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gardening
May 2009 
The gardeners shall inherit the earth
Posted on Apr 2nd, 2008
by 
Chris
Chris
Its becoming clearer to people that mechanised, chemical farming comes with a very high energy cost. Organic farming is an improvement as there is no use of chemical fertilisers which themselves require significant amounts of energy to produce. However, the mechanised aspect largely remains and in fact, organic farming can mean an increase in the use of machinery to keep crops weed free. Then of course as the food is usually grown a considerable distance from where it is eaten, there's the energy costs of transportation and often additional costs through processing.
On a square metre by square metre comparison, gardening is far more productive, energy efficient and ultimately profitable than both conventional, mechanised, chemical agriculture and organic farming. For a start, even in a temperate climate, a gardener can usually get two (and sometimes three) different crops in the same square metre during the course of a year (stacking in time, in terms of permaculture principles), whereas conventional mechanised agriculture will tend towards just one, leaving the ground bare for part of the year.
A gardener can also grow two (or more) different types of crop in the same square metre at the same time (companion planting, or stacking in space). The individual yields from each species may be lower than growing them by themselves but the sum of the yields is greater. If the companions are carefully chosen to be mutually beneficial, the individual yields may actually be higher. My great friend and gardener, Mistress Lou, grows runner beans with sweetcorn and squash in the same space, for example.
And why stop at just two or three when more complex polycultures can be even more productive? If we enlarge our square metre to say five, then we gardeners can squeeze in a food tree as well and develop food forest gardens that begin to mimic the complexity of natural systems; self watering, self mulching, self fertilising. Yet all this is far too complex for mechanised agriculture to manage and harvest, so management and yield of complex food systems is intimately related to scale.
One of the mistakes made during the (so called) green revolution in our thinking on world food production was to measure only in terms of single yield systems, any comparisons always being made against mechanised, chemical, agriculture. Thus when conventional agriculturalists measured yields in “poor” countries, they measured, for example, the total yield of wheat per acre. This involved discounting the other crops that the “poor” farmers grew with their wheat; anything that wasn’t wheat was seen as a "weed", a problem.
So two or more other crops that were in there with the wheat, often other types of grain, were discounted. The resulting yield for the wheat that was left could then be declared low in comparison to mechanised, chemical agriculture. The result was that the “poor” farmers were encouraged to use chemical fertilisers to boost their wheat yield and herbicides to knock out the “weeds”.
Thus we repeated our historic simplification of polycultures, of complex systems, reducing them to monocultural, single species deserts that made the majority of people redundant and sent them off to cities looking for work while binding the remainder to chemical inputs. Bah!
I recently saw "Power in Community" as part of a local transition town initiative. The film documents Cuba's experience of the near total collapse in its oil supply that occurred as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the US trade embargo. Once cheap oil is removed from the equation, everything has to change. Food becomes local and organic, more people become involved in growing (in Cuba, up from less than 5% of the population to 24%), obesity disappears, the population becomes fitter, the status of small scale farmers (gardeners) becomes much enhanced and they become relatively wealthy.
In the future, the bulk of the food grown on the planet will be grown not on farms but in gardens and market gardens; I look forward to the time when the gardeners shall inherit the earth.
On a square metre by square metre comparison, gardening is far more productive, energy efficient and ultimately profitable than both conventional, mechanised, chemical agriculture and organic farming. For a start, even in a temperate climate, a gardener can usually get two (and sometimes three) different crops in the same square metre during the course of a year (stacking in time, in terms of permaculture principles), whereas conventional mechanised agriculture will tend towards just one, leaving the ground bare for part of the year.
A gardener can also grow two (or more) different types of crop in the same square metre at the same time (companion planting, or stacking in space). The individual yields from each species may be lower than growing them by themselves but the sum of the yields is greater. If the companions are carefully chosen to be mutually beneficial, the individual yields may actually be higher. My great friend and gardener, Mistress Lou, grows runner beans with sweetcorn and squash in the same space, for example.
And why stop at just two or three when more complex polycultures can be even more productive? If we enlarge our square metre to say five, then we gardeners can squeeze in a food tree as well and develop food forest gardens that begin to mimic the complexity of natural systems; self watering, self mulching, self fertilising. Yet all this is far too complex for mechanised agriculture to manage and harvest, so management and yield of complex food systems is intimately related to scale.
One of the mistakes made during the (so called) green revolution in our thinking on world food production was to measure only in terms of single yield systems, any comparisons always being made against mechanised, chemical, agriculture. Thus when conventional agriculturalists measured yields in “poor” countries, they measured, for example, the total yield of wheat per acre. This involved discounting the other crops that the “poor” farmers grew with their wheat; anything that wasn’t wheat was seen as a "weed", a problem.
