The Right to Grow Your Own Food and Live Within Your Carbon Footprint

In which we find that it is wintertime in roborigine's mind, or, perhaps, the dark night of the soil..

(Some one thought of this pun first, an interesting mix of spirituality and agriculture.)

  [Warning:  this post may contain occasional exaggeration for dramatic effect.]  

Once there was a moral imperative to live sustainably; it was before there began to be any talk about global warming, or industrial pollution-mediated climate change.  It was just the way things were done.  How long ago was this?

Here is a link to an amazing organization, 

Grassroots International (Funding Global Movements 

for Social Change).  Food Sovereignty is one of the issues 

they are working on.

It was just before the industrial revolution began -- before a surface of dark-coloured false stone blanketed every spare inch of our cities and every highway in between.  When roads were still dusty, tomatoes tasted like tomatoes and water came from a well not a tap.

A great image of the way we live today comes from the Ringing Cedars of Russia books.  What if you woke up one morning and went out to your orchard to pick an apple -- from your tree -- and..

You found a large queue of people standing in your way.  That will be 7 dollars a kilo, the first one tells you.  It includes storage, shipping, wholesale and retail mark-up, plus tax and environmental levy.  Actually, they're on special today!  You look down the line and see it is true.  There really is a chain of accountants, truck drivers, forklift operators and a farmer (complete with a tractor).  All between you and your food -- nodding in agreement with the clerk who wanted to sell you -- your apple.

How hungry are you -- can you afford to walk away.  It must seem quite funny.  Funnier still, if it were not true.

Are they trespassing on your land all these people -- or just doing their jobs.  As far as they know, the reality that I have described is absolutely necessary.  For they must earn their "bread" so that they can each take their turn standing in the supermarket checkout queue for whatever they each may be hungry for.

So you decide to speak with the farmer.  He will be the most sensible, you surmise.  What do you grow -- what do you farm here in my orchard (you are humouring him; he has a large family).  Just carbon really, he says.  I get subsidised for that.  It's a grant.  For every tonne of carbon I return to the soil there is a set payment.

http://www.carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au/About/what-is-carbon-farming

That was then, http://www.countrycarbon.com.au/index.php/category/carbon-farm-initiative/

This is now http://www.daff.gov.au/climatechange/carbonfarmingfutures

I can farm carbon you say to yourself.  I could get a carbon-farming grant to live sustainably as I would like to.  But really would I need a grant for this if I was living sustainably.  Actually (if I just grew carbon) I would still have to spend the grant on some one else's apples, so what's the point?

The next farmer to him grows meat.  You don't eat it.  But still you must try to understand what has happened.  In your orchard.  You see, he tells you, there isn't enough land under cultivation for every one today to eat vegetables.  (A sensible argument really; you can't have every one switching to vegetarianism or veganism all of a sudden if there's not enough cole slaw and tofu to go around.)  But I don't wish to murder any animals to put food on my table you reply.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2005/12/1209_051209_crops_map.html

Farming claims 40% of earth's land surface up from 7% in 1700.

LAND USE CHANGES during past 300 years:  

 http://www.eolss.net/ebooks/Sample%20Chapters/C19/E1-05-01-04.pdf

Mini farms are generally more productive and earth friendly- but how many small private farms are left?

http://www.growbiointensive.org/index.html

"Small farms, which produce most of the world's food, are currently squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world's farmland .. "

http://www.grassrootsonline.org/news/articles/hungry-land

Does the broccoli enjoy being decapitated for your purposes?  The man asks you.  That wasn't my point you remind him.  It used to be my orchard.  The animals had a purpose, but I needed them alive to help me here. Some of them became my friends!  And you can pick from a plant without killing it -- this is possible, just as animals give us their milk and eggs (and honey) and survive to feed their offspring (and make more).

Next.  There is a store manager, who is conferring with a supermarket CEO (well it could happen).  They are too busy to be interrupted, so you can continue along the chain.  Next!  You spy a health food store clerk.  This charming young person extols the virtues of supplements -- for the modern lifestyle.  Of course, you should also have a water filter, ancient grains, maca, acai and goji berries and a wheat grass smoothie (from a machine) to keep your strength up.  But I just wanted an apple.  My apple, from my tree!  You say inwardly, nodding at the sage advice and taking a glossy brochure with a picture of a healthy person drinking a glass of juice.

