REVERENCING
THE EARTH
By
Donald Sutherland
Excess
consumption alongside starvation
In June I attended a seminar
called Our Contested Food System at the Canadian Mennonite University.
A strong focus of the five-day seminar was placed on locally grown food
which is considered nutritious, dependable and modestly priced. Inequality
in food distribution is closely linked with hunger and poverty around
the world as well as in developed countries. Current estimates indicate
that one sixth of the world’s population is starving or consistently
malnourished.
In affluent parts of the world, such as North America, the diet industry is huge: obesity, anorexia and bulimia are major health problems. At the same time, many in our inner cities struggle from week to week to feed themselves and their families on minimum wage and\or social assistance. Food banks are no longer considered temporary measures but are now deeply embedded in the battle to provide the poor with sufficient food but who do not have the food resources to focus on nutrition.
In countries such as Africa large tracts of land are eroded, sandy and
subject to frequent drought with resulting famine. “Farming God’s
Way” is now being promoted as a critical step in the right direction.
The principle is the same as the current widespread use of zero till
on the prairies where a layer of straw on the surface reduces soil heat,
evaporation loss and erosion from wind and water.
In Africa, instead of scattering corn on the soil surface, covering
it lightly and waiting for rain, depressions of about six inches deep
are dug into the soil and spaced exactly the same distance apart so
that the same holes can be used year after year. A small amount of organic
matter is placed into the bottom of each hole. Three corn seeds are
pressed in and the hole is partly filled with surrounding soil. Yields
of corn have jumped dramatically. The secret is more efficient use of
water and nutrients by concentrating scarce organic matter and water
together in six-inch depressions, as well as scattering every available
bit of mulch for about two feet around each seeded hole.
Conservation in all forms is urgent. Acidic oceans, climate warming,
end of oil, soil erosion, forest loss, poisoned water systems and melting
glaciers all point to war, disease, drowning and starvation. At this
rate, Mother Earth, within three decades, is likely to shed billions
of people. For the past 150 years we in the developed world have exploited
earth’s natural resources at a pace far in excess of nature’s
renewal rates. We have blown capital assets such as fresh water, oil,
fish stocks, healthy soil and forests as though these could be renewed
with a magic wand.
Shopping locally will be the key to providing the necessities of life
as cheap oil disappears. But this alone falls short of the value change
that is required — a complete shift from the secular worship of
“stuff” to seeing all of earth’s life as spiritually
one with ourselves.
Sutherland is a professional agrologist who divides his time between
Saskatoon and Winnipeg, and farms in west central Saskatchewan.
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