We can’t all transition into a self-sufficient homestead or eco-village setting overnight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t transition our entire community locally starting today.
If everyone just started growing their own food, buying the rest of their food locally, saving seed, & composting all our organic waste, the world overnight would change. There are several things that would happen.
We’d all save money and eat better food. Food costs are skyrocketing as quality is plummeting. The nutritional density, taste, and overall quality of homegrown foods is well-documented and easy to recognize through experience. As we save seeds, share/trade seeds, & we grow our seed libraries and local landraces, we will create local food security as well as genetic resiliency.
The equity in our imports and trade would shift back to our local economies and family economies. While this would lead to disruption of trade, entrepreneurship, local farming & ranching, local restaurants, craftsmanship, & overall quality of goods would rise as cheap, industrial product sales would wane. Economies wouldn’t entirely change – fuel would still be used, but food wouldn’t be shipped overseas, refrigeration, packaging, harvesting, etc. The amount of fuel saved would be immense.
Composting all our organic waste is easy. Vermicomposting can be used in urban areas or an outdoor vermicomposting box or pit can be used if regular turning of hot composts is too much of a commitment. Paper and cardboard can be inoculated with oyster mushrooms and then vermicomposted. As the compost is ready, it can be brought to the local community garden or anywhere they can grow food. All our organic waste can be turned into soil. As Geoff Lawton says: “If it’s lived, it can live again.” This would slow the stream of waste leaving homes across the world to a trickle as all food packaging and organic matter are removed the waste stream.
As leading families begin to shift, the overall demand to know how to grow your own food rises (and it already is), school gardens will turn into school farms. Neighborhood gardens will turn into farms as well with neighbors hiring older children from their families to run them. Jobs for our youth, local community strength, food security, ecological health, nutritional health, saving money, local economic growth, entrepreneurship, & so much more comes as stacked functions to us eating locally, growing or raising our own as much as we can, composting everything we can, & saving all the seed we can. We all can do our best in this area & make a giant change happen overnight.
It’s already happening.
The Permaculture Student 2, the first permaculture high school textbook ever, has been successfully Kickstarted & is part of a growing trend in education. Permaculture is the new, emerging context for all education. It is the framework all our children need to see nature for what is and what is can be. Support the campaign to get your own copy or choose from one of the many other rewards for families, youth, & adults:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mattpowers/the-permaculture-student-2
—
Matt Powers
