sustainability and diversity

Greetings all. Apologies for my recent hiatus. As we push further into summer at the farm, a sort of biological crescendo is building. More crops. More harvests. More weeds. More weeding. This past weekend also marked the program’s 40th anniversary, so the farm has been playing host to over 500 alumni for a series of events and symposia.

Before I launch into this week’s topic, I wanted to clarify some info with regards to the “Day on the Farm” event on September 8. I realized that my invitation didn’t make it obvious that this is something that I personally am organizing for friends and family, not an event that is being planned by staff of the agroecology apprenticeship program. Thus you can expect a more amateurish, but hopefully more personal, educational experience! Again, if you haven’t signed up but would like to go, please RSVP by email or by evite.

My writing thus far has generally taken the UCSC farm as its starting point for subject material, but today I’d like to jump a few time zones and a very big ocean for a field trip to Asia. In 2005 and 2006, I visited small agricultural villages in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, respectively. While Madumana in southern Sri Lanka and Toho on the island of Borneo are worlds apart in many respects, they share some common traits which relate to my topic this week: the importance of cultural and agricultural diversity with regards to sustainability. Madumana and Toho are both small villages with several hundred residents. Life in both villages centers around agriculture, the staple crop in each locale being rice. While modern technologies are slowly creeping in, villagers in Madumana and Toho live much like their ancestors 100 or 500 years ago likely did. Monetarily, the villages are very poor. There are few if any paved roads, cars, or mechanized farming tools. Villagers face public health issues that are largely non-existent in industrialized areas. And anyone craving a caramel macchiato is out of luck, as Starbucks has not yet set up shop in either village.

Yet I have found much to be inspired by in Madumana and Toho. There is neither obesity nor malnutrition. No traffic jams. Low crime. There is a strong sense of community and a connection to and appreciation of the land. There is a general sense of well-being and personal integrity that is eye-opening. And, most importantly for the subject matter of this blog, both villages are still relatively self-sustaining with regards to natural resources.

I don’t intend to romanticize the lives of villagers in Madumana and Toho. Rather, I want to share how striking and affirming it is to see people living meaningful, comfortable lives without cars and televisions and supermarkets (and thus without consuming the resources these modern conveniences necessitate). It is invigorating to meet people who know where their food comes from and how to grow it. People who build their own houses and create their own music. And yet, it is almost universally assumed that the logical progression for Toho and Madumana is to “develop” and to join the rapidly globalizing world. It is not difficult for me to imagine how that will affect the villages and the villagers. Farmers will shift from subsistence farming intended to feed their families and their livestock to cash cropping. Young people will flood into cities that are growing too quickly to absorb the influx as farm work becomes more mechanized. Modern conveniences and technologies will stream in, followed closely by modern problems and pathologies. Local customs, cultural traditions, languages and dialects will recede as villagers discover the addictive qualities of General Hospital and Survivor.

There are of course positives that are brought forth by this process, such as improved access to health care education. But my focus today is on what is often lost in the process we call globalization: diversity.

Several years ago, I wrote a research paper on linguistic diversity in the European Union. The EU, like the rest of the world, is seeing its linguistic diversity plummet. There are many reasons for this; mass media, advances in travel and communications, etc. But what it boils down to is that as scale increases (in terms of governance, business, etc.), diversity becomes increasingly costly and cumbersome. Over half of the EU’s annual budget, for example, goes towards translation, interpretation, and printing to accommodate the union’s 11 official languages (This was as of 2000. After new expansions, the number of official languages and associated costs have likely increased). Yet there are still native speakers of over 30 major languages in Europe that cannot read the rules that govern them in their own tongue. From there it is a slippery slope towards linguistic irrelevence and eventual extinction. The EU is struggling to strike a balance between the efficiency of communication and the richness and diversity of human expression.

With regards to the global market and sustainability, we are witnessing a similar, and very serious, tension of extremes. Markets expand as those participating in them homogenize their practices and preferences (this is the aim of the IMF and WTO’s “structural adjustment”). Natural systems, on the other hand, have always flourished through diversity. Markets favor short-term gain, whereas natural systems lend themselves to long-term sustainability. My concern is that we are dangerously out of balance in this respect. The logic of the market has become so dominant that it is threatening to pave over, in a blink of geological time, the biological, cultural, and agricultural diversity that have been developed by both man and the natural world through the millennia. My regard for Madumana and Toho is not merely sentimental. They are not Utopias, but they offer us lessons in how to live more lightly and perhaps more sanely. But they are lessons we must learn quickly, because such villages are disappearing into our increasingly homogenized global economic system at an alarming rate. Sustainability is place specific. There is no “one size fits all”. Thus we should not be looking for models to emulate, but for principles that can be applied anywhere. In terms of sustainable living, the world is busily burning down its libraries of Alexandria and plunging itself into ignorance. We need to treasure and revere the volumes which still exist.

The thoughts I've shared on this topic are greatly simplified and perhaps provocative, so I would love to hear your questions or comments. Until next time, be well!

A day at the farm: September 8

Greetings all,
I'd like to invite you to roll up your sleeves for a day of workshops, good food, and good people at the UCSC Farm and Garden. I'll be giving a short class on agroecology followed by a potluck lunch, skill workshops, and farm tours. Family and friends, friends of friends, friends of family, family of friends... all are welcome! I suspect that many of you won't be able to make it due to minor logistical challenges (i.e. you don't live in this hemisphere). Your presence will be missed!

The tentative schedule for the day is as follows:
9:45am: Arrive at the farm
10:00am: Interactive class on agroecology and food systems
12:00pm: Potluck lunch
1:00pm: Skill workshops
2:30pm: Farm tour

Everyone is invited to attend all or selected events. As the date approaches, I will send more detailed information as to workshops, class content, parking, etc. If possible, please RSVP by August 20. If you know what you would like to bring for the potluck, include it in your response on the evite so that others can plan accordingly. There will also be some dishes with food fresh from the fields. If you did not receive an evite but would like to attend the event, please email me at morse.chad@gmail.com.

I look forward to seeing many of you and sharing with you this very inspiring place!

All the best,
Chad