One of the aspects about class that I found most intriguing this week was our discussion of permaculture and how it could potentially be the way forward in the agricultural sector. Masanobu Fukuoka in The One Straw Revolution discusses how he had resisted the “natural way” of farming for an alternative and using the indigenous plants of the area. However, what peaked my fascination was when we were discussing how to change farming to more of a permaculture type of global agriculture. In my view, this will not happen anytime soon and will not influence large-scale corporate agricultural.
Agriculture produces more food than the world can consume but as we move forward with an increasing number of humans living on earth, food will become even more vital. The continent of Africa has the most room for growth, and as economies and technology develop in the third world countries, infant mortality will decrease and general health will rise. The UN has reported that the number of people living on the continent of Africa will double by the year 2050.With the spike in population growth, it will be even more imperative to be able to feed all of the people across the world. While the idea of permaculture is a great concept on a much smaller scale would be a terrific idea, the notion that this could be extrapolated across the globe is not feasible. The growing population of the world will already stress the amount of food that we can produce and the switch to permaculture will not remedy that. Instead, I believe that a hybrid between big agriculture and permaculture should be the philosophy moving forward.
One of the worst things that is happening in agriculture is that the technology of some of the more prominent companies such as Monsanto has caused there to be a revolutionary arms race between plants and weeds. With the “Roundup Ready” seeds that have been introduced, meaning that the plants are immune to the chemical roundup to treat weeds. These seeds were supposed to assist in eliminating weeds, but they have actually caused the weeds to develop a resistance to chemicals. Thus, Monsanto has created what has been deemed the “superweed” that cannot be killed by chemicals and can wipe out an entire crop. I thought that when Fukuoka described the barley and white clover growing in the fields as natural barriers for the weeds that this could be the solution. Coming from an extremely rural area, I began thinking if this would be possible in almond orchards, corn, tomatoes and other fields. I began contemplating and the more I could imagine putting in these plants to deter weeds from destroying crops. This has already started to be done on our family farm as we have begun to plant wheat between the rows and just let it control the weeds. Also, we do not harvest the wheat and let it decompose and create soil hummus that Fukuoka describes.
I think it is important to recognize that this is not a choice we have to make in favor of one over the other. Instead, to see it as a joint effort that can help restore indigenous plants back into the ecosystem and to allow agriculture to be able to produce more and more food for a growing population.
