Building upon the last article ‘Manufactured Scarcity’, we will discuss some novel, pragmatic solutions and compare them to the terribly inefficient ways society does things now. The practice of farming has not fundamentally changed in thousands of years and is a wasteful practice. Let’s say a farmer bought a new piece of natural land and wanted to begin the practice of standard flora farming. He first must put forth much effort to destroy the vegetation that lives there. Cutting down trees, pulling out bushes and grasses, tilling the land, etc. Than at the beginning of every growing season he must purchase seeds and plant them in the newly plowed soil (the soil must be tilled at the start of every season). The soil no longer has any natural vegetation to promote water retention so the farmer must use an outrageous amount of H2O, procured from an outside source, so that his crops won’t dry out. Not only this but the farmer has literally killed the soil by the practice of plowing the land. The natural state of the soil is one where life is teeming. Micro-organisms break down matter and provide minerals and nutrients to the plants. Decomposers, such as worms, do the same productive actions. Natural predators, such as spiders, ladybugs, etc, feed on insects that eat the vegetation, keeping the ecosystem in balance. Of course, plowing the land and destroying all the natural plants breaks down this system, putting an end to the finely tuned and intelligent design that nature provides. The soil is now dying and becomes less and less productive with every growing season. So now the plants have no nutrient source, the farmer must buy fertilizers every year and apply it to his fields. The natural predators cannot survive in such a static ecosystem, so the farmer must buy toxic insecticides and spray his fields multiple times a season, both inefficient and detrimental to the health of his final customers. Of course his fields, supported by nature, yearn to go back to a natural state of being, so the farmer must purchase herbicides to kill any vegetation that is not the cash crop being grown. All of this is a terribly inefficient and wasteful system to say the least, so what is the alternative?

Agroforestry. This is a system where the farmer works with the natural environment in order to produce a diverse array of crops. The anchor of the system are perennial plants that produce fruit (fruits, nuts, vegetables, flowers) year after year with hardly any interference needed from the farmer. The farmer gradually introduces wanted species of plants to the ecosystem but is careful not to disrupt the delicate balance. If annual plants are wanted, seed balls, or a productive seed mix can be applied to parts of the forest floor where there is not much shade. In this system there are layers of plants, rather than just one standardized crop, leading to much greater and diverse harvest per acre of land. Contrary to standard farming, wildlife (both natural and introduced) are encouraged, providing weed control and manure for the plants. With the contributions of animals and the natural decomposing of plant matter, the soil actually become MORE productive year after year. This is aided by micro-organisms and other organisms that thrive in the soil. Plants can be introduced that encourage the right kind of predators, eliminating the need for insecticides. The diverse array of plants and the healthy soil provide such great water retention that outside watering is not needed. The farmer takes a holistic approach to farming, considering the entire ecosystem before making changes to the forest. This is not a wide-eyed fantasy. People have been farming this way, very successfully, for decades and more people are realizing its benefits every year. It makes perfect sense to work with nature rather than battling it every step of the growing season. Using agroforestry the farmer is required to do much less labor, has much less expenses, and gains a greater harvest year after year. So, as I have espoused before, we must realize what true efficiency is, holistic efficiency, and do much less, while gaining much more, by living in harmony with our environment.