the forests and in created large civilizations sustained by agriculture which covered nearly two thirds of the United States (Mann, 2006).

The tropical rainforests of South and Central America have long been considered virgin forests. The Amazon forest and Mayan forest rank first and second, respectively, for sheer amount of biodiversity present in one place; in other words they have higher species diversity than anywhere else in the world. Scientists have long considered the forests to be an anomaly of nature. Evidence now points to the contrary. Because over 90% of the plants are useful to humans, science concludes that much, “8% to 100%, [of the forest] was anthropogenic” (Ann & Mark, 2010, Anthropogenic forests in the Amazon), or created through carful, human manipulation, see figure 1. To add credence to the argument, forest stewards of the El Piliar Maya Forest Garden Network [El Pilar] (2009) state that “that there is a higher percentage of useful plants in forested areas where the Maya lived than forest where people did not live. This suggests that the Maya manipulated their forest, favoring plants that were useful to them, changing the composition of the forest.”

Clarifying Terms

Forest gardening has become a blanket term for any system which involves the careful manipulation of plants in a forest setting to produce the maximum amount of beneficial plants. That said, there must be a distinction between temperate forest gardening and tropical forest gardening. Technically any gardening which takes place in the tropics is called permaculture. However, these techniques will not work in temperate forests. Robert Hart invented forest gardening as a way to apply the wisdom of permaculturists to the lack of abundant rainfall, less direct sunlight, and seasonal fluctuations of a temperate forest (Ana & Mark, 2010). That said the terms are usually used interchangeably. One thing is certain however, “Once a forest is managed it becomes a garden” (El Piliar, 2009, How a forest garden is different from a plowed field).

The Forest Garden: A Modern Garden of Eaten?

In the Garden of Eaten all was perfect and food was abundant. Adam and Eve had no cares except to be good stewards of the garden eat their fill. They did not have to toil for their food; they only had to pick it. When temptation overtook and they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, the couple forsook the wisdom that partners with knowledge. In so doing they went against nature’s harmony and balance; choosing to follow self-righteousness and abdicating spiritual understanding. They no longer sought direct sustenance rather they chose to eat by the sweat of their brow. They were expelled from the abundant food provision of the Garden to toil away in unfulfilling, meager agriculture that would never cultivate anything resembling that abundance.

Forest gardens, once established, require little human intervention and do not deplete or harm natural resources the way monoculture does. Plants are introduced to take maximum advantage of natural rainfall. Land is not tilled and plants are not removed so soil structures remain intact. Many plants are perennials thus they do not need to be replanted year after year and they contribute to soil health. Even the annuals are encouraged to reseed themselves. Some plants, known as dynamic accumulators and nitrogen fixers, enrich the soil naturally without the use of fertilizers.

Guilds or groups of plants which cohabitate nicely, are created for maximum land efficiency and production. Considerations for finding good cohabitatable plants include: root depth, spread, and type; plant size and spread; mineral, water, and light needs; and growth season. These guilds can then can then provide all their own needs as well as help their neighbors. Pesticides are not used because plants are also grouped so that one plant discourages the pests of another. Herbicides to kill weeds are not used because the plant groupings are so dense that weeds cannot gain a foothold. When the gardener marries vegetation by filling in empty niches with useful plants he or she expands Mother Nature’s plan. Together they co-create a garden of super abundance (Agroforestry Research, 2009; Ana & Mark, 2010).

This guild process creates a system of over yielding which can be further explained by a physicist Eliyahu Goldratt (AGI – Goldratt Institute, 2009). Goldratt applies the principles of physics to management philosophies in a system he called the Theory of Constraints. This, in turn, can be applied to the management of land. A constraint is a limitation. For a farmer, his or her constraint is the land. This constraint limits the production capabilities of the farmer since he or she views the land as having a limited yield. A farmer in this situation accepts this as inevitable and the solution is to find more land or accept their financial cap. More land is not a feasible solution, however, as is discussed earlier. Goldratt would admonish that one has to maximize the potential of the constraint. A forest gardener does just that; growing more in less area; or increasing the land’s efficiency and output.

