The following is taken from a presentation which Gerry recently delivered at the NSW Landcare Conference in Orange NSW.
The City and the Soil
A circular economy from the Ground Up
The City and the Soil
A circular economy from the Ground Up
Introduction
Despite 2015 being recognised by the United Nations as the International Year of Soil, we still see little recognition of soil as the fundamental base for the production of food and with it the basis of all forms of human economy. The principal focus for humanity throughout its entire existence has been access to food. This access to health and wealth was stabilised with the rise of agriculture, the farming family and the shift away from hunter-gather societies. Food is the pure basis of the human economy. Food, as nutrition, is in fact the basis of all forms of economy financial or ecological. Protection of our agricultural base and with it protection of our soil is fundamental for human survival. The soil is our mother, everything we are, everything we ever will be is predicated on what we eat. But with our expanding coastal social structure and the emphasis on the city and with that the focus on urbanisation, society is losing it's connection with our soils and the farming community as our food producers. Despite the rising interest in TV cooking programs and quality food being described as the “new rock and roll’ – the urban population is losing both the connection to and the knowledge of food production systems. With the loss of that connection goes the influence of the food producer on government policy and the farming individual as the doyen of our soils. Agriculture as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product has fallen to around 15%. (ABS). While this may not seem to be of strategic interest – growing food is the basis of our entire economy. The diminishing influence of agriculture on GDP seems to coalesce with a reduced understanding of the importance of agriculture in economic circles as the basis of our economy. However, no economist has yet come up with an alternative to food as the key to community. Along with the falling influence on GDP, Leigh Vial, Nuffield Scholar, pointed out in a recent Department of Agriculture seminar in Canberra, that farm family employment has fallen from 250,000 in 1980 to 150,000 in 2010. Farming families in total may in fact represent less than 1% of the total Australian community. www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features10Dec+2012 Yet this tiny percentage of our population is responsible for our daily sustenance. While the political interests of our food producers used to give the farming community a 15% political influence thirty years ago, this has now fallen to 5% and with it, the ability to persuade and influence the conversation and the national agenda. So while food production in reality maintains its important role in the function of any nation state, understanding of its economic function, input needs and influence has fallen dramatically. While discussions on food and importance of cooking are celebrated on prime time television, the importance of agriculture as the producer of the very food cooked on those programs and the survival of farming as an industry are not. Details on how City and the Soil works and its success in engaging community can be found here: www.groundswellproject.blogspot.com Details of how the program works at Armidale-Dumaresq can be seen here: www.armidale.nsw.gov.au/environment/waste-and-recycling/city-soil |