Growing Radicles — or how to flourish while gracefully backing out of the industrial food madness
I’ve spent the last two weeks in and around Auckland. It’s summer in New Zealand and it’s been hot. My days have been peppered with getting to know people, navigating the endless new roads through and around this sprawling city, and regular ocean swims.
Fear
Throughout these past two weeks, the most persistent feeling has been fear. Not the debilitating emotional fear, but the feeling of fear.
Fear of what the future might bring. Not the future I might see, I’ve had a good life, but fear of what’s in store for my daughter and her peers, and those who will be around a good bit longer than me.
I grew up in and around Auckland and know it reasonably well, at least I thought I did. In the 20 years since I last had a good look around the city, the growth and change is unlike anything I’ve seen. This is exponential growth unfolding in front of my eyes. I find it scary, because I project into the future the trends I see in front of me.
One of the many (albeit unintended) consequences of this growth, is that the best growing land is increasingly being covered over with houses, with little regard. This land could have been brought back to health (despite years of abuse from chemical industrial horticulture). It could become a source of abundance, but not under concrete and asphalt.
How are we to grow food for the increasing population, and not just the food-like substances in colourful packaging we find on supermarket shelves, made mostly of wheat, corn and rice? But fresh, living food, that contains all the nutrients needed for humans to flourish?
We know the dead industrial food is slowly killing us, the studies are abundant on this topic. But we carry on. The scarcity model, and the belief that we have to fight nature in order to grow a drastically reduced number of preferred food crops is a form of madness. It’s a slow-motion suicide.
It’s past time, to change how we grow our food, and to focus on doing it in ways that build soil and food health, and generate abundance.
This is my line in the sand. My fear is telling me to act.
Growing Radicles
A radicle is the embryonic stage of a plant root. The first organ to appear and anchor the plant so it can absorb water and nutrients from the soil.
I’ve spent 20 years organising and facilitating events to show how to move beyond the existing, centralised, extractive, fragile, destructive, mostly monocultural food system.
Syntropic Agroforestry is an approach that is more regenerative, and more resilient than anything I’ve seen. It is a way for humans (as part of nature) to be a transformative force in nature, and for nature.
Growing Radicles is a three day live-in event in the top of the South Island, with multiple facilitators and two key topics of hands-on and heart-on exploration. You can learn more about it here: https://b.link/GrowingRadicles
What is Syntropic Agroforestry
A farming method that mimics natural ecosystems. It involves planting a diversity of crops, including fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs, together with support plants and trees. These plants work together symbiotically, with some species providing nutrients, shade, and protection to others. Syntropic agroforestry promotes soil health, eliminates the need for chemical inputs, and increases yields over time. It’s an approach that prioritises harmony with nature while producing and abundance of nutritious food.
Why Social systems
Successive generations of humans evolve, change and adapt. An intentional focus on social systems is an opportunity to learn and practise the skills needed for healthy relationships, negotiating with clarity, navigating conflict, and holding space for one another’s feelings. These skills will support any project or relationship, and specifically your syntropic agroforestry project.
Weaving the threads
I started with the fear that have been alive in me, and then what this fear is telling me to do, the next action.
I am not making claims that Syntropics will solve all the problems in the world, but I am confident the principles of this approach have the potential to make a positive impact in food systems from very small to very large, and I’m choosing to shine a light on them.