An example to showcase a guild’s high degree of productivity and beneficial cohabitation is found in the traditional three sisters crop: beans, corn, and squash. Researcher Stephen Gliessman noted that corn production, when grown in the three sister crop nearly doubled under these conditions and the bean and squash yields remained relatively the same as in conventional monoculture. But that is not the whole story. The bean and squash yields may have been the same, however all this was grown in an area less than half the size of the land it would take to grow these same plants as monocultures. He said, “This is known as over yielding. Considering increasing hunger and starvation, this more productive model offers hope for a better future” (Agroforestry Research, 2008, p.5). As far as beneficial cohabitation: the corn stalks provide a vertical surface for the beans to climb upon; the beans gather and share nitrogen because they are known as nitrogen fixers; and the squash grows so thickly as to effectively block out weeds (Agroforestry Research, 2008).

A nitrogen fixer means the plant has a unique root system which can convert otherwise inert nitrogen into beneficial nitrogen. Dynamic accumulators are also used in beneficial groupings because their deep root systems mine minerals from deep soil depths to store in their leaves. Plants are also considered dynamic accumulators if they provide a good home for beneficial bacteria to colonize. The soil benefits of both nitrogen fixers and dynamic accumulators are usually realized as the leaves of these plants are used for compost. (Ana & Mark, 2010).

Forest gardens take agricultural practices to a new level of sustainability while affording high yielding, and highly nutritious food. The sheer diversity of useful plant material grown in such a small area is economical. “A greater diversity in one’s diet leads to better nutrition and health… [M]alnutrition results from…a reliance on a limited number of foods, which generally have lower nutritional value… (Agroforestry Research, 2009, p. 8)” Promoting home gardening in a system of large diversity goes a long way to discouraging malnutrition. Heriberto Cocom, master forest gardener for El Pilar (2009), states that everyone has some land they can garden on; therefore, everyone can plant a forest garden. Plus, if one does not have land, community gardens are always options especially since the large food yields lend themselves well to sharing. Nutritional density also reduces malnutrition. The density is higher in the perennial versions of typical annual plants like spinach and its perennial counterpart good King Henry. Since forest gardens rely on perennials they naturally produce more nutrient density. In addition, the cohabitation and resource sharing of the plants provides higher nutrient density than monocropped plants (Agroforestry Research, 2009).

Forest gardens make more economic sense. A diverse range of plants can be grown in an area a fraction of the size needed for monoculture. This diversity has the added benefit of economic security. Should a natural phenomena like blight attack one crop the others are still intact. Conventional farmers, relying on one crop, would be devastated by the blight (Agroforestry Research, 2009). Polyculture, the cohabitation of many plants, also allows the farmer to grow year round as opposed to just one season. This additional growing time is beneficial for the pocketbook (El Pilar, 2009). A temperate forest example of this is highlighted by Agroforestry Research (2009) when the author discusses harvesting fresh food for his winter dinner party. Finally, a forest garden makes economic sense because of the diversity of cash brining crops. A forest garden, “produc[es] plants to meet a diverse array of human needs, like food, shelter, medicine, and many others” (El Pilar, 2009). Plants like the bamboo plant can also be used for clothing.

The best example of a city sustained on personal forest gardens is found in Kerala, India. Agroforestry Research summarizes forest gardening founder Robert Heart’s book Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape. “Hart’s book cites the 3.5 million home gardens in Kerala, India that provide the majority of food for the 32 million residents in an area the size of Switzerland. Kerala ranks second in The Physical Quality of Living Index for Asia despite being one of the most populous places on Earth and having an average income of less than $400 per year. Only Japan ranks higher. Life expectancy rivals the US, literacy rates are approaching 100%, free hospitals and Ayurvedic clinics are very common, and ninety percent of the Keralese population owns land. Their secret is that they don’t need that much money--practically all of their necessities are growing in the backyard” (2009, p.4)

Forest gardening is a community affair, thus much of the labor is voluntary. A community forest garden would follow the same rules and regulations of a regular community garden. A community garden requires that those community member who wish to benefit from the harvest need to contribute to the upkeep of the garden. A forest garden is self sustained and thus does not involve all the work a regular community monoculture garden requires. It only requires regular pruning and mulching with most of the work occurring at harvest time. It seems reasonable that each community member would harvest their own food. This is the same principle that God set forth in Exodus with the manna. The manna was provided each morning and each member of the community was responsible for acquiring what he or she needed for the day. El Pilar (2009) discusses community involvement is essential for a source of labor and generational knowledge acquisition. This not only keeps money in the community rather than outsourcing for labor, but it allows for greater camaraderie. In addition the garden is, “is almost entirely maintained with local resources, such as household refuse (compost), organic material (dead weeds), ashes from kitchen fires, and manure,” providing all the necessary fertilizer to “enrich the soil” (El Pilar, 2009, What is a forest garden?).

