Farming systems options for global agriculture: An agroecological perspective (Part 2)*

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. Albert Einstein

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. Aristotle

The beauty of the natural world lies in the details. Natalie Angier

We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot. Leonardo Da Vinci

The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all...Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life. Wendell Berry

The notion that there exists a tolerable level of soil loss is a fallacy and blatantly false. Any soil loss (in most cases) means loss of the most productive part of our agricultural fields - the topsoil - and within the topsoil are the origins of life as we know it and a majority of the nutrients required for present (and all future plant growth. S. Oberle

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around. Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day Founder

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. Dalai Lama

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. Aldo Leopold

I would rather be tied to the soil as a serf...than be king of all these dead and destroyed. Homer

Soil fertility can be defined as the capacity of the soil to sustain life (from soil microorganisms to humankind). S. Oberle

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Franklin D. Roosevelt

The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generation. John Paul II

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. Meister Eckhart

Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. Aldo Leopold

To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil. Thomas Jefferson

If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science. Samuel Johnson

A reasonable agriculture would do its best to emulate nature. Rather than change the earth to suit a crop it would diversify its crops to suit the earth. Verlyn Klinkenborg

Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education. Alice Waters

The real wealth of the nation lies in the resources of the earth, soil, water, ….a delicately balanced and continuing program cannot be a matter of politics. Rachel Carson

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. Ansel Adams

To waste and destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them. Theodore Roosevelt

Wake and listen! Verily, the earth shall yet be a source of recovery. Remain faithful to the earth, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Friedrich Nietzche

The storm took place at sundown

It lasted through the night.

When we looked out next morning

We say a terrible sight.

We saw outside our window

Where wheatfields they had grown,

Was now a rippling ocean

Of dust the wind had blown.

It covered up our fences,

It covered up our barns,

It covered up our tractors

In this wild and dusty storm.

We loaded our jalopies

And piled our families in,

We rattled down the high-way

To never come back again. Woody Guthrie

We are part of the earth and it is part of us...What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. Chief Seattle

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*Part 1 of this series can be found at: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/farming-systems-options-global-agriculture-part-1-steve-oberle-1c/

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/natural-resource-concerns/soils/global-soil-map

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/littonc/PDFs/680_Lecture6.pdf

https://www.fao.org/policy-support/tools-and-publications/resources-details/en/c/418448/

https://www.fao.org/land-water/solaw2021/en/

https://hungermap.wfp.org/