Just to widen the information gathering network for us all:
Why We Need to Abandon Industrial Farming
Many will argue that chemicals are needed to feed the population, but this is a false dilemma.
Well, that’s not a dilemma, it’s an assertion. So, perhaps it is a false assertion and if it is why is it so?
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are other futures we can choose.
OK, so, tell us, what is that - or those - alternatives?
Something much more likely to succeed would be a return to our roots. The share of people employed by agriculture has dropped precipitously since 1800. U.S. agriculture has gone from almost 60% of the workforce to 1.36% in 2019. In Britain, barely 1% help to satiate hunger. Globally—since 1991—the share of agricultural employment dropped from 43.7% to 26.76% in 2019. As artificial intelligence begins to strip humans of their worth, imagine if humans began working the land once again. What could be earthlier than returning to the land and reconnecting human animals with the natural world that gives them life?
Ah, yes, we thought it might be something like this. We all get to be peasants again, working those 12 hour days in the fields in order to scrape a living from the recalcitrant soil.
by our switch to plant-based diets
Ah, yes, we forgot, vegan peasants.
Simon Whalley is an educator in Japan, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Japan,
Well, there we have it, there’s the plan. Forward to the Middle Ages!
Here’s the bit that is always forgotten in these pastoral fantasies. We all consume the labour of others. The NHS is 10 or 12% of the total labour force of the united Kingdoms. And so on and on - everything we get to consume was created by the labour of someone else, just as our own labour goes off to be something that others can then enjoy. So, if we stick 60% of the population back on the land, as opposed to the current 1%, we then lose 59% of everything that is currently created and that we then consume and enjoy.
We are not just vegan peasants that is, we are poor vegan peasants.
We don’t want to be entirely negative though. It is, as we were taught, necessary to find something positive to say about everyone and every situation. Yes, that is lovely and so on.
Around the world, whether the U.S., U.K., or Japan much of the population living in urban areas tends to be more progressive than those in rural areas. As we have seen with the polarization of the United States, this divide desperately needs to be bridged. What better way than for progressives to move back to the heartlands and get their hands dirty along with those with more conservative leanings?
We’re not sure if the countryside is going to agree but if everyone to the left of, say, us is going to be moving there then it’s sure going to improve urban life, isn’t it?