One of the most remarkable bits of science that I read over the past bunch of years is the findings that there are some soil bacteria that can increase seratonin levels in the brain.

There is all sorts of detail about it, and for that I refer you to the Therapeutic Landscapes Network.

But, what I am wondering about today is connections.

We mess with the soil, and we spend less time in the soil, and we have more antidepressants being used than ever before.

Any connection?

Let’s see:

From ATTRA, we find that an acre of living soil can contain about 1000 pounds of bacteria.  “Living soil” is just talking about healthy topsoil.

From the Science Encyclopedia, we find that due to human activities, there has been losses of upwards of 18tonnes of topsoil soil per acre per year in the past 50 years alone.

From a few different sources (such as this one), we find that the US had lost somewhere between 2 and 4 million acres of topsoil every year.

From the American Academy of Allergies, we find that the rate of asthma increased by 75% from 1980 to now.

From our friends at wikipedia, we find that from 1996 to 2005, antidepressant use in the US doubled.

Anyone care to do some maths?

The local phone company idea has been simmering away – we have enough customers to show it can work, and each customer drives money back into their own community.

But, one of the great things about having your own phone company is that you can think more broadly – well, for me, the idea of having my own phone company is just so darn ridiculous that if I can do that, then really there is a whole lot of other stuff I could at least contemplate doing.

One such thing is the e-village – an online community, not reliant on gifts or charity or government grants, but designed intentionally to promote local commerce and local connections.

It launches here on Friday.  Check it out here, and share your thoughts.

Perhaps social systems have a tipping point just like natural systems – or so our local gardening group would seem to suggest…

Last week we relegated 20 years of politics to the garbage bin (well, we would have composted it if it was a physical thing), and left the most recent meeting about a community garden within nothing at all.

Since then, Nicky and I have designed the first conceptual plan for what we believe would be a self-sustaining (economically,socially and ecologically) community garden.  It is in concept form only, with the specific aim of communicating potential, and to scaffold people’s thinking.

And, just today I said “yes, sure” to the offer of money to create a program to provide for small-scale food growing for people in the community who have little to no experience in such things, and for whom healthy food is largely a foreign concept.

It seems that we will roll that program out at about the same time we will have a community meeting to introduce the broader concepts and possibilities of a community garden that helps to drive the community in a preferred, rather than default, direction.

Last week it was a blank page – this week it has some dollar signs on it.

The only thing that happened was three conversations (oh, and several years groundwork).

There’s a car bumper sticker that is quite popular in Australia: Every Family Needs a Farmer.

And, I admit, it is quite an effective marketing ploy from the agricultural lobby. I also admit to being quite soft when it comes to farmers, after all they do do a lot of hard work and usually get paid not much. They are also the (intensively raised) meat in the GMO-wheat sandwich.

Traditional arguments about extensive agriculture being needed to feed the world have often prevailed. Smaller players have argued this, but the alternative has largely been based on anecdotal data.

Until now…

Now, the United Nations has gotten in on the act, and has published a very interesting paper that makes it very clear that conventional, intensive methods of agriculture are not the bees-knees after all. Instead, it finds:
agroecology as a mode of agricultural development which not only shows strong conceptual connections with the right to food, but has proven results for fast progress in the concretization of this human right for many vulnerable groups in various countries and environments. Moreover, agroecology delivers advantages that are complementary to better known conventional approaches such as breeding highyielding varieties. And it strongly contributes to the broader economic development.

What I find more interesting than the report itself is that it was developed by the Human Rights Council, and not one of those economic think tanks that are so clearly co-opted by economic powerhouses with very clear interests.

The notion of food as a human right is critical if the issue of feeding people food is going to be resolved.

It reminds me of the very simple statement, Just Eat Food, by an author whose name escapes me ( I suspect Michael Pollon, but cannot be sure).  Not GMO, chemically enhanced, highly processed, engineered, whatever in a packet.  But, food.

Just food.

Just food, grown by people, and eaten by people.

I just roamed from one place to another to another and back again.  All in 20 minutes, and all care of this Internet thing.

Starting with a discussion of disruptive thinking, moving to a phone conversation about the e-village, another one about getting a local community garden going as part of the crop-circle, the need to share garden spaces and resources, sack gardening in Kenyan slums, and then straight back to yesterday’s post about bending the curve.

Resilience is all of the above; conversations, ideas, sculpting and bending to form new ways of doing things, challenging old paradigms.

Look at the sack gardens, grown (pun intended) out of necessity.

What is the difference between that necessity and the one facing us all? Perhaps the immediacy of hunger is less able to be ignored?

Resilience is about making things happen so that other things do not.

Or, from those to whom I bow in humility, it is

the capacity of a system to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical thresholds.

First, we killed the wrong one.

Then, yesterday, we killed the right one.  That’s me on the left, and Will on the right – he’s friend of the family, 8yrs, who was keen on being involved.

After about 4 months, this fellow (the rooster, not Will) ended up at a dressed weight of almost 5kgs.  Plenty to share across two families.

Now, the next in line has found his voice and is serenading the neighbourhood with his pubescent rooster crow at all hours- and bothering the ladies with his need to continue his genetics into a new generation.

Good life + quick death = good food, local food, healthy food.