 Apple cider vinegar.

Your hunger is building, but you have not passed all the way down the line -- and the tree seems to be getting further and further away.  It is my right to own land; it is my right to grow my own food -- you repeat this mantra and actually start to feel better.  Here is the newsagent.  I could use one of those magazines on self-sufficient gardening you realise.  It will keep me occupied reading about what I did before -- I woke up to this!  Or am I still dreaming you wonder?

 https://www.facebook.com/GrassRootsAust

 Australia's versions of dachniks' magazines!  (Both recommended.) 

 http://www.earthgarden.com.au/

You spy an acquaintance who seems to have a clue.  It's your carbon footprint, he says.  (He always says this.)  It has gotten too large.  In a way this is all your fault!  Do as I do -- and I guarantee it will only be a short bike trip to that tree (on the roadside, but has good apples, some years).  I prefer to walk, you say.

http://brudaimonia.blogspot.com.au/2007/05/ten-easy-ways-to-reduce-your-ecological.html

Herald of Sustainability's Springtime.  Some simple suggestions.
 ~

It has been proposed that if every one changed 3 things
(relating to their carbon emissions)
it would make all the difference.

~

http://cotap.org/carbon-footprint-calculator/

Calculate it, and offset it.

But what does it mean? This.   It tells us kilograms of carbon dioxide 

we are responsible for emitting.

What about ecological footprint?  (*See quote below.)  That is, 

how much land we actually consume or impact in our daily living.

(*) WWF’s Living Planet Report 2010 found that in 2007 the global ecological footprint was 18 billion hectares.  

This means that the Earth’s people needed 18 billion hectares of productive land in order to provide each and every person with the resources they required to support their lifestyle and to absorb the wastes they produced.  

The bad news is that there were only 11.9 billion global hectares available.

Then we ask again, how much do we actually 

require for our physical survival?  [See previous post.]

As your hunger increases, your mind begins to race.  You have successfully resisted junk food and cola (or energy drinks with fries) and feel better for it.  This helps, but you still need an apple.  Oh - ho. Now we are getting closer.  Here is an organic mail order nursery where you can buy a heritage apple, grafted of course.  The specimen looks a bit weak (it is a dwarfing variety -- you have ordered it and received it, because you love apples and could wait long enough).

 A very good apple (tree) supplier in Tasmania.

http://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au/wft/

A few years later, the apple is yours.  You paid the price and you got it.  Even grew it!  It is in a moveable container because you still hope to settle somewhere with enough space to plant it.  Where was my orchard you wonder -- and why can't all these people grow their own apples -- it would be far simpler than what they are doing.  You talk to one of the people in the line, which is by now endless, going from horizon to smoggy horizon.  She gives you a reason.  It's not just about apples, she says.  We also need cars.  Why?  To get to work of course.  But you said..  (You had to work to buy the car.)  Nevermind.  Some things really don't grow on trees.

Defusing the Population - Density - Bomb

This is a sister post to the previous (Where Does Land Come From?)  You were expecting maybe another Right?  They are inseparable as the notion of available land is intimately linked to the number of people who wish to use it.

  (No date provided.) 

[Still] not ready to address the matter of Australia's ideal population.  (I like children and migrants, economic or otherwise.)  However, I am interested in the subject of what is a desirable level of population density.

This discussion may help, with a few facts.

The overall density of earth's population in (2011) 
was 
54 people per square kilometer
 (0.54 per hectare).

This excludes Antarctica. 

Total land area being 130 million square kilometers
 (13 billion hectares).
And the earth's population reached 7 billion in 2011.

  This article from http://www.bioticregulation.ru  
  explains our right  

  to space as a biological, territorial imperative.  

Upper red square indicates our biological range; 

lower one is our actual amount of personal space.

