Who Knew Vegetable Gardens Could Be So Revolutionary?
April 07, 2014
Story at-a-glance
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In the 21st century, as increasing numbers of people are
becoming fed up with industrial agriculture, dissenting from
our monopolized food system by planting your own backyard
garden may be the only path to good health and freedom
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Growing your own food is the way of the future, ironically,
by getting back to our foundational roots of
self-sufficiency and oneness with nature
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You can influence your health, biological diversity, and
protect the environment by planting nutrient-dense foods in
your yard (or in containers on your patio)
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2014 has been designated the International Year of Family
Farming to bring attention and recognition to the family
farmers that are helping to nourish the world
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Initiatives are also underway around the globe to protect
agricultural traditions, encourage youth to engage in
sustainable farming, and reconnect people to the sources of
their food
By Dr. Mercola
In the US, backyard vegetable gardens are still viewed mostly
as a hobby – an activity that you can engage in to get away from
your daily grind, get your hands dirty, and spend some time in
nature.
But this is rapidly changing, thanks to a growing movement of
people who are not only in love with the process of gardening
but also the literal fruits of their labor.
Yes, homegrown food is fresher, tastier and, often, more
nutritious than produce shipped from across the globe. But
gardening is much grander than that, as it puts you in control
of a commodity that is, at its very essence, survival,
freedom, and health. Growing your own food is
the way of the future, ironically, by getting back to
our foundational roots of self-sufficiency and oneness with
nature.
It's Time to Start Planting Your 21st Century Victory Garden
During World War II, many foods, including butter, eggs,
coffee, meat, and sugar, were rationed by the government. There
were also labor and transportation shortages that made it
difficult for enough fresh produce to be brought to the market.
And so the government called on Americans to plant "victory
gardens" in order to supply their own fruits and vegetables.
It's inspiring to look back on now, as close to 20 million
Americans planted produce in every nook and cranny they could
find, from rooftops and empty lots to their own backyards and
they grew 40 percent of the produce in the US. Neighbors began
to work together, planting varying crops and forming food
cooperatives to share their harvests with one another.
Unfortunately, when the war ended so, too, did many
Americans' gardening efforts. Today, Americans largely tend to
their lawns – all 35 million acres of them.1
New York Times author Michael Pollan was one of the
first to tackle the absurdity of the pursuit of lush green
lawns.
Pollan says these are a "symbol of everything that's wrong
with our relationship to the land" – over environmentally
friendly and productive landscapes like vegetable gardens,
meadows, or orchards.
Unlike a vegetable garden, which gives back in the form of
fresh produce and a symbiotic relationship with soil, insects,
and wildlife, a lawn gives nothing, yet requires significant
chemical treatments and meticulous mowing and watering to stay
within society's confines of what a properly "manicured lawn"
should be.
New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman has
pointed out that if only 10 percent of Americans converted lawns
into food-producing gardens, it would supply one-third of
America's fresh produce.2
That's quite impressive… revolutionary even.
In the 21st century, as increasing numbers of people are
growing fed up with industrial agriculture, dissenting from our
monopolized food system by planting your own backyard garden may
be the only path to good health… and freedom. As TreeHugger
reported:3
"Thomas Jefferson was a gardening enthusiast, but his
passion for growing food went beyond his own backyard.
Apparently he believed that America was incapable of
true democracy unless 20 percent of its citizens were
self-sufficient on small farms. This would enable
them to be real dissenters, free to voice opinions and
beliefs, without any obligation to food producers who might
hold their survival at stake.
During World War II, Americans rallied together to
grow vast acres of victory gardens that ended up supplying
40 percent of the nation's wartime food supply – an
astonishingly large quantity of produce in a relatively
short period of time, when you stop to think about it.
Sadly, in 2014, we are further than ever from that
self-sufficient ideal that Jefferson hoped for. By contrast,
Americans now tend 35 million acres of lawn (approximately
54,000 square miles). Lawns are the biggest 'crop' in the
U.S., covering an area three times greater than corn, and
yet they are essentially horticultural deserts, with nothing
for little pollinators to find but fatal pesticides."
2014 Is the International Year of Family Farming
Growing your own garden or participating in a community
garden is a great way to improve your health, help build a
sustainable food system, and support our planet as it struggles
to make room for increasing numbers of us. Food grown in your
own garden is fresher, more nutritious, and tastes better than
store-bought food—and you can't beat the price!
Urban gardens are key to saving energy, protecting water
quality and topsoil, promoting biodiversity, and beautifying
both densely populated communities and rural areas. Remember,
plants are our richest source of
natural medicine. You can become your family's own "farm"
quite easily. Most people are shocked at how much produce can be
harvested even from relatively small spaces.