So two or more other crops that were in there with the wheat, often other types of grain, were discounted. The resulting yield for the wheat that was left could then be declared low in comparison to mechanised, chemical agriculture. The result was that the “poor” farmers were encouraged to use chemical fertilisers to boost their wheat yield and herbicides to knock out the “weeds”.
Thus we repeated our historic simplification of polycultures, of complex systems, reducing them to monocultural, single species deserts that made the majority of people redundant and sent them off to cities looking for work while binding the remainder to chemical inputs. Bah!
I recently saw "Power in Community" as part of a local transition town initiative. The film documents Cuba's experience of the near total collapse in its oil supply that occurred as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the US trade embargo. Once cheap oil is removed from the equation, everything has to change. Food becomes local and organic, more people become involved in growing (in Cuba, up from less than 5% of the population to 24%), obesity disappears, the population becomes fitter, the status of small scale farmers (gardeners) becomes much enhanced and they become relatively wealthy.
In the future, the bulk of the food grown on the planet will be grown not on farms but in gardens and market gardens; I look forward to the time when the gardeners shall inherit the earth.
Access: Public
Hi Chris
you are right, thanks for the very descriptive article
what i wonder is if garndeners, are able to care for the land any way, while gardners are also humans….
please have a look at my article
kind regards
daniel
Permaculture, Human Factor & Multidimensional Management
___________________________________________________
Multidimensional Management
by Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken
http://www.multidimensional-management.nexo.com/
mailto:%3Ca%20href=“>luisdanielmaldonadofonken@yahoo.co.uk">luisdanielmaldonadofonken@yahoo.co.uk
Mobile: 015773736956
Courses, seminars, coaching: booking by email or telephone
Kurse, Seminare und Vorträge in Deutsch
Multidimensional Management
A Solution for the Human Factor Challenge
by Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken
What it is Human Factor? Why this variable have been that important our whole life? in the way it changes, evolves, leavs a mark in us, deeply, in our private and professional life. What are humans, and why humans are the greates challenge humanity have, and life-on-earth have?
When i was 11 years old, i did hear frequently the kind of challenges members of my family had at work, i could not understand why humans could make their own lifes that complicated.
Later, getting older, something changed in me: at school or at university, when i really needed to jump from playing games with friends and hanging around, to taking responsibility; when my own individual interests had to face that “not everyone around the world” go my way….. I understood, what really was going on, i mean, why it is not always easy to work together, to communicate, and find ways of collaboration.
Humans can be so individual, and as well, can really create marvelouse things and experiences all toghether, when they colaborate to each other and learn to communicate.
I was motivated, since I was a child, to look for alternative solutions/methods that bring to a group/project better strategy, collaboration, co-creativity and communication.
Suddenly i forgot my first questions, regards why it seems like adults have such a complicated life, and enter with a deep passion the world of research, experience and life among “adults - complex humans”
My intuition about what i needed to do im my life was guiding me from IT (Information Technology) to studies in health education and arts. Why? becouse information, system and organization, are not the solution for human factor needs. Humans experience with their bodies, emotions and mind, have a spiritual experience of life, own goals and ego, and so on. I needed to understand better what humans are, before i could bring any practical and real solution.
Later i did more studies about environment care education, culture, nature, management, human senses and emotional self management,…and suddenly discover a group of interesting people learning about permaculture.
Permaculture met all my interests, from healthy living to self sustainability, from experience nature to letting nature do and be as it is. Was tottaly obvious for me that if humans wanted o learn to work toghther, they needed first to observe how nture work toghether, and take this experience as a mirror, to see and understand themselves better. This kind of awareness based on experience could create a seed of change, a change that can come only from every individual that become aware.
Humans will decide what life is and how life on earth should be, based on their education, but as well on their understaning of what humans and nature and culture are. I met counted people around my travels in Southamerica and Europe (1996-2007) that had a sense of what humans really are and do with this “humanity”.
I wanted to understand human and nature better, then i was interest to understand all aspects of human life: health, emotions, body, senses, and so on. But as well where humans live (nature and culture), and what this context need to keep being alife.
While learning in a multidisciplinary context, i got to understand that only simple and effctive solutions that are tottally integrated to natural processes, could bring back humans to nature, and at the same time bring back humans to a natural sense of communication and colaboration. In that way the development of a new kind of human inteligence (that learn and enjoy to colaborate with nature, instead to try to control it) will arise on our self-sustained communities.
In 1993 i did start working at university on human factor, team building and interdisciplinary skills. Later, did travel as consultant and offered workshops along Southamerica pacific coast. Did develop new know how, that can help individuals and groups of humans to work toghether “better”, to improve their performance at work but alo at their daily life.
The Mandala of elements is one of those tools i did develop, and is suitable and efective for self-management & management, facilitates communication and colaboration processes, and increases co-creativity.