  Viewing us as another biological creature  

  (all other species do not rely on fossil  

  fuel for their energy), we need 4 square kilometers  

  per individual.  This only means, as animals, there  

  should be 32.5 million of us!  Our current  

  world population speaks very well for our social skills  

  [and resourcefulness] in that case.  

From objective census figures, Australia's population lives

 mostly (about 85%) within 50 km of the shoreline. Is this figure increasing or not? 

It seems to be, percentage-wise and relative to the rest of the continent. 

(Most of the growth is in capital cities, and these tend to be coastal!)

Good news for our marine friends?

That may be the normal human instinct to flee drought and seek water – which is where human civilisations have always positioned themselves.  [But it may be something else too.]   In Australia, the move toward water does not correlate with a move toward increased food production.   Because most of our food (animal and vegetable) is produced in the drier more rural (aka regional) areas.

And these are the areas that are growing in population more slowly or not at all (even in reverse – losing in numbers).  And ageing, because younger people are leaving and older people are moving in.

[Ref article from link in previous post.]

Here we have the most urbanised and arguably beach-obsessed nation on earth. In all fairness, new arrivals to any country do tend to settle in cities – migrants of all stripes go there for social, cultural and economic reasons – not wishing to venture forth into less-inhabited regions.   [Shows what a new country we are.]   In our history, emancipists (newly freed convicts who'd completed their prison terms) were given land to live on.   But farming proved – either because the terrain was too unfamiliar, or they lacked the skills in the first place – too difficult leading to episodes of near starvation.

The Fatal Shore, difficult reading for any one with half a heart!

This opened the door to others who wished to buy them out (engaging in land speculation from the early days of the fledgling colony), and of course the the former “farmers” had nowhere to go but to the cities (or city) to seek their fame and fortune.

Note close relationship with Australia's population map (top of post).

  The problem with arid places isn't just lack of water.  

  It's lack of trees/vegetation.  

How do we then demonstrate the possibility of living in less populated, more arid, often semi-fertile areas and [the possibility of] producing food simultaneously with a satisfying level of culture and social interaction and economic (!) sustenance? (!)

  Here we have some people who are part of the solution.  

  [Links to a short video, and similar videos.]  

  You can also read about them here, with related articles.  

 

Mongolian couple turns desert into oasis.

EARTH VISION The 10th Tokyo Global Environmental Film Festival@ featured,

Madame Yin Yuzhen, the Hero of Desert Control in Jingbeitang 

China/18min./2001

"over the last 28 years
 the couple have planted over 600,000 trees, 
covering 1,600 hectares."

(They started in 1985.)

My belief is that mass-consciousness level decision-making can only really occur one individual choice at a time.

8 LESSONS TO HELP YOU PREPARE FOR YOUR EARTHSHIP BUILD

There may be more numerous opportunities to own land and fulfil the dream of lower density, lower impact, stress-free lifestyle away from cities – in precisely those same regional, marginally fertile and less well-watered areas of the continent!

That are being deserted, abandoned.

Earth ships, invented by Michael Reynolds

 (as seen in the Garbage Warrior film) are designed 

to cope with desert condition.  That means extremes of

hot and cold and very little water.  They can grow food 

inside them in specially engineered biological cells

 [wastewater recycling compartments].

The real key will be the social factor.   For although individuals must make their own choice, we still need the support of groups and families to embolden us when it comes to massive shifts in our lifestyle and consciousness.   Some one needs to go (and create!) first.  [Again, see Chris Cole post.]

Did I mention that earth ships are built from old tires?

Here is a building code written around their use.

(And check out their earth ship photos,

 you can feel the warmth inside and snow outside.)

We are challenged to re-invent society, creating those things – traditions, institutions and cultures that we would like to see (in the world, our lives) that don't already exist for our benefit.  We need to create! We need to be the creators of this.  It will not be done for us by various levels of government, but it will be done by us.

Members of government can follow, themselves benefiting in equal measure.



 Dig. The desert.

Create.  In the desert.

Julie Firth's 
Drylands Permaculture Farm 

(site has very interesting links) is well-placed
in Geraldton, WA, Australia

to re-invent our culture in an arid climate.

