Organic September

When the drugs don't work

I receive a lot of emails from companies offering all sorts of marketing gimmicks and strategies. They’re like shiny amendments I can sprinkle onto the garden to make everything blossom and bloom. Through experience, I’ve learnt the delivery of said gimmick rarely lives up to the sales pitch, but if the marketing is done well enough, they'll still catch my attention and make we wonder if we need to be louder, brighter, more active on social media… the list goes on!

As autumn rolls in, Organic Awareness month begins. I’m not sure why September, maybe as the goodness above ground is being picked, harvested and sorted, attention turns to what goes on below and what we wish to sow for the future. If I’m inundated with calls from marketing agencies – maybe the farmers’ equivalent is fertiliser reps.

Which way will farms lean.. organic, conventional, regenerative, intensive, biodynamic.. or are they even still farming?

Beyond the shiny promises

The marketing jargon of the smart agencies/reps all sell the same promise – I won’t have to work harder or smarter. Less of a need to dig down, get really good at my trade and communicate authentically. But, growing anything of substance takes bucket loads of care, grit and time. The quick fixes may work once or twice, as all chemical treatments do – we’ve all taken a painkiller, but over time, the ground, your body and our business would become tired and dull.

The message of Organic September is “small changes all add up to make a world of difference”.  I agree and I also believe, the Organic model and practices are only the starting point, not the destination we should all be striving for in the food chain, our landscapes and relationship with nature.

The language of weeds

Growing organically makes sense. We all know the dangers now of Monsanto’s hero products. I wonder how did a handful of organisations grab a-hold of the food systems the world over? How did they systemically exert such a dangerous influence on everybody’s ability to live free from toxins?

You don’t have to look far to read the stories of people fighting for their right to save and plant their own heirloom seeds. Or communities dealing with poisoned water systems, dwindling biodiversity and farmers stuck in a vicious cycle of chemical dependency.

Weeds can tell us a story about a place. They can also be silenced – along with the birds, the bees, the caterpillars and everything else that makes the land sing.

Money, time and rational thinking

When starved of real nourishment, the connection and learned intelligence between elements breaks down. Communication is reduced to the essentials – mere transactions to keep things going. The right hand may know what the left is doing, but where is the magic and creation they can nurture and hold together?

This is true for soil, but also our bodies, a business, a marriage, a family, or a movement.

The marketing strategies and marketing bumpf of agro-industrialists may sound appealing because it promises to give us what we never have enough of. Time. But farmers are often cash poor and time poor, so buying in additives and tonnes of chemical waste, sorry fertiliser, isn’t always the best business model.

If the return on investment is to buy a moment, but then spend even more time in the future needing to help the land recover, eventually the maths doesn’t add up – financially, environmentally, ethically or rationally, and even more so when considered generationally.

Why synthesise what’s been occurring in nature for millennia with 3 industrialised compounds? NPK may be the scientifically proven elements to make plants grow, but when could the whole universe be distilled down to a formula, which by design, simplifies nature to mere inputs and outputs.

Beyond Organic

In India, HOMA farming considers the atmosphere, and on Biodynamic farms, the spiritual and cosmic elements of nature are recognised and respected. Invisible forces exert an influence on the most practical and grounded things in reality and we can work with or ignore those elements as we each see fit.

The essence I am extolling here though, is that the more we consider and the more we observe, the wider our framing becomes, and we can then find more pieces of the jigsaw. The more relationship-minded we become, the harder it is to be content about choosing the sugar-coated solution, which we know deep down isn’t really going to solve anything, just delay the inevitable.

I am glossing over a lot in writing this article. I don’t drive a combine or run sheep and do not understand the intricacies of large-scale land management. But I know there is always a harmonious way forward when we stop pretending top-dressing will help long term and commit to the harder task of taking stock of what we have, who we’re working with, what we’re offering and why we’re doing it.

Safety and Wisdom

I saw a brilliant reel the other day about a farmer who stopped all inputs and his production took an unhealthy nose dive. But he didn’t give up – he explored and investigated, and had to turn his head inside out and start farming from scratch. This wasn’t to achieve ‘organic status’, but because X and Y weren’t adding up anymore.

At our core, we feel safe when things are simple and transparent. His farm wasn’t transparent anymore, he had been creating an artificially viable farm, and the literal cost had become too burdensome on his wallet, well-being and the land. So a swift learning curve began. The land changed beneath his feet. It wasn’t the same, just minus the chemicals, it was a totally different patch. The grasses were different, the ecology of the soil was self-supporting, and the land could sustain the number of animals he kept without the need to buy in extra feed.

Small steps, giant leaps, about-turns and shape-shifting – nature’s way is to spiral, constantly turning inwards. When we’re encouraged to look outwards and focus on the external to affect change, the results are always short-lived and transient... we can keep talking to new reps about new products, or take a simpler, more organic approach! 

Written and read by Jemma Claire, co-founder Na'vi Organics