Problems Facing Adoption

People have abdicated their rights to produce their own food to the big business farmer. Forest gardening, despite its benefits, is unlikely to be adopted as a serious alternative by farmers until some biases are dispelled. For one thing forest gardening is a long term proposition not a fix-it-quick scheme; big problems require big solutions. These solutions must be far reaching with true commitment. In a business text book called Wharton on Decision Making (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, Ch. 6). the authors describe “Maintaining a normal state of mind requires constant practice.” To further describe this idea they quote from a book named The Book of Five Rings by an author named Musashi, “This is something that requires thorough examination, with a thousand days of practice for training and ten thousand days of practice for refinement” (p.114) They further explained that: “To the ancient Chinese, reflection was closely linked to knowledge. Because the Chinese believe all things are interdependent, knowledge was the ability to trace out the connections between things. Once this was accomplished, the decision maker would know what actions to take today to reap the benefits of the future. The idea was summarized in a saying, ‘To know after seeing is not worthy of being called knowing’” (2001, Ch. 6, p.109).

This concept can be applied to the creation of a forest garden. A forest garden can take up to 10 years to reach maturity; therefore it is not a one season solution like a monoculture. It requires patience. Knowledge acquisition of the land, climate, whether patterns, rain fall, plant characteristics, plant interactions, plants needs, plant cohabitation options, etc. all require patience and commitment. In other words, farmers as businesses people are looking for short term profits, not long term gain. The farmer would justify his or her position saying they are concerned with the bottom line, profits. Mechanized crop harvesting is cheaper than the human labor necessary to harvest food in a forest garden. This translates to fewer profits.

This is a fallacy however. The adoption of the forest garden method of cultivation requires a paradigm shift. It also means that the two systems cannot be fairly compared because they are so different. Sure, the farmer may profit more from mechanized harvesting systems, but the farmer is not looking at the other factors involved; this is narrow minded thinking. The farmer automatically saves money because he or she does not need to spend money on pesticides, herbicides, special machinery, fossil fuels, machine upkeep, fertilizers, new batches of seeds, etc. In addition the costs to the environment of monoculture are not taken into account in this statement. That said, many farmers, particularly those in third world countries are not concerned with environmental preservation if it cuts into their profitability (El Pilar, 2009; Ana & Mark, 2010; and Berg & Hager, 2007).

This narrow minded thinking is based out of fear of the unknown. Fear is an interesting concept as an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real (author unknown). The Bible further explains this concept in Hose 4:6 when it states, “My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge.” The idea behind this is fear is often illogically justified by strong emotions not logical evidence. The farmer in this case, would base his argument for maintaining modern agricultural methods on the illogical evidence of the strong emotion of fear. The overwhelming benefit of forest gardening would be lost on him or her.

For the sake of logic, the fear of the farmer is also perpetuated by the biases and discrimination from the farmer’s suppliers that exist against sustainable agriculture. For example, insurance agencies often will not insure a sustainably farmed crop because they consider it too high risk (Bailey & Preston, n.d.). Once again this bias is bases upon fear. An example of discrimination against forest gardeners is in Brazil where the government considers an area to be developed if it is monocropped. Forest land is considered undeveloped and therefore subject to economic pressures to “develop it” (El Pilar, 2009).

Gary Yukl (2006), another business textbook author, provides an explanation of modern managers that provides a striking similarity to the farmer whose motivation is profit. Most people have the misconception that managers have inordinate amounts of time to sit in their offices and create elaborate action plans. This is simply untrue. Managers, he says are involved in a flurry of activities all day long as they run from place to place putting out fires; they react not act on their situation. Their processes are fragmented and their activities lack any real cohesion. They only look at the steps involved at this particular moment and lack a view of the bigger picture of the interaction of things. Likewise farmers do not have an overview of the bigger picture and their processes are thus fragmented.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the forest garden and modern agriculture is the forest garden is not really suited to big business per say. To understand this further, two principles that seem unrelated, warrant introduction. Christine Woodrow and Frances Press, university professors, discussed a concept that is similar to the dilemma of the modern farmer even though they were discussing the dilemma of the child in daycare. “At the turn of the 21st century [people] have been witness to an acceleration of privatization and commercialism in many aspects of everyday life” (2007, p. 315). They further discussed “that values such as trust, respect, good will, sincerity and fairness…are likely to be transformed [into] supplier-consumer relationships built upon profit motives” (2007, p. 318

