Regenerative Agriculture - No Till Farming

I have been listening to the reading of the Sunday Times bestseller "English Pastoral - An Inheritance" by James Rebanks who also wrote " A Shepherds Life". It makes me want to weep at what we have lost, which I am lucky enough to be able to remember. I can also remember the coming of the agribusiness farmer & the complete change they wrought on the landscape & wildlife. All in the name of higher production & more profit.

Many years ago I remember coming home from a springtime walking holiday in the wilds of Greece, surrounded by an idyllic landscape filled with wild flowers & butterflies. The farmer, whose fields surrounded my house, had not only created huge fields, constantly spraying & planting right up to the hedge margins, but he had killed every blade of grass in the field adjoining my house. The whole field was a wasteland. He was very annoyed when I wrote to the local paper about my environmental concerns.

Man has managed to ruin one of the most basic & important elements of the world we live in. We have created soil depletion & erosion. There is less & less natural organic matter, which makes soil naturally fertile. We have disturbed the natural water cycle & contaminated that most precious & basic necessity to life. We have also contaminated our own enviromnemt, resulting in unhealthy effects on ourselves.

 

Monitoring water and the impact on the environment

We have saturated the land with herbicides & pesticides & been forced to use more & more artificial fertilizers containing methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and nitrogen. Pesticides contain organophosphates which have a deadly effect on the nervous stystem. Fertilizers pollute waterways, can cause chemical leaf burn, increase air pollution, cause soil acidificatioon & mineral depletion.

In turn emissions from these have contributed to a great extent to the quantity of greenhouse gases present in the environment. This in turn is leads to global warming and weather changes. 

Generations of farmers have turned their back on traditional methods of farming, which husbanded the land & valued soil quality. That has had a devastating effect on earthworm & insect populations. Because of the interconnectedness of nature, these depleted food sources have caused the decimation of birds.... And so it goes on right through the food chain. 

A perfect storm of destruction. We are literally biting the hand that feeds us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming

https://www.healthline.com/health/organophosphate-poisoning#symptoms

http://www.sallefarms.co.uk/crop-rotation/

There is another way. We do know how to do it better. We need to change all food production radically, before it's too late.

Not Moving

Yesterday was my birthday - 76 young👵

It wasn't what I expected. I withdrew from the purchase of a house in a retirement community after 4 months & spent all day dealing with the aftermath. After the morning chat with my lovely solicitor, which helped make the decision, phone calls, texts & emails all day long. Very sorry for my buyer, but I will proceed when I find somewhere to live & for the moment he is prepared to wait. I am very lucky. 

Because of the type of property it is, (leasehold), I didn't realise quite what a different ball game it is. I've always bought freehold. The set up of the retirement development was complex - 3 separate companies - C / Y T & C P. Communication was an issue, as was residents ability to have any say or control. The lease document was huge & written in a different language! There were also issues about negotiated changes to the lease itself, which only related to me personally & could well lead to sale problems down the line. The Plain English Campaign could have a field day on legal documents, including my Lease document. They certainly wouldn't give it a Crystal Mark!

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning.html 

The whole set up was messy.

Moving house is a big deal. There is a lot of money involved, but more importantly you have to be happy & feel the property is right for you. It's a home, not an investment. You will never get a property that is perfect. You do always have to compromise on something. Generally you have to be prepared to do things to it after moving to make it really yours. I can cope with all of that.

What I can't cope with is the current way leasehold property works in the UK. It simply isn't fair to leaseholders. There has been a strong movement for years to change the law & the Government seem to have finally decided to do something about it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-reforms-make-it-easier-and-cheaper-for-leaseholders-to-buy-their-homes

Add to that the whole situation around retirement developments & you have to have a certain type of personality to be happy with it. Generally speaking I imagine that many elderly people are relieved to hand over control to someone else & pay for the privilege. So I accept that I might be in the minority wanting to have a say & a measure of control.

I wish I'd realised all that 4 months ago!

So now I have to find somewhere to live - Quickly.

