What would the World look like if most farming was wild nature-like? If when you walked in a farm, it would feel like you were in a forest or a meadow? 

I have been to such places. 

The most striking contrast I experienced was in Colombia. I was walking on a country road. There were farms with lemon trees on both sides. Except the trees had no leaves. Ants like to snatch the leaves to build their homes with and this was paradise for them, a whole field full of building materials! Everything was dry, it hadn’t rained for months. The bare red soil was cracked.

Then I entered a food forest. It was immediately much cooler, there was moisture in the air, and it was soft where I stepped. Birds were singing, it was humming with life. There were enormous lemon trees full of leaves and fruit. Among them were the mandarin, orange, mango, and avocado trees, and many other trees I didn’t recognise. Below were coffee bushes and the soil was covered by many different plants. It felt good to be there.

In Europe and all over the World there are countless places like these too. With different trees and plants of course but the same principles. It’s healthy and in balance. No agrochemicals or irrigation are needed. These places are run by pioneers who have (re)discovered the power of letting nature do its thing. 

More nature-like farming takes many names and shapes. Regenerative farming, syntropic farming, food forests, agro ecology, permaculture, wild farming, natural farming to name a few. Some have not landed on a precise definition and some are more nature-like than others but all in all the idea behind them is to promote life.

If nature-like farming was the norm we would be in a safer, healthier, and more beautiful place. 

“But Eva, it’s completely unrealistic. In our modern society this could never work. We need large scale operations.”

I hear you. How it looks today, that is true.

How I see it though, is that the only constant is change. We only recently started shopping in supermarkets. It doesn’t have to stay that way. And most cultures other than our WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) society live differently. 

What do we wish for and what are ways to steer towards it?

How about we rewind a bit? Let me bring you on my personal discovery journey. 

Back in 2018 I quit my job. Wait a second, I thought, what was my life really about? My notes from back then show hundreds of ideas, projects, directions. From dedicating myself to artistic creativity, politics, or building all sorts of useful products, it finally dawned on me that I had to work on something to do with climate. The logic was that if our climate makes it tricky for us to be here, we can’t enjoy everything else. 

That’s vast though, “climate”, what to focus on? Renewable energy, the circular economy, or perhaps green finance? It was unclear. Until I stumbled on a piece of information. N2O is a greenhouse gas about 300 times more potent in creating a greenhouse effect than CO2 and it stays more than a hundred years in the atmosphere. So while CO2 accounts for 80% of emissions, the 6% N2O emissions are far worse. You could say the damage is equivalent to 80 by CO2 vs 1800 (300 x 6) by N2O. Is it 22.5 (1800 / 80) times more important to talk about then? And these N2O emissions come mainly from agriculture, specifically because of the use of fertilizers. 

So the use of fertilizers need to be reduced. And why not also other agrochemicals like pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Plus, agriculture is also responsible for a large chunk of our water consumption. I get interested in vertical farming. It uses much less fertilizer, no other agrochemicals, and much less water. And it can even be done underground, so if the climate goes berserk, we still have food. 

But, oh boy, how much I didn’t yet understand. It turns out that it goes much deeper than “just” using chemicals and too much water. We’ve been doing serious damage for thousands of years.