There are two ways to perceive a paddy field:
Or, asTiptoeing in the field at night … feeling a whirling vertigo, with the stars above and below, reflected in the water of the paddy fields, surrounded by millions of floating lights, fireflies moving up and down in the unlimited space, reflecting each other in infinity, with the underworld and the upper-world diluting into each other. “Late one evening I stepped out of my little hut in the rice paddies of eastern Bali and found myself falling through space.”1 (Abram 1996)
Southeast Asia accounts for 60% of the world’s paddy rice production, it is also an important traded commodity. Rice as a share of the Gross Domestic Products, food calories and food expenditures is falling (from 7 to less than 1 in East Asia between 1961 and 2007).2 Here follow instructions for paddy field preparation: apply glyphosate to kill “the dirty” weeds, maintain water 2-3 cm, plough or rotovate. Etcetera.
No one of these perceptions excludes the other. They are simply and essentially different. The fundamental difference lies in an understanding based on the feeling of being “within”, or “part of” or, instead, of being above in a position of fear (of the uncontrollable) and dominance (the reassurance of converting reality into figures, seeing nature as a competition between the useful and the bad: the “dirty weeds”).
When the second excludes the first, an over-dimensioned ego loses itself and drags with it the surrounding “others” in a cascading downfall. This is probably very much where we stand today.
Two thousand years ago, in 44 BC, Cicero,3 who was then 62 years old, said: “agriculture is the profession of the wise, the most dignifying for any free human being.”
About this book: this book is based on the author’s personal views, crafted over years of working with farmer communities
and decision-makers around the world. It stems from years of reflexion, theoretical work, practical experiences across continents; years of learning, sharing and listening. As such, this book reflects the author’s personal opinions and understanding. The sections based on science or policy will be indicated. But much of the text is just based on own opinion and deep personal beliefs. Apologies for the uncomfort of reading a text, which may not be as impartial and scientific as the reader may wish.
The issue in this book is not to idealize the agriculture
of the past, to imagine the happy wild woman jumping up and down in bountiful fields, holding hands with Earthly sisters. The issue here is to imagine a different way to focus attention. Agricultural research, agricultural development and agricultural organizations have emphasized during the last decades certain spots which have received magnified attention and funding. We propose here new, different areas for this special attention and funding. For what? To maximize impact? Perhaps. But above all, just to feel good, to feel fulfilled with one’s own life and to feel pleasure
.
No need to be a specialist to realize today that agriculture is at an impasse
. In many places of the world, it has lost its roots and identity. The know-how has been handed over to large companies, and farmers embark in a constant fuite en avant (running forward), constantly under pressure, unable to pause, aiming always at producing more and more. The paternalistic attitude of the astonishing number of players who advise farmers has forced them into an awkward position with often disastrous effects. If all the reports and documents written about agriculture, food and farming were put together on a big pile, it would certainly reach summits higher than the Kilimanjaro, and a spark could lighten a purifying fire that would reach above the skies. Why such a civilizational obsession to impose upon farmers? Why not upon postmen? Or upon musicians?
And, at the end, who bears the consequences of this (often wrong) advice? Farmers themselves. They bear the positives but also very much the negative consequences of the loss of harvests due to the wrong varieties; pollutions of the water, the soil and the air; with effects on their own bodies; disappearance of the life
of soils with the loss of the very source
of fertility
; over-equipment with machinery that is usually over-dimensioned and which cannot be repaired on-farm; excessive indebtedness
with devastating effects leading to the highest recorded suicide rates and overall an increased dependency
and brittleness of the production system.
Overall, in the last decades we have witnessed a loss at various levels: loss of identity, loss of recognition, loss of freedom, loss of knowledge, loss of diversity and above all loss of autonomy. There has been a loss of this very characteristic of peasants: pride. Bureaucrats are not proud about their office, nor workers about their factories. Peasants are proud about their farms.
In this book we will firstly bury sustainable development, then on the recovered space we will install a mix of what can be felt as nonsense, to choose upon: movement, vibration
, connection
, intuition
and perception
. And add some context to the fact that farming is not (only) about food
and that it is not (solely) to make profit
. Then we will recount the innocent exploration of trying to build bridges with the financial vacuum cleaner (that sucks and concentrates the planet’s wealth), also understood as the 1%. We will also tell a true story, in Africa
, starting on royalty on revenue and becoming a kingdom of the Earth. From illusion to delusion, we will walk the path to be able to open the curtain one day and see emptiness behind. Some steps are suggested on this path, as well as some thoughts on a policy context that would enlighten the colours of the frame.
Reference
Abram, David. 1996. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books.
Footnotes
1
Described in The Ecology of Magic p. 3 (Abram 1996).
2
From the IRRI (International Research Institute, FAO and WB) publication: Rice in the Shadow of Skyscrapers (2014) http://irri.org/rice-today/rice-in-the-shadow-of-skyscrapers-policy-choices-in-east-and-southeast-asia (8 August 2017).
3
De Officiis, 42–151 44 BC.