Revival Farming

hardwoods & heirloom cacao

I don't want to be a farmer. Not in the conventional sense. Hard labor, tiny margins, hot sun, rural isolation, and beholden to the great whims of the climate and economic market sounds is a personalized hell. I can't work knowing that I'm depleting soil fertility. I detest work that is futile, not to mention destructive long term. I cringe just writing it.

But I was wrong. Not to say that these conditions don't exist. I was wrong to think that 'farming' is limited. While history may show a majority of farming generations as endless tillers of the Earth, in the privilege of hindsight, we were doing it all wrong. We don't have to farm that way. Farmers are already doing it better. 

I'm learning to be a farmer whose farm grows endlessly. That's unconventional. When I put in hard labor, there is lasting value, for myself, for others, for nature. Farmers can work hard now to build out a beautiful landscape rich in food, trees and beneficial critters that together as a whole is self-maintaining. This is done by using a different mindset from the get-go. A mind that looks towards setting up an economic and ecological system that keeps the farmer independent of the changes in climate and market prices. It means basing farming on land-appropriate tree and perennial crops, not annual foods that require endless repetition of the same farming practices that have been shown to degradate our planet over time.

Where after the great effort of restoring the land is complete, hard work thereafter is a sign that something is out of whack. Tending and harvesting can be minimal. Nature grows on its own. Your job is to let it help you.

Land is managed in three buckets: agriculture, conservation and restoration.

By combining all three purposes, land use can be optimized. Grow food (agriculture) among a biodiversity of species within a protected habitat (conservation) which has been restored to imitate the former ecosystem (restoration).

If one man can plant a forest the size of Central Park on a desert, what can a few thousand do?

Resilient food systems -- ones that are self-maintaining and adaptable human needs and changes in the environment -- are needed to increase the planet's carrying capacity and feed a growing population, even in drastically changing weather conditions. Natural resources are abundant; the challenge is changing the way we use them without destroying the natural system that creates them. Fortunately, resilient farms producing abundant food and biodiversity exist, and the link between them are farmers who use ecology to their advantage. They are not just farming, they are farming ecosystems.

  Standard farming methods impose constraints on the ecological landscape, which devastates soil quality. This results in lower food yields, increased costs, and a reliance on damaging chemicals such as toxic pesticides. These constrained approaches to producing food are responsible for 75% of our world’s deforestation and 19-29% annual GHG emissions. We are shooting ourselves in the foot by destroying our resources when much more efficient systems exist.

  When farms use technology based on ecology, resources are utilized more efficiently. These farms have higher yields, lower costs and don’t have to rely on additives such as pesticides, toxins or GMO seeds. Carbon is sequestered (absorbed by plants and soil) and trees are regrown as an integral part of the food system. These farms are adaptable, self-maintaining systems that regenerate their own fertile soil. Moreover, these principles can be applied anywhere, from a giant commercial farm to your own backyard garden.