Organic versus conventional farming, incorporating our intuition, and growing at home.

This article about organic versus conventional farming recently became a topic of discussion in our South African Agroecology group. It is a meta-analysis of a lot of other research, none based in Africa. The lack of African context means that we have to be tentative about drawing any conclusions. Nevertheless, it’s a carefully crafted article worth reading.

The simplified message from the meta-analysis is that from a climate change perspective, it’s more important to switch to a largely plant-based diet than to switch to organic farming methods. Transitioning to a more plant-based diet seems a pretty important and non-controversial finding, and one that may even be transferable to an African context. At the same time, adding context to agroecological and organic practices may provide some granularity about their possible contribution.

As articles like this one flow into the world, into shorter and shorter bytes, their message gets flattened and often becomes a reason for us to do whatever it was we already wanted to do. But what humans are doing, collectively, isn’t working, for human health or for planetary health. We know change is coming, voluntarily or not.

We have an in-built desire to be right and have the right perspective on the world, and we’re faced with more data than we can reasonably process. When faced with more complex data than we can work with, our intuition steps in. I apologise if that sounds a bit fluffy. Our intuition is a proxy for our subconscious, which can handle vastly more data than our conscious mind.

Intuitively, even the author of the article really wants organic farming to be better for the environment, and is almost apologetic about her findings. Because there is something about a certain way of farming that inherently feels better to us. Perhaps it is actually that the type of organic farming, that involves a 1:1 commercial scale substitution of organic inputs for inorganic ones, isn’t quite what we should collectively be aiming for.

Better farming is probably more than just large-scale organic

Yet the type of bucolic better, small scale farming also feels fairly fantastical, especially on the scale of our whole planet. People are moving into cities! Farming is becoming more and more mechanised and scientific, and fewer people are used to growing significant nutrients and calories.

Feeding the planet starts with one meal for one person

Whereas we want to know what is right for everyone, everywhere, what about if we start from the perspective of what is right for ourselves, our family, our community? And what about if we begin to shrink the timescale to today, this meal, right now?

At this scale, if we can begin to slow down and trust ourselves a bit more, the whole world might just shift, meal by meal. If we can feel the full scope of a meal- from the person across the world who harvested with a combine, and even empathise with the farmer, we may begin to know what to eat, when. If we somehow connect to the experience of the chicken, fish, pig or cow, perhaps we will know when and how, if ever, to consume animal products. If we allow ourselves to feel again, we may well eat differently.

There is no perfect diet, but growing takes you on a journey

If we focus on something as vague and impossible as feeding ourselves completely from our own garden, or feeding ourselves 100% ethically, etc, I fear we doom ourselves to a life of hypocrisy.

Instead, we can just focus on growing the next seed or seedling, and just focus on what we can do to make our next meal a little better. I am always surprised by what is available and what is possible— from weeds to waste— and it is always possible to do something tiny, today.

Eventually your tiny choices turn into a life

A few years ago we realised that the scale of our bean growing would not provide significant protein or calories to a growing family, but bulk purchased beans (and sorghum) might change our diet. At the time, we didn’t actually eat beans. But we dutifully bought a couple 100kg of beans, and stored them safely in large sealed buckets.

At first we didn’t do much with the buckets. They went very slowly. But then something shifted, almost invisibly, and it became part of routine to soak and cook them every day. The tiny choices compounded, as they had in our growing. And the tiny choices impacted neighbours and friends, and so it grows.

Grow some swisschard, share some spinach, and just keep allowing yourself your feelings about your very next meal. Who knows where it will lead. Have a wonderful week!

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