Populism - Is it really Popular?

I lead a fairly sheltered life even when I'm not shielding. I had never heard of QAnon until this year. Conspiracy theorists, Fake Newsers, the Loony Right & Left, fanatical Religious Extremists.... have always been in the dark underbelly of humanity. But now they are coming out of the woodwork & are driving an agenda of civil unrest. 

Why are we surprised, when our world is so divided between the have's & the have nots? If we marginalise people enough, if their lives are so poor, what do we expect them to do? We reap what we sow & we have sowed some pretty divisive policies. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53498434

Populism - National Populism, Right Wing Nationalism, the Radical Right, call it what you will, is becoming more widespread. As well as the USA - France, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the UK, have all gone the Populist route. Also Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. It's largely driven by immigration, economic policies & Global consumerism. Nationalism is at the centre of Populist beliefs. Trump is simply the most powerful, amoral, figurehead in the "democratic" world.

Populism believes strongly in the "corrupt elite". In the USA in particular there is a very strong ideology based on the "will of the people". Those two have come together in the belief that the "people" can use any method to overthrow the "elite". That's what we saw in Washington last weekend - a mob of  nationalist conspiracy theorists. I'm not surprised that the similarities between now & Germany between the wars have been identified. 

I remember unions fighting for jobs. I remember race riots in London & elsewhere. I remember the lights going out & the 3 day week. But things have changed since my 20's & 30's. Instant communication, mass media & social media didn't exist. They have stoked the fire & now it's burning. 

Populism is destructive. Unless we face up to what we have created & do something about it Populism will win & it will be bloody - not popular.

 

The Market - The Power of Money.

It has only been in later adulthood that I have thought of "the market" as anything other than the "streetmarket" - Places that I have always loved. After retirement, when my husband started playing with stocks & shares, I realised that there was a different sort of "Market". A Market that has become the major driver for our world & most beneficial & harmful things in our lives today. The Market has become all pervasive, creative & destructive simultaneously.

There are 2 definitions of the market - "a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other commodities" and "an area or arena in which commercial dealings are conducted". The two are completely different. The first is fairly benign. The second isn't.

Capitalism is defined as "production for a competitive market for profit - an economic system in which the private profit maximalisation motive lies at the core of its virtues and maladies". This has led to over exploitation of the world's natural resources. It depends on ever increasing, impressive, productivity and growth rates. It is totally unsustainable & destructive. It leads to wealth & power being concentrated in the hands of a few & the vast majority being marginalised.

This is the 2020 wealth list list. In fact Jeff Bezos has now been overtaken by Elon Musk who is worth $188.5 billion.

No.	Name	Net worth (USD)	Age	Nationality	Source(s) of wealth
1	Jeff Bezos	$113 billion	56	United States	Amazon
2	Bill Gates	$98 billion	64	United States	Microsoft
3	Bernard Arnault & family	$76 billion	71	France	LVMH
4	Warren Buffett	$67.5 billion	89	United States	Berkshire Hathaway
5	Larry Ellison	$59 billion	75	United States	Oracle Corporation
6	Amancio Ortega	$55.1 billion	84	Spain	Inditex, Zara
7	Mark Zuckerberg	$54.7 billion	35	United States	Facebook
8	Jim Walton	$54.6 billion	71	United States	Walmart
9	Alice Walton	$54.4 billion	70	United States	Walmart
10	S. Robson Walton	$54.1 billion	77	United States	Walmart

Personally I think this list is shocking. No one person should be able to have an income higher than some countries.

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/

But, as well as wealth, these people & many others, have huge power to lobby governments & so affect democracy. Our very democracy has become corrupted by the Market. The recent events in America with Trump inciting a mob to overrun the Capitol shows how far this has gone. Worryingly eight out of the eleven on the wealth list are American.

If we want democracy to survive we have to do it in a different way. We have to stop the influence exerted by unelected lobbyists with huge financial resources behind them. Not to mention unelected "special advisors". We need conviction politicians who are prepared to do what is best for the people they serve & not fall into the trap set by bribery, flattery & power. 

