Regenerating hope and food

Several years ago I read a book that I consider transformative, at least it's been transforming me. Those of you familiar with Myers-Brigg and Personality Types probably know what I mean when I confess to having a classic "Type A" personality with very strong leanings toward command-and-control processes. Reading Mariam Horn's Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman reinforced my growing acknowledgement that we could never afford enough enforcement personnel to solve all our pollution problems through command and control approaches, any more than the traffic cops we currently have catch all the speeders. This is akin to the proverbial "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed" situation but as I look about me I realize we're not all suddenly going to sit down and sing Kumbaya.

is this regenerative agriculture?

Photo by J. Harrington

Some folks already recognize that we all depend on each other, while others are constantly surprise to discover that they aren't at the center of the universe. We need to encourage more of the former and discourage inappropriate behavior by the latter. Part of that no doubt involves applying a Psychology of Sustainable Behavior.

is this regenerative agriculture?

Photo by J. Harrington

So, how can we create a system that motivates farmers and ranchers and others toward stewardship in the ways that they produce food for us? Should it all be based only on monetary incentives or do we also need to change other elements of our food system? One option is to include substantial support for farmers and ranchers in any Green New Deal (GND) legislation. What should we be supporting? Here's a list of Regenerative Agriculture Practices:

• Aquaculture


• Agroecology


• Agroforestry


• Biochar


• Compost


• Holistic Planned Grazing


• No-till


• Pasture Cropping


• Perennial Crops


• Silvopasture

Follow the link at the end of this sentence to learn what many farmers and ranchers are looking for from a Green New Deal. Then let's all hope and pray and work to get a better Green New Deal for us all.

A Poem on Hope

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old, 
for hope must not depend on feeling good 
and there’s the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight. 
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality 
of the future, which surely will surprise us, 
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction 
anymore than by wishing. But stop dithering. 
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them? 
Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

Because we have not made our lives to fit 
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields, eroded, 
the streams polluted, the mountains, overturned. Hope 
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge 
of what it is that no other place is, and by 
your caring for it, as you care for no other place, this 
knowledge cannot be taken from you by power or by wealth. 
It will stop your ears to the powerful when they ask 
for your faith, and to the wealthy when they ask for your land
and your work.  Be still and listen to the voices that belong 
to the stream banks and the trees and the open fields.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet. 
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground underfoot. 
The world is no better than its places. Its places at last 
are no better than their people while their people 
continue in them. When the people make 
dark the light within them, the world darkens.

–Wendell Berry

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