"Dryland regions cover over a third 
of the world's land surface and home to 
over 2 billion people, mostly in developing countries."

 Permaculture swales.  Desert.

 Life in the desert.

Back to population.

It is also my conviction that once a goodly portion of society has seen and aspires to the benefits of a lower density, non-urban lifestyle – it will be obvious and clear what levels of population can be sustained.

 (Copyrighted artwork by Karim Nafatni, visible here.) 

Urban Octopus

  Is this the bomb?  

For example, if the traditional size of family domains (homestead, living area) becomes 1 to 3 hectares

  Remember, the article above states humans might benefit from 400 hectares each!  

  That is the size I was imagining for a village!  

  Perhaps, being social animals, the village  
  offers us a virtual domain  
  allowing some extension and overlap 
  of each villager's home territory by means of the  
  common, or shared land.  

(depending on climate, water and soil fertility) – and the traditional size of each settlement is 100 or so family units (households) – and each settlement is built with a buffer zone around it equal to the width of the settlement (say 1 – 3 km or so) – then population is automatically limited by the number of niches actually available. 

The Russian dacha. 600 square meters. 

How many is this? It depends on our definition of habitable land. Nomads [see Songlines book] have chosen the extreme of arid land (Sahara, Mongolia, Outback Australia) – and by my calculations the ideal domain size for them approaches closer to infinity than the one hectare mark.

 Mongolian yurt or ger. 

Animal graziers in Australia have found this too (the pastoralists) – that the carrying capacity of arid land is far smaller than that of fertile/arable land. Hence we have cattle stations the size of Luxembourg on our continent

Human ingenuity truly know no bounds. After all, have not people inhabited the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) for millennia.  Question is, was their land always the way it is now.. 

  Libya, Sahara Desert.  

When it comes to family size, this is also an individual (really couples) level decision/choice.  From the point of view that society has now an average of 2.5 people per household  – and we imagine 100 households per settlement, that gives 250 people as a target for the desirable maximum of people who will live in close proximity to one another and (possibly) interact with each other on a daily basis.

   (100- 250)   

 [Refers to Dunbar's Number.] 

    

(There is some suggestion this is a humane [village] number that can be managed – by us from a sociological standpoint, group dynamics, etc.)

 Gallup poll, USA. 

From a balanced perspective, therefore, each family of 5 would need to be matched with an empty block or domain of 1 to 3 hectares (0 size household) to keep the average at 2.5.

     5     

     0     

And a single-person household would thus balance a family of 4, and a couple or single parent with one child would balance a family of 3.  (3 obviously a couple with one child or single parent with two.)

     4                                                      3     

     1                                                      2     

To carry this further, look at large families. Take two with 7 and 8 (total 15 souls).  This requires 4 empty hectare blocks (just as 9 and 6 together do) to average 2.5 people per block. And a family of 10 needs 3 empty blocks to balance it.



                8                                                     9                                                    10      
                7                                                     6                                                      0       
                0                                                     0                                                      0      
                0                                                     0                                                      0      
                0                                                     0     
                0                                                     0     

We are not even projecting human life-span (likely to increase when a healthy lifestyle prevails, as may a desire for more offspring).  But climate (and earth) changes that we are all familiar with are likely to put a natural ceiling on this.  (Nature has ways of handling us when we cannot manage ourselves!)

  Nature – our current terrestrial support system –  

  something I believe we can interact with, and that  

  we'll eventually come to a mutually beneficial  

  understanding with each other.  

We are also not projecting that those from large families (by my observation) are more likely to go on to produce large families themselves. [Interestingly, rural families today have larger families, but generally shorter life-spans.] There needs to be some sort of logic that works with instinct in our society to ensure we do not grow exponentially – and beyond our natural limit (carrying capacity).   It has been seen that humans (as other life forms) tend to fill up available space.

 Population, the elephant in the room. 

Does that mean that cities are life forms – (perhaps death form would be a better choice of words) – that sprawl as far as they can, devouring farm land, pushing farming families further into less arable areas as they go?

4,200 acre farm in Tennessee, USA.