Politics has become an arcane game. But the stakes are too high now & the price of inaction will be even higher.

 I think the World has forgotten this.

Giving a Gift

It's my birthday next Friday. I hope my 76th year will be better than my 75th.

Today I had a special Christmas gift which made me think about our whole attitude to presents. The gift was in the lovely advent calendar my daughter made for me - A promise of a pedicure. Younger readers won't understand how distanced ones hands get from ones feet as one ages. I can barely get socks & shoes on & off now. Washing my feet involves the real danger of falling over in the shower. (I can't get in & out of the bath). So a pedicure is an absolute pleasure & the fact that my daughter is prepared to do it shows a huge amount of love. My feet are really clean, my hard skin has gone, my feet have been massaged with cream & my toenails are varnished. Bliss!

I can't tell you what that all means to me. I wouldn't want to compare the situation with Mary washing Jesus's feet - but it is close! 

I really don't need anything much at all. What I need I buy when the need arises. Things don't mean much to me. What does matter is the thought that goes into a gift however expensive or cheap it is in financial terms. Often an experience is far better than a "thing". Things don't last - experiences live long in memory.

My birthday will be a joy if I can spend it with my daughter & family. We have all learned how important that human contact is during Covid 19. Sadly so many people have lost close friends & family in this last year. Truly there is little else that matters other than a home, food, financial security & health. 

I think what I am saying is that money, posessions, the lastest fashion in anything, are all transitory & mean very little. So many gifts we receive are things we don't want & end up being re-gifted or going to charity shops. What on earth is exciting about socks or jumpers? Today we do need to think hard about sustainability, recycling & waste.

A gift should be something special. Time is a gift. Being together is a gift. A hug is a gift. A conversation, listening to someone else, is a gift. Putting someone else's needs first is a gift. 

We need to give these gifts to eachother. Now more than ever.

Just Surviving - Existential Angst

Up to now I have remained as positive as possible. I've tried to stay reliably well informed & complied with the quickly changing rules. I don't want to get Covid 19 or give it to anyone else. I take the pandemic very seriously, while not being unduly anxious about getting it. I can't see it or feel it, but I know it's there & it's killing people & leaving others with long term health problems. The human cost is high.

10 months on from originally shielding for 3 months I am a different person.

I have become conditioned to a completely different way of living. I don't go out of the house much. Maybe a weekly local food shop, a walk with my daughters dog in fields by the river Cherwell, a rare trip to a big supermarket. I do have a lot of contact with friends & family but mostly via technology - texts, emails, phone calls... Sometimes I have conversations on my doorstop socially distanced. I have Zoomed & had Webinars with several charities during 2020, so am very well informed on Climate Change & have become a regular lobbyist. But my days are generally the same routine - Alone but not lonely & relatively boring.

Now I am concerned that I have become too used to a much more solitary & sedentary life than hitherto. The reality of my world has simultaneously contracted to my home & widened due to modern communications. I wonder if I am just surviving? I also wonder whether I have any more right to exist than anyone else? Do I deserve to be kept alive?

The vaccine is here. We all hope that it will get us out of this dreadful situation. Personally I think that Covid is endemic, like Flu. I also think that it's only a matter of time until there is another pandemic. We humans have created the conditions which makes that inevitable. 

Should I at almost 76, with underlying health conditions, be any more worthy of life than anyone else? Should I be prioritised? How do we decide what one life is worth? Any such decision is flawed. Maybe it should be random, decided by a computer - Heads you win, tails you loose.

I don't know. I don't want to die, but I am dying. We all are from the moment we are born. Dying is natural. I am towards the normal end of my life. Just because I can be preserved by science, does that make it right? Shouldn't "quality of life" & the contribution an individual can make to society be factors in the choice?

So I have existential angst. Should I decline the vaccine so it can be given to someone younger, someone whose skills society needs at the moment? Or simply someone who has their life ahead of them?

It's a dilemma.