Each year I realise how little I understood the year before.
In my case that is true for many topics but today I would like to focus on my Westbroek ‘farm project’. In this project I try to back peddle towards a life style that is more aligned with nature through a number of experiments (such as regenerative farming at mini scale and sustainable housing).
And it is working. I feel more connected and an enhanced sense of wellbeing. And… at the same time I experience that most of my well intentioned choices fall short of what is needed to reconnect at a true and sustainable level.
One of my realisations is that as soon I do more than accepting what nature is already doing I immediately create a situation whereby I need to keep interfering in order to mitigate the impact of my initial interference. The extrapolating consequences of which we are currently all experiencing at planet level.
An example to clarify: I soon as I plant a seed that hasn’t found it’s way to my farm in a natural, evolutionary way I requires endless extra care (water, nutrients, pest control, weed protection, weather protection, labor etc…).
Another example: I ‘keep’ Mangalitza pigs, a cross bread of the European wild boar with a rare long curly coat of hair that makes them ‘all weather’ pigs. When people see the environment I have created for the most people react with: what a paradise for these pigs, this is how you should do it when you keep animals. Maybe true but as soon as I put a fence around them (which is unfortunately I unavoidable in my environment) complications start to accumulate (degradation of their space, in breeding, lack of physical exercise, mental stress etc.).
My interim conclusions are:
1. need based hunting / gathering seems the only truly sustainable model, all other models seem to lead to where we are now (just back tracking to an earlier point in this development).
2. in the mean time the most connecting model is focus on need based consumption of (not what is locally produced but) what grows locally with minmal interference…