On a global scale, the United Nations has designated 2014 as
the International Year of Family Farming to bring attention and
recognition to the family farmers that are helping to nourish
the world. There are more than 500 million family farmers
worldwide. Such farms, which are less than two hectares (or
about five acres) in size, amount to:4
- 200 million farms in China
- 117 million farms in India
- 33 million farms in sub-Saharan Africa
The good news is that small farms are actually increasing
around the globe, giving hope that our planet may begin to heal
from the assault of industrial agriculture, which is water
intensive, erodes soil far faster than it can be replenished,
and creates an abundance of corn, wheat, and soy – not
nutrient-dense, diverse crops.
Small farmers are unique also in that they adapt to work with
the land and the conditions that nature gives them – something
that is vital to growing food for the planet's population.
According to a Food Tank report:5
"Whereas large commercial farms tend to be
predominant in high potential yield areas, smallholder
farmers and family farmers are often the stewards of
marginal lands, and use their knowledge and abilities to
sustain production under challenging circumstances.
Not only are smallholder farmers in a unique position
to contribute to the global food supply, but empowering
smallholder and family farmers is a vital step toward
improving nutrition, increasing incomes, protecting and
enhancing biodiversity, enhancing soil quality, conserving
water, and mitigating and adapting to climate change."
You Can Single-Handedly Create a Healthier Diet for Your Family
As Food Tank put it, "all farmers can have a direct impact on
nutrition through the crops that they choose to grow and
consume," and this is true even if your "farming" extends only
to a few containers on your patio.
Traditionally, women in many cultures have been in charge of
maintaining family gardens, and through their choices of crops
can directly impact their family's nutrition as well as support
biological diversity in their communities. Of course, men, too,
can take on this role – it doesn't matter what your gender is,
only that you're willing to get your hands dirty.
You can be, in essence, your own "family farm" and in so
doing help to protect indigenous crop varieties while boosting
your health. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) of the United Nations, about 75 percent of plant genetic
resources have disappeared, and another third of crop
biodiversity may be gone by 2050!6
It is therefore crucial that small farms take back control of
crop variety and plant more nutrient-dense crops in lieu of the
fields of corn, wheat, and soy. And in your own backyard, you
can start to do this by replacing your lawn with food-producing,
and other native, plants. It is becoming abundantly clear that
farms embracing crop diversity and integrated systems of
agriculture are the solution to sustainable farming of the
future. Food Tank explained:7
"Studies from Bioversity International and FAO show
that smallholder farmers utilize farming practices that
preserve biodiversity -- not just for its own sake -- but
also because cultivating a wide variety of species helps
insulate farmers against the risk of plant disease, and crop
diversity promotes soil health and increases yields.
In addition, utilizing integrated farming systems, in
which a smallholder farmer produces grains, fruits and
vegetables, and animal products, can be between four and ten
times more productive than large-scale, monoculture
operations. Yield advantages for polyculture operations —
farms growing multiple crops in the same space — are between
20 and 60 percent."
10 Innovative Food Projects Connecting People with Their Food
and Protecting Traditional Agriculture
There's no doubt that many Americans have lost touch with
where their food comes from. Meanwhile, many farmers are aging
and among younger generations, farming isn't exactly considered
a viable career option. This could spell disaster for the future
of food, but it seems the tide may be turning here as well.
Interest in locally produced food is increasing, as are exciting
programs that encourage youth to choose sustainable agriculture
as a hobby, passion, and career. Ten such projects that do just
that, while also helping to put people back in touch with where
their food comes from, include:8
1. Developing Innovations in School and Community
Cultivation (Uganda): This program teaches students
about local food, traditional cooking, and how to improve
their diets and agricultural techniques.
2. Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYF2) (US):
These local markets strengthen regional food systems, and
help to give both new and experienced farmers opportunities
for sales while teaching consumers about the origins of
their food.
3. Tackling the Agriculture-Nutrition Disconnect
(India): An information platform to share knowledge
about nutrition, health, and agriculture with the long-term
goal of building a nutrition knowledge and innovations
network in India.
4. Fresh! From Finland: A campaign to
encourage the use of local food in schools while teaching
children about food origins and culinary traditions.
5. The Center for Foods of the Americas (Latin
America): This effort travels through 21 countries
to catalogue local ingredients, recipes, and street food to
preserve Latin American cuisine.
6. Manna From Our Roof (Italy): This
program teaches youth to growth their own food – from "field
to fork" – including taking the product to market, using
urban roof gardens.
7. The Prettiest Kitchen Gardens (Hungary):
This initiative encourages Hungarians to grow food in lieu
of flowers to revive the once-popular kitchen garden
tradition.
8. The Binational Center for the Development of
Oaxacan Indigenous Communities (US): A group
created by Oaxacan mothers to preserve and strengthen
indigenous food culture through publishing recipes,
workshops, classes, and more.