We are here. We exist. The earth is here and it exists. We exist on the earth; it is ours and belongs to us. The notion that it does not, and that we must pay to take up space in our own home land is, well, preposterous.

Dialling back their judgement – as I have not –

 I feel future versions of ourselves will come to see our [land ownership]

 practices as outdated, unhelpful and this position

 [lack of real ownership] as untenable 

and not in any one's ultimate interest.

We are not dealing in absolute numbers [of people].

It is more about the relationship between how many people

 there are and the amount of land 

that can be successfully utilised.  

That and quality, rather than quantity of human life.

    If you love people, then plant trees.   

Where Does Land Come From?

When we stood watching the earth cool, from a molten, gaseous ball (not even perfectly round yet) who could have imagined this? We have a beautiful planet, its natural graces are many. So many places that are suitable for family homesteads – vast tracts of land from horizon to horizon.

And then people came. I'll use Australia as an example. Here is a country with a population smaller (much) than North America's on a continent of comparable size. When people come together – they compete for space – on footpaths – in shops – on roads and highways and of course in big cities. How could there not be enough space?

POPULATION DENSITY BY SA2, Australia - June 2013

(This source of the above and below figures 

details the factors affecting Australia's regional/ rural population.)

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/apmrc/pubs/policy-briefs/APMRC_Policy_Brief_Vol_1_3_2013.pdf

  Australian people live --  

   At an overall population density of  2-3  
  per square kilometer!  

   0.34 percent, on 84 percent of the land  
  (very low density areas).  

   82 percent, within 50 km of the coast.  

   89 percent, in cities.  

   90.5 percent, on 0.22 percent of the land  

  (high density areas).  

Of course, we have made it this way. But why. 

So, to get some land of your own – I'm not talking about an investment – not to exploit, mine, dig or contaminate – but to live on, to create a home for your family line (don't forget the ancestors!) what do we have to do?

This website [link] has some helpful hints on hoops and hurdles that may be jumped through and over if one understands the system and how it may be used to wrangle what is rightfully ours from those unwilling to give it away. That makes infinitely more sense than buying and selling – because to my tiny mind, that [the latter] only applies to things that people have made themselves, and possibly can carry away.

Following on from the above, this article, Land:  Challenge and Oportunity

 from the E. F. Schumacher Center for a New Economics collection

details one way that land can be put back in the hands of people.

A Community Land Trust (CLT) transfers land from the real estate 

market into a trust that is managed by people in that region.  

Robert Swann of the E F Schumacher Society developed 

the concept, inspired by Ralph Borsodi 

who worked with J. P. Narayan and Vinoba Bhave (disciples of Gandhi).

"Vinoba walked from village to village in rural India in the

 1950s and 1960s, gathering people together and asking those with more

 land than they needed to give a portion of it to their poorer 

sisters and brothers. The initiative

 was known as the Boodan or Land Gift movement, 

and many of India's leaders participated in these walks."

  An example of the Bhoodan - Land Gift Movement.  

LAFTI, Land for Tillers' Freedom (India) stems from a notion of Gandhi's

that land needed to be distributed fairly to promote economic growth in rural areas.

In the state of Tamil Nadu, LAFTI aids people in hundreds of villages.

(Specifically in the Nagapattinam and Thiruvarur districts.)

Krishnammal and her husband founded LAFTI in 1981.

The Land Gift Movement (Bhoodan), brainchild of Vinoba Bave, advocate of Village Community Ownership, involves landholders "voluntarily surrendering their land for community ownership".

This non-violent revolution been realised through Bhoodan and LAFTI campaigns.  

Thus far they have purchased (at a reasonable price) and leased (community trust land)

 4,450 hectares (11,000 acres) for families who would otherwise be landless.  

The above paraphrase comes from,

http://analienearthling.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/the-right-livelihood-award-part-1/ 

Krishnammal . . . Winner of the 2008 Right Livelihood Award

But we did make this land [refers to an aspect of creation of the earth that we participated in, for the soul is timeless (and wishes us to have a fine homeland!)]. Does that mean that real estate merchants are self realised mystics? Nice try! I hope that they may be – if they choose. However, I don't think this is the reason land is being sold to us.

