Syntropic Agroforestry — healing nature and humans
180 years ago, farmers started using fossil-fueled fertilisers and pesticides. This marked the beginning of an industrial approach to food production, an experiment that, it would be kind to say, has not been the rip-roaring success that was promised. In fact, it has been a disaster! Life in the soils has declined dramatically, along with the soil itself, and the nutrient value of the food it produces. Bird, insect, and animal habitats have been decimated, and vast swathes of fertile land and vegetation turned into something resembling a desert, at best, green concrete. This has not been good for humans.
The healing possibility of Syntropic Agroforestry
When we stop fighting nature’s impulses with insecticides, pesticides, fungicides, and mechanical intervention, it transitions into some form of diverse ecosystem.
Syntropic Agroforestry, as coined by Ernst Götsch, is a farming approach inspired by natural succession, where (often barren) land is transformed into lush and fertile forest-like ecosystems.
To kickstart regeneration, Götsch strategically introduces a high number and diversity of plant species, as happens in the early stages of a regenerating forest. This creates an initial density.
Once these first plants are established he follows with intentional disturbance (heavy pruning), to mimic natural events like storms or grazing animals. This allows more light to enter the understory, and causes the trees to release hormones that trigger a pulse of growth throughout the system.
Syntropic Agroforestry is a way of fast tracking ecological transformation, and it turns out it is highly productive.
Syntropic Agroforestry requires humans who are conscious of their potential to be a beneficial presence in nature, to play an active part in regenerating natural systems.
“What excites me most about this stuff is that it involves feeling around for a pathway directly back into the heart of nature. A pathway toward an enticing vision where humans are an aspect of nature that is consciously expressing itself from moment to moment.” Dan Palmer
We have to keep feeding people
Yes! While it would be foolish to stop the wheels of the industrial agriculture machinery overnight, let’s look deeper at their contribution. My assumption, until very recently, was that:
The industrial food system is where most of our food comes from.
Not so.
Who Will Feed Us? is a report produced by the E1C Group ahead of the Copenhagen COP meeting in 2009. It has been updated twice since, most recently in 2020. The report begins by mapping out two quite different ways in which the world is fed today.
The industrial food chain — the set of integrated systems that leads from large-scale farming to supermarket shelves. It feeds 30% of the world’s people, while using about 75% of the world’s land, water and agricultural resources resources.
The peasant food web — a close-to-the-ground network in which much of the food grown never enters the formal economy but is eaten by the people who grow it, traded with their neighbours, or sold in the local marketplace. It feeds 70% of the world’s people, while using less than 30% of the world’s land, water and agricultural resources.
If you are wondering how this is possible, great! Here is the report:
Who Will Feed Us? The Industrial Food Chain vs the Peasant Food Web
The industrial food chain is organised around the pursuit of profits by a handful of the world’s largest corporations, while the peasant food web is only partially visible to an economic lens. Meanwhile, to eyes schooled in the assumptions of modernity, industrial food production looks like the future and peasants belong to the past. Even when their numbers are acknowledged, in the next breath it is assumed that they will soon be gone. And yet, as Chris Smaje points out, ‘the demise of the small-scale farmer has long been heralded without ever quite occurring.‘ Dougald Hine – At work in the ruins.
The good news is that Syntropic Agroforestry is being applied at scale in many different climate zones. This 3,000 hectare farm, one hour west of Berlin has just four frost-free months a year, but is using Syntropic Agroforestry principles to good effect.
Humans in nature — the social systems
If we are to reduce the impact of industrial agriculture, and repurpose the resources it consumes in ways that heal nature and ecosystems, it will require ways of relating to nature and to one another that are not common today.
I’ve seen good projects blow apart when the original intentions get undermined by failures in human communication. The task at hand is too important.
To pass on to the next generation, a world that is in better shape than it was when we arrived will require navigating our social interactions with compassion, sensitivity and radical responsibility. We’ll need to find and face our unconscious impulses, and heal old wounds, so they are no longer the primary drivers of our behaviour.
How do we do that?
This is not taught in schools, and in many cases we can’t look to our parents for guidance, and the modern culture is built upon and even magnifies a sense of division and fear of ‘others’. However, these skills are learnable.
We could settle for “oh that’s just the way it is.“ Or we could look up and around, and seek out other possibilities, experiment with different ways of being, and build a culture in which people thrive and flourish, and live full-out while developing amazingly abundant ecological systems to nourish us all.
If you want to learn more, there is an event taking place in the top of the south island (NZ) from 22–24 March, 2024. It is an opportunity to learn about Syntropic Food and Social Systems.
