Why Nature Always Wins

[jack]

The Folly of Big Agriculture: Why Nature Always Wins | Food Freedom News

"Humans have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the big idea behind nature is. It’s hard to tell, because we live at nature’s pace and within the orb of human abstraction. We barely notice the large-scale differences from year to year, much less the minute ones. But if we could speed up time a little and become a lot more perceptive, we would see that nature’s big idea is to try out life wherever and however it can be tried, which means everywhere and anyhow. The result — over time and at this instant — is diversity, complexity, particularity, and inventiveness to an extent our minds are almost unfitted to conceive.
“Nature… explores every possibility. It never lacks funding. It is never demoralized by failed experiments. It cannot be lobbied.”
A reasonable agriculture would do its best to emulate nature. Rather than change the earth to suit a crop — which is what we do with corn and soybeans and a handful of other agricultural commodities — it would diversify its crops to suit the earth. This is not going to happen in big agriculture, because big agriculture is irrational. It’s where we expose — at unimaginable expense — our failure to grasp how nature works. It’s where uniformity is always defeated eventually by diversity and where big agriculture’s ideas of diversity are revealed to be as uniform as ever."

[Equilibrium]

"This is not going to happen in big agriculture, because big agriculture is irrational." I sorta have a different take on this. We are encouraging BigAg’s seemingly “irrational” behavior. Not only are we encouraging it…. we’re sanctioning it at virtually all levels of our government all the while perpetuating the lie that what they're doing is some sort of a silver bullet capable of mitigating climate change while saving people of the world from poverty and starvation. And we should stop allowing BigAg's acts to be referred to as irrational…. their acts are anything but irrational…. they’re cold and they’re calculating and they know exactly what they're doing.... they're ruthless and their loyalties lie with their stakeholders not us. We have provided no consequences for their behavior so they will continue to exploit the environment and its people. BigAg is no different than BigChem and BigBiotech and BigPharma…. they’ve all been allowed to become “beasts of prey” and human beings are dying because of their deceptive acts packaged as humanitarian aid. I dunno about you but.... I don't want to see ANY MORE collateral damage all so the controlling few… the elite.... can degrade more of the environment trying to gain even more control than they already have over the world’s food and water supply.

[jack]

Originally Posted by Equilibrium

"This is not going to happen in big agriculture, because big agriculture is irrational." I sorta have a different take on this. We are encouraging BigAg’s seemingly “irrational” behavior. Not only are we encouraging it…. we’re sanctioning it at virtually all levels of our government all the while perpetuating the lie that what they're doing is some sort of a silver bullet capable of mitigating climate change while saving people of the world from poverty and starvation. And we should stop allowing BigAg's acts to be referred to as irrational…. their acts are anything but irrational…. they’re cold and they’re calculating and they know exactly what they're doing.... they're ruthless and their loyalties lie with their stakeholders not us. We have provided no consequences for their behavior so they will continue to exploit the environment and its people. BigAg is no different than BigChem and BigBiotech and BigPharma…. they’ve all been allowed to become “beasts of prey” and human beings are dying because of their deceptive acts packaged as humanitarian aid. I dunno about you but.... I don't want to see ANY MORE collateral damage all so the controlling few… the elite.... can degrade more of the environment trying to gain even more control than they already have over the world’s food and water supply.

Well said, Equil, as was, I think, the original article. The author, it's safe to say. meant that Big Ag was irrational in that they were seeking and obtaining wealth but destroying themselves in the process; surely irrational behavior.

In my little world, folks seem to be beginning to change some of their habits. A number of my friends are eating vegetarian now while they are also going organic whenever possible. The local "Organic Cafe" restaurant that I like to frequent has waiting lines to get in, and more and more supermarkets are expanding their organic produce departments. People, it seems, are voting with their wallets, and that is effective.