I finally wrote some books regards the Mandala of Elements, and Multidimensional Management in 2007. After many years of private research, application of methods on practical situations, through consultancy, coaching, own business management and pilot projects I am very confident to say that Multidimensional management provides a set of tools that support human colaboration and improve performance of humans in our company, project or organization.
Why the name: multidimensional management? becouse we humans, have many dimensions of experience, we experience emotions, body, sensations, mind, wishes, ego, gender-skills, at the same time. We have many experiences simultaneusly.
In order to bring to our work and daily life a quality experience of co-creativity, collaboration and communication, we need to observe and understand what humans and nature experience along life. Then, we will be able to colaborate with nature and humans community, and to increase the benefits that comes from this colaboration-intent, for us and future generations.
The following is a brief description of the method, and its context. I wish this method will help permaculture practitioners and teams to achieve their individual and collective goals into a context of collaboration, communication and co-creativity.
Daniel Maldonado Fonken
Multidimensional Management
Consultant, Facilitator
Mandala of Elements
The elements that exist in nature, simbolizes the inteligence that exist in every life process, and that is also valid for humans daily life.
A mandala represents our inner and outer universes, playing together a dynamic that we recognize as „our life” ( individual) or the life of a company (collective).
The Mandala of Elements is a tool, a method, that helps you organize your life (or the life of your company and its business plan development) accord natural procceses (nature and its principles). It helps you care for nature, culture and people, and harmonizes to what humans really experience: body, mind, emotions, ego, soul and spirit, into a context where humans, culture and nature are meant to be respected.
Mandala of Elements is a:
>Management & self-organization method for your company
>Improve colaboration, communication, co-creativity & strategic planning
>Self-management & Self organization method for your dayly life
Life is great! Becouse i can enjoy all experiences and resources life gives me in an effective way!.
By seeing life in a positive way, we are able to perceive the gold into a space of continues change!
By observing life processes through awareness and organized and presice sight, we learn how to support the life-inteligence of nature, and in that way we also support our own life and sucess. No need to act against but to collaborate.
The mandala of elements „improve performance” of our life: The life and development of a business, a team or an individual (collective or individual processes) are experiencing the power and inteligence of the elements.
The elements are present in nature all around us, and nutrish every creative and development proccess we start. If we start to colaborate with natural forces (also within our company or daily life), instead of trying to control them, we will discover, that nature means life and life means enjoyment and sucess.
The human factor challenge means to understand humans life within nature, and to support humans procceses of colaboration, communication, co creativity and strategic planing by using management tools that apply the inteligence and principles of nature.
Humans are not just objects that you can replace when the qualifications do not match anymore with the company change of culture, know how or technology. The company human resources costs might be reduced if managers understand that until now the human factor have not been properly understood. Intelectualy theories and concepts do not match with the integral experience of humans, into a natural and cultural context, humans are life beings with emotions, sensory perception, body, mind, vision, wishes, ego and spirtual life. All the human potentiality have not been yet integrated to daily life or company life. Why?
The mandala of elements help humans achieve their daily life goals, and harmonize to what humans are, and nature is. The mandala of elements it is not an intelectual method, or concept, is a life experience with which you come back to nature through your own professional activity, daily life or company life.
Courses, Seminar
Mandala of elements for business management
Life into our company can be described as a collective experience of humans that co-creates a process of development with a common goal.
Life into a company can be described as paralel proccesses that creates the development of the business plan. These processes, accord to the mandala of elements, happend into the fields of every element: Fire, water, air, earth…, like Finnances (earth), Communication (fire), … Marketing (Wind), and so on.
The mandala of elements integrates in one method:
self management,self organization
emotional self management
decisions management, process management
resources management, strategic planing
communication, colaboration, cocreativity
Managers can use this method to improve performance of their company, team and individual dayly life.
Course, Seminar
Mandala of elements for daily life
Daily life is an individual experience, where we create a process of development of our own future. We discover, understand our inner resources (skills and potentiality) and outer resources (life conditions).
Along our daily life, if we would like to experience a high % of our potentiality and use our resources in an effective way, we can use a tool, Mandala of elements, that gives us a presice understanding of our daily life conditions, provides a way to take decisions and develop life processes, accod natural principles.
The mandala of elements integrates in one method:
self management & self organization (Incl. time management)
emotional self management,
decisions management, process management
resources management, strategic planing
communication, colaboration, cocreativity
______________________________________________
Multidimensional Management
by Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken
http://www.multidimensional-management.nexo.com/
mailto:%3Ca%20href=“>luisdanielmaldonadofonken@yahoo.co.uk">luisdanielmaldonadofonken@yahoo.co.uk
Mobile: 015773736956
Courses, seminars, coaching: booking by email or telephone
Kurse, Seminare und Vorträge in Deutsch