Open source farming

Farming.

For some, a romantic imagery of people living off the land, in harmony with nature. 

For others, a completely foreign idea with only vague thoughts of animals and grains

turned into steak and bread.  And for some, an unnatural abuse of creatures and nature.

What ever it is, it remains the core feature of human evolution that anthropologists agree, changed us from hunters / gathers, to the societies we know, today.

Today's agriculture is advanced, so much so that we can create everything that we need to create life giving nutrients in a sterile lab.  Completely foreign from how things used to be.  Does that make it right?  Or wrong?  Or something in between?

Like most things in history, there remains areas of grey.  We are certain of what came before, and what we had after, but we probably don't really know the context or processes that created the next version.  For example, it's highly unlikely that we went from gathering fruit off trees growing naturally in the wild, to planting and picking bananas on a plantation.

One could argue that nature has no philosophy.  No intention.  That everything on

earth is simply a matter of cause and effect.  Even while we can observe a great many examples of symbiotic relationships that, if disturbed, could cause the demise of the organisms that are part of that relationship.

If the earth suffered an extinction event now, would life persevere?  We certainly see evidence of that, in the past.  But we also observe that the organisms living in the new worlds are much different, even while some organisms can survive these events.  What would be the effects of a human caused, extinction event?  Will we ever see a dodo bird roaming the earth again?  Did the extinction of the dodo bird change the future of life?

 How is the extinction of the Dodo relevant?  It points to the reality that, given an extinction event, the species that become extinct are unlikely to evolve into existence again, by nature.  While we can possibly create food in the lab, if the labs failed us, or the long term results proved incompatible with human life, what would we do, if we lost the capacity to provide for our future?  If the very thing we relied upon, our own symbiotic relationships with nature were lost, what would happen to us?

We live in that grey time, when what came before and what is now, leads to what our future will become.  Reinvigorating and renewing our relationship with nature remains an important aspect of what our future will look like.  Science provides us with certain tools that can help support our move to the future, while history enables us to persevere in the event that technology might fail us.  An "oops" could kill us.

Farming keeps us grounded in our nurturing nature.  We ensure the very things that keep us alive, are kept alive by our own intentions.  Industrialized farming serves a purpose, but if those technologies were to fail us, how many people would be able to survive off the land?

The old adage goes, "You can give a person a fish and they can live for a day.  But if you teach them to fish, they can live for a lifetime."  Farming isn't simple or easy, and hunting and gathering is a feast and famine proposition.  Open source farming bridges that gap between being reliant on today's fish to be put on our plates to taking sustainable farming and gardening to a new level, that anyone can do.  Using

the open source model of sharing knowledge and skills, it provides our ability to fish for ourselves.

Imagine a time in the not so distant past, when people migrated to remote areas where there was an absence of civilization.  Their very survival, and everything they needed to survive, was entirely up to them.  What few resources they had with them were all they had to build a new life, and hopefully prosper.  We've had television shows made upon those very concepts.  Could you do it?  Could you provide shelter and food to survive?  If you survive, would that be enough?  Would the stress of feast and famine or lack of safety ever cease, given the many places on earth that we could live, that aren't in some way harsh and unforgiving?

Like the survival guides of the last few centuries, open source farming initiatives are popping up.  People are investigating a return to nature and a survivalist mentality

in order to create vast tombs of knowledge that can help everyone start from scratch.  And, in the old tradition of sharing knowledge, like that of the wheel, provide the knowledge and skills to others, not only to survive, but to thrive.  To create the very same tools that can help provide the safety and security and comforts that we know and love, today.

So this article has been intended to give some reasoning to why people talk about sustainable agriculture.  Why survivalists hone their skills of living in the wild.  And to light a flame of wonder in the minds of the reader.

At the end of today, we will still be able to go to the store and get the ingredients for tomorrow's meal.  Or even the prepared meal, itself.  Chances are, that will be the same tomorrow, a month from now, or years from now.  But what if that wasn't the case.  Or what if we learned tomorrow, that for certain, what we did today or have been doing for the past hundred years, has been causing the destruction of life on earth and we needed to return to a lifestyle that required each of us, individually or

in small communities, to rely on ourselves and each other, to provide for our future.  Could you grow a garden?  Could you mill grain?  Could you build a shelter?  Could you create your own, sustainable life, with nothing but your knowledge and skills?  Or would you go the way of the dodo?

Future articles will delve into self sustainable lifestyles.  Looking into all the different aspects of living, from survival to thriving.  Using technologies as old as human kind, to using technologies that are less than a century old.  We hope you will enjoy those articles.  And even if you can continue to get what you need at the store, maybe even take an opportunity to try out your own version of self sustainability and open source farming.