Of land use and sustenance

Back at last year's Winter Solstice, I posted that my first quarter reading list for this year would include Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Starting some time after Christmas, I proceeded to spend several weeks searching through our library archives for my copy of that book. You know, the one I've held onto since college days? Today I used a Christmas gift certificate at Scout & Morgan to replace the still unfound college copy with a centennial edition. To accompany the story of the Joads, I also got a copy of two of Wendell Berry's books of essays: Bringing It to the Table and Standing By Words. The latter is focused on poetry and  the former on farming and food. Also, to honor the times we live in and the significant of events that should culminate this coming November, I finally yielded to a long-standing urge to get and read Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath.

That description from the back cover of Heaney's version seems frighteningly fitting, especially since living on means tackling and adapting to our climate breakdown.So, I now have two works by two separate Nobel laureates in my "To Be Read" stack and, as a consequence, will be wasting spending much less time on social media for the foreseeable future. Warmer days will undoubtedly be of assistance in that effort, as I wander outside more and more to see what Winter's left behind and Spring is bringing  on. A reduced exposure to the levels of stupidity and hostility too often found on social media should enhance my general outlook on life and improve my blood pressure too.

FIGURE 1: PROJECT DRAWDOWN FOOD SECTOR FRAMEWORK

I recently volunteered to help do something about our climate emergency. I mean something more than write about how not enough people are doing enough about it. I found an organization being guided by at least some of the Drawdown Project solutions listed in the food sector. The Drawdown solutions are split between 13 on the supply side and 4 on the demand side. The group I'm volunteering with works on "encouraging new models of agriculture that sequester atmospheric carbon instead of releasing it." In particular, our scope includes:

Demand-Side Solutions:

Plant-rich diet – reduced emissions associated with reduced livestock production by emphasizing plant-based foods in wealthy countries, while increasing food security and healthy diets. Avoids emissions from land clearing for agriculture by reducing demand.

Reduced food waste – reducing emissions from agriculture by using its products more efficiently, including redistribution of food before it is wasted. Avoids emissions from land clearing for agriculture by reducing demand.

Supply-Side Solution:

Regenerative agriculture – an annual crop production system that includes at least four of the following practices: green manure, compost application, organic production, cover crops, crop rotation, and/or reduced tillage.

For now, I'm going to spend time and energy learning about and exploring the three solutions listed above, in part because I'm most familiar with the demand side but I also want to learn more about regenerative agriculture's possibilities. So you can, in future visits, expect to see postings alluding to the Joads, Grendel, poetry, words, and/or local food that's prepared and consumed well. Knowing me, I'll undoubtedly sneak in other topics as we go along.

2008, XII

Wendell Berry - 1934-

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…
Hosea 4:6

We forget the land we stand on
and live from. We set ourselves
free in an economy founded
on nothing, on greed verified
by fantasy, on which we entirely
depend.  We depend on fire
that consumes the world without
lighting it.  To this dark blaze
driving the inert metal
of our most high desire
we offer our land as fuel,
thus offering ourselves at last
to be burned. This is our riddle
to which the answer is a life
that none of us has lived.

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