  Dreaming the earth into existence. 

  http://taicarmen.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/adventures-in-aboriginal-dreamtime/  offers,  

  According to Aboriginal mythology, our world  
  (physical life on earth) was “dreamed” by the ancestor spirits who dwell in Dreamtime.  

  “The landscape is almost an externalisation of the individual’s inner world.  

  Each tribe had a traditional area of the land which was theirs alone,” notes dream scholar  
  Tony Crisp in his article “Australian Aboriginal Dream Beliefs.”   

Mutually – we have determined that space is scarce and that resources (aka finances) are limited. Whilst the habitable surface area of the planet is finite – that cannot be denied – we have complete choice in how it is apportioned. Creativity knows no bounds, and the means to create (abundance, that also means money) can flow as readily as the emotions and thoughts that drive said creativity.

Vladimir Megre, author of the Ringing Cedars of Russia books (from photo gallery).

So let's be more creative in imagining how our earth could be used for the good – for the benefit of all. It is really up to us. 

The image that has been created in the Ringing Cedars of Russia series [link], thanks to the creation and dreaming of one woman, Anastasia, is growing and gestating in the hearts of many. I have never seen, or come up with on my own such a positive and helpful approach to our (shared) future.  Both near and distant futures. But we all know it matters what we are doing right now [see Chris Cole post].

It is both clear and helpful [the book series]. It encapsulates complex and heady subjects (such as permaculture) in an intuitive, heartfelt fashion. Concepts need to flow through us freely (through important connections with our heart) to keep the accumulated burden of knowledge and detail from piling up and actually stifling action and creativity.

Each of us is a creator of our own part of earth. That needs to be owned and acknowledged. We do not need experts to interfere with our plans, because we are equal to the task at hand. Of course, it is fine to co-create with others, because not all have equal talents, skills, or identical puzzle pieces to offer. The main idea is that we are the creative force at work in our own unique centre of the universe. 

(Somehow, topologically, every place can simultaneously be the centre!

 Just don't think in 3 dimensions and it will work out.)

Our creation is more powerful when it incorporates the energies of others – this is not the same as letting or getting some one else to think or do for you, which of course is not empowering – but diminishes our true potential.

So if I had land, here's what I would do – I would give it to you! How much land do I need for my family – only a hectare or so. If hundreds or thousands of hectare were under my jurisdiction – it would be of paramount importance to me to ensure that others in my community were fully and fairly accommodated and accounted for.

There is also an element of self interest in allowing others to surround you in an equal/equitable {egalitarian?} arrangement, for one's neighbours are extremely important to one's well-being.

Whatever a land owner's motivations are, the fact is need exists for many of us to have land. Have in the sense that by acknowledgement and allowance of our peers (and neighbours) the space is ours, to spread out, to grow one's food, one's family and to find one's sense of purpose for living at all. When this happens, peace will prevail.

When peace prevails, we may take our place amongst the successful civilisations that have ever existed in the history of our universe. And earn the right to inhabit and humanise (in the most beautiful sense of the word) other lands – on other planets, other worlds.

This is not all there is!

  Land can be found sometimes under water, being cooled and cleansed by it for a period of time.  
  (Apropos of many climate change scenarios that include coastal flooding and rising  
  water/sea levels due to polar ice cap melting in next decades.)  

Whilst a peaceful and law-abiding sort of person, I'm convinced that those who would lead us now need to be shown the way -- to have their hands held for them.

No longer is it every one for themselves, or follow the lemming (I mean leader) but every one learning to harmonise effectively.

Children can teach us this!  And they are not shy about telling us what sort of world they want or to challenge our most cherished institutions (the horrors of war, and weapons of mass destruction, for example.)

It is time to take to the streets!  March Australia's project for August (2014) is specifically to focus on rights!  What about -- universal -- land rights.

These things that we whisper about amongst ourselves -- that we know within but don't always say when the opportunity arises -- can now be aired in the full light of day.

Mass consciousness is ready for a massive purging.  Please participate -- in any way you can.  Shout, if you have to.  Creatively, peacefully.  (Better yet -- sing -- in tune!)

~