The interesting programs I find in the middle of the night on PBS often teach me things I want to know that I couldn’t find anywhere else. “The Botany of Desire” (www.pbs.org) is a good example. Created by Michael Pollan, the program warns of the hazards of monoculture and ponders the relationship humans have with plants and nature. It seems that McDonald’s purchases only the Burbank russet potato wherever it’s grown, and the monoculture that creates on farms all over the world increases the need for pesticides (the more plants in one place, the more bugs.) Knowing that made me never want to eat a McDonald’s french fry again!
But there’s good news, yea, great news in “The Botany of Desire”: an organic potato farmer who grows a variety of potatoes (a biodiversity)–not a monoculture like his neighbors–is earning just as much money. Pesticides don’t come cheap anymore. This shift in the economics of farming, albeit a small example, could be the beginning of something wonderful: farmers growing our food in harmony with nature. That would have to be beneficial to everyone’s health.
In the new economic structures that will replace our current system, everyone will be a farmer of sorts, gathering to plant in community gardens or growing fruit and veggies in their back yards and on their porches. Land of any kind, even soil in a pot, will be treasured for its life giving properties. Friends and neighbors will barter with their excess produce. Our relationship with plants and nature will heal itself. Why? Because growing your own is good for the soul.
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