Reading one of the posts from yesterday on the site, I saw that Monsanto was discouraged by its rejection in Europe and has plans to redouble its efforts in the US. I need, for my sanity, to think that, here too, their days are numbered. Most concerning is that they do irreparable damage, in the meantime, to the environment.

I remember a time in my life when I trusted my government and truly believed they were looking out for me. I've evolved and now fear I could not be more cynical about our government than I am...

[Equilibrium]

How do you think I feel.... they had me out there "educating" folk on the atrocities of global warming with models I could throttle to "tailor" to any audience and every model assumed global warming was a fact. I'm a people person and I think it goes without saying I'm a LittleGreen environmentalist for less government right about now since I'm not liking their working definitions of "sustainable" and going back to China and visiting Nepal for the 1st time last year was a heart breaker. Their "people" are every bit as worried about what's going on as we are. We're all supposed to be good little global citizens.... don't question anything.... consume consume consume and keep the $$$ coming in so the biggest polluters can be rewarded. Makes me sick to my stomach so many of us are too "polite" to talk about the inconsistencies between what we're seeing with our own eyes and what we're being told so I go outside and work even harder at whacking invasives and planting back natives. It helps me tune these people out. Today it's cold and it's raining and my house is clean from last weekend so.... I'm here picking through threads catching up on laundry.
--
Totally off topic but I tried something midwesterner mentioned a long long time ago.... he said the amount of laundry detergent we used per load was usually enough to do clothes a 2nd time without adding any laundry detergent at all and ya know something.... he was right. I can do whole loads of jeans without adding any laundry detergent because it's all clinging to the fibers from the last times and the jeans are coming out just as clean as if I'd tossed in more detergent soooo.... I'm going to be alternating adding detergent and not adding detergent. What a waste but.... it got me thinking about toilet bowl cleaner. I just did my toilets this morning using no cleaner at all.... just the brush. They look the same as if I'd used toilet bowl cleaner. I'm thinking I can do toilets with just the brush a few times before having to use a toilet bowl cleaner and all of this means.... fewer chemicals leaching into our water supplies and more $$$ for me that I can spend buying native plants. I know.... I know.... you're thinking I'm nuts but just try a load of jeans yourself and see if you don't start questioning why we're all using detergent in every load.

[BooBooBearBecky]

White vinegar and baking soda cleans the toilet and kills germs. I buy no harsh toilet bowl cleaning products.

2 tablespoons of laundry soap per load gets my clothes clean just fine.

To keep this post on topic....my nutritionist is now recommending organic foods whever possible, and food products with fewer ingredients on the labels. My meager diet shrinks everytime I visit her. LOL!!

[jack]

Originally Posted by jack

Well said, Equil, as was, I think, the original article. The author, it's safe to say. meant that Big Ag was irrational in that they were seeking and obtaining wealth but destroying themselves in the process; surely irrational behavior.

In my little world, folks seem to be beginning to change some of their habits. A number of my friends are eating vegetarian now while they are also going organic whenever possible. The local "Organic Cafe" restaurant that I like to frequent has waiting lines to get in, and more and more supermarkets are expanding their organic produce departments. People, it seems, are voting with their wallets, and that is effective.

Reading one of the posts from yesterday on the site, I saw that Monsanto was discouraged by its rejection in Europe and has plans to redouble its efforts in the US. I need, for my sanity, to think that, here too, their days are numbered. Most concerning is that they do irreparable damage, in the meantime, to the environment.

I remember a time in my life when I trusted my government and truly believed they were looking out for me. I've evolved and now fear I could not be more cynical about our government than I am...

I guess it's not only in my little world. Here is an article from today's news about how folks are swarming TOO the organic aisles to escape the toxicity of mainstream food products. This is good news!!!

organic statistics | The Hottest Products on Supermarket Shelves | Rodale News

"In fact, a new a new report shows that shoppers are now spending more than $30 billion to avoid toxic chemicals. According to the latest data from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the organic industry grew nearly 10 percent in 2011,"