You Grow Girlâ„¢

Wow I just watched the recent episode of The Nature of Things and I have to say it kind of blew my mind. I should say that even old episodes of the show blow my mind, but is it just me or are the shows getting heavier? Tonight's episode was the first in a two part series on Biomimicry which is based on the book "Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature", by Janine Benyus.

When I first tuned into the show (late) I caught part of a segment on introducing perennialism into farming practice. The way I interpreted it is as a sort of companion planting-type system where crops are grown in groups with other plants that mimic the communities that occur (depending on the ecosystem) in nature.

[This part has been added in after the fact because I left out some important points. -Gayla] Perennialism is exactly as it sounds; switching to a system of farming that deals with plants that over-winter rather than simply relying on annuals the way we do now. Over-wintering means not having to put as much energy into farming as we currently do (plowing, planting, fertilizing, etc) and it means that we aren't subjecting huge fields of soil to erosion because there are always deep-rooted plants holding everything in. When they first started discussing erosion I thought they were going to get into green manures and the like but what they said about perennialism took things to a level I had never even imagined. But it makes so much sense. Especially the stuff about polyculture. Have you ever walked in a field and noticed alot of the same families of plants growing together? There's a reason for that. Sometimes it is just too easy to forget that.

It was really fascinating stuff. Plus what was being said about soil... Read any organic gardening book and you're going to see alot of concepts such as the "living soil" turn up again and again, but hearing empassioned speeches from the mouths of others has so much more impact.

From Wes Jackson of the Land Institute

"If we step outside the system that’s feeding us and look at what’s doing it, we see that it cannot go on, that it’s dependent upon extractive forces and that we better think about how to be husbanding that soil. Soil is the key. You know, soil is really the mother of all land life. "

Later in the program they dealt with the topic of biomimicry as it would be applied to industry and commerce. This part described how our current capitalist system is an extractive culture which relies on competition and confrontation rather than cooperation and restoration. Sure this is something we probably all know, but how many of us fall into the traps of an extractive lifestyle instead of one of renewal? I have to say that while the word "competition" is often used in relation to our current system, I had never heard the word "confrontation" used... and in hearing that word it really clicked for me in a way it never has before. I know that even though I have made big changes in my own life, there are still so many ways that I could make more changes. Being responsible for my actions isn't that hard, it's making that paradigm shift... and even the habitual one from what for me has been relative laziness, denial and disregard about certain things, to actually seeing every action as a choice that has a positive reaction or a negative consequence. That is the hard part. This show should be manditory viewing in public schools.