To further explain that dilemma the views of another pair of professors, Genevive Vaughan and Elia Estola, also discussing education, can be applied. They proposed that two paradigms exist that rule all human engagements. The dominate paradigm is the exchange paradigm where recompense is expected for any service given. This is the paradigm that dominates world commerce and relegates those goods which satisfy human needs, like food, water, shelter, education, etc. to vehicles for exchange rather than nature’s free provision. On the other hand, a paradigm that has just as much to offer, but is only recognized as the domain of mothers to their children, it the gift paradigm. In the gift paradigm, goods and services are offered out of love and respect without expectation of a payment in return. This paradigm is long term whereas the exchange paradigm is short term. For example, mothers tirelessly offer their services and never once do they ask their children for payment. The reason is because the mother’s intuitive wisdom knows that the better the rearing in the present, the better adults their children will become (2007). She knows that someday the fruits of her efforts will manifest or the seeds will flourish.

The gift paradigm relates to the forest garden in once it planted and nurtured to maturity, it freely gives what it has without expectation for recompense. A monocrop may give its harvest but that only happens in exchange for tremendous amounts of interventions and constant vigilance from the farmer. As stated before, the return of the crop is disproportionate to the amount of work involved in getting that return. Because a monocrop cannot give, the farmer does not understand the gift paradigm, thus, these two principles adequately explain the dilemma of the farmer. Farmers have to be responsible to big business which overtakes precedence for what is right. The farmer is driven by the exchange paradigm because that is the dominating force of our world. The farmer will never realize the gift paradigm because it does not follow what he or she has always known.

The gift paradigm also describes Eliyahu Goldratt’s (AGI – Goldratt Institute, 2009) Theory of Constraints when he states that one needs to maximize their constraint. The farmer does not believe his constraint can be maximized. However if he or she were to look at the land as providing a free gift, then that gift paradigm would naturally lend itself to the creation of the forest garden to maximize the constraint of the land. The farmer is blinded by ghosts of profits, rather than looking at the entire picture of expenses. Forest gardening will never be a feasible solution when it is viewed completely through the lens of big business, or exchange paradigm, and thus meddling in the realization of the forest garden or gift paradigm.

Despite showing the illogical nature of the farmer’s for profit argument, the farmer would not be compelled to change his or her mind; they have no reason to. They do not see their system as broken or if they do they are too afraid to take action to fix it. A logical way of looking at all sides of the issue and eliminating the fear, described later, would be to examine John Nash’s Theory of Equilibrium (Osborne, 2002). This theory states that in every game there is a win-win situation, not always a win-lose. This theory when applied to the farmer, would state that what is best for the farmer is for maximum land usage and what is best for the people is to have abundance of food. If food production followed forest gardening, it would overcome the World Health Organization’s prediction that agriculture will quickly become inadequate to supply the demands of the people.

Re-entering The Garden of Eaten

The lesson of the Cahokia basically states if one cannot learn from past mistakes or perceive current misdirection, then one cannot progress toward finding a solution. The Bible explains this differently in John 20:29 when it states, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” and in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. Exploitation of the land, also known as monoculture, is not a solution for feeding the masses. Exploitation and crop isolation will ultimately lead to a disaster because it does not work with the ecosystem.

Forest Gardening is the art of resisting exploitation as a solution and relying on an intuitive process which draws upon the knowledge of interactions to follow nature’s way. The gift paradigm explains the concept of the forest gardening as the plentiful giving of food without expectation for recompense. Modern agriculture is based on the opposite exchange paradigm. The monocrop does not give freely rather it does so in exchange for the farmer’s intensive interventions.

The Theory of Constraints delineates that the farmer’s land is his or her constraint, meaning that it can only produce so much. The theory also discusses that one must seek to make the constraint achieve maximum profitability. The farmer’s paradigm will not support more yield from the land, however, the polyculturist recognizes the untapped potential land yield through successful plant cohabitation. The Theory of Equilibrium provides the solution stating that the best solution would be something that best provides for the farmer’s and the people’s needs, or win-win. Monoculture, while trying to have the farmer’s best interests in mind, is illogical in nature and is also a win-lose proposition. Forest gardening represents mankind’s journey coming full circle; from original sin to re-entering the Garden of Eaten.


References
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