9. The European Council for Young Farmers
(Europe): A program to support young farmers,
strengthen rural areas, and protect agricultural and
cultural traditions.
10. USAID Kenya Dairy Sector Competitiveness
Program: A program that aims to transfer knowledge
from Kenya's older retiring farmers to the youth in order to
preserve and develop dairy skills.
'Permanent Agriculture' Is Sustainable Agriculture: Wendell
Berry
Farmer, activist, and writer Wendell Berry has spoken out
about the importance of local farming and environmental
preservation for decades. In 1977, his book The Unsettling
of America: Culture and Agriculture spoke out against
industrial agriculture before local farming was all the rage.
Last month, in an interview with Yale Environment 360, he once
again spoke about the importance of maintaining our ties with
nature and how, so far, the US has done little in the way of
truly sustainable farming. He speaks about Kentucky, but his
words could easily apply to much of the US:9
"By the time settlement reached Kentucky it was 1775,
and the industrial revolution was already underway. So we've
been 238 years in Kentucky, we Old World people. And what we
have done there in that time has not been sustainable. In
fact, it has been the opposite. There's less now of
everything in the way of natural gifts, less of everything
than what was there when we came. Sometimes we have
radically reduced the original gift. And so for Americans to
talk about sustainability is a bit of a joke, because we
haven't sustained anything very long — and a lot of things
we haven't sustained at all.
The acreage that is now under the influence of the
local food effort or the sustainable agriculture effort is
at present tiny, and industrial agriculture is blasting
ahead at a great rate. For instance, in the last two years,
the high price of corn and soybeans has driven that kind of
agriculture into the highly vulnerable uplands of my home
country. I can show you farms that in my lifetime have been
mostly in grass that are now suddenly covered, line fence to
line fence, with monocultures of corn or beans… So we have
these two things, a promising start on what we call,
loosely, sustainable land use, and we have a still far
larger industrial extractive agriculture operating, really,
against the land."
Berry, along with Wes Jackson of the Land Institute, has
offered a solution in the form of a 50-year farm bill. Unlike
the typical US Farm Bill, which favors industrial farming and
monocultures of corn, soy, and grains, the 50-year farm bill
proposes a gradual transition from annual crops (corn, beans,
etc.) to "permanent" perennial crops and cover – a necessity to
stop soil erosion and protect diversity. He explains:
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"…the 50-Year Farm Bill attempts to address the real
and ongoing problems of agriculture: erosion, toxicity, loss
of genetic and species diversity, and the destruction of
rural communities, or the destruction, where it still
survives, of the culture of husbandry. It begins with the
fact that at present, 80 percent of the land is planted
annually in annual crops such as corn and beans, and 20
percent in perennials.
It proposes a 50-year program for the gradual
inversion of that ratio to 80 percent perennial cover and 20
percent annuals. It's pretty clear that annual plants are
nature's emergency service. They're the plants that come in
after, say, a landslide, after the land has been exposed,
and they give it a temporary cover while the perennials are
getting started. So our predominantly annual agriculture
keeps the land in a state of emergency …It's hard to make a
permanent agriculture on the basis of an emergency
strategy."
Bringing a Bit of Farming to Your Own Backyard
Virtually everyone can bring out their own inner farmer by
starting a garden. It may seem like an inconsequential move in
the grand scheme of things, but if even a minority of people
begin to produce some of their own food, it can make a drastic
difference for the environment and your health (not to mention
freeing you from reliance on a broken food system).
You don't need vast amounts of space either. Even apartment
dwellers can create a well-stocked edible garden, as you can use
virtually every square foot of your space to grow food,
including your lateral space. Hanging baskets are ideal for a
wide variety of crops, such as strawberries, leafy greens,
runner beans, pea shoots, tomatoes, and a variety of herbs. And
instead of flowers, window boxes can hold herbs, greens,
radishes, scallions, bush beans, strawberries, chard, and
chiles, for example.
Just start small, and as you get the hang of it, add another
container of something else. To learn more, please see my
previous article on creating
edible gardens in small spaces. Before you know it, large
portions of your meals could come straight from your own edible
garden. I recommend getting your feet wet by
growing sprouts. If you want to jump right in outdoors,
Better Homes & Gardens has a free
All-American Vegetable Garden Plan that can be put into a
6x6 area. It's a great starting point for beginners.
You can also visit a few local plant nurseries around your
home, especially those that specialize in
organic gardening. The employees are likely to be a great
resource for natural planting tips that will help your garden
thrive. If you prefer not to garden, for whatever reason, then
you can still jump on board the sustainable agriculture movement
by frequenting farmer's markets and small farms in your area.
The idea is to get as most food as you can from your family
farms or your own backyard, as every meal that comes from a
sustainable source is one less produced by the destructive force
of industrial agriculture.
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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