What made syntropic forestry and local food production become normal?

How did we get to the Totally Good Future of Food?

In this series of articles about the Food System, I explore the possibilities of a Totally Good Future for us all. As the future is not written in stone, this Totally Good Future, if desirable, is possible. In these articles my feet are firmly in this future, looking back at how we got here.

While reading, I invite you to disarm your cynicism muscle and enable your unrestrained exploration of possibilities muscles:

What made syntropic forestry and local food production become normal?

In the 2020s our societal system was still overwhelmingly controlling and centralization of profit oriented. This made it hard for alternatives to the system to thrive unless they went unseen until they gained their own momentum. A few marking events took place in a way that favoured this food system transition. Here goes the story of regenerative farming in southern Europe since the 2020s:

In the mid 2020s the highly successful experimentation in regenerative farming pilots dispersed all over the southern European territory and often in isolated contexts, practiced by purpose driven and inspiring farmers supported by locals and local politicians, gained visibility, due to a few reliably quantified facts and inclusive networking strategies. ?Reliable quantification included abundant crops, nutrient rich vegetables and plants, water needs reduction to 1/10, elimination of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. The inclusive networking strategies were territorial movements that had gained momentum over long periods, reaching maturity and resilience at this same point in time! ??

Regenerative farming techniques proved highly successful in the Mediterranean climate region, where local organizations were highly networked and regenerative farming processes, with the new facts, posted on social media, spread like wildfire. The movement started from the clear position “if soils are dying regeneration is our inevitable option”; And the new facts also raised fundamental political and territorial planning questions: How to regenerate quickly and effectively? If regeneration of soils requires the help of the human hand, how will people be made welcome into these territories to lend their helping hand? How is it possible that the EU is still subsidising practices that kill our soils?

The nature protecting policies in place until the mid 2020s (mostly born in the mindset that nature needed to be left alone to thrive) fell very short in the context of the need for regeneration. If land was to regenerate at the necessary pace, people needed to be part of the process, and this meant they needed to have access good living conditions near the land they stewarded.

Is this Totally Good Future even possible? – coming soon: How did we get to this totally good future? Part 2 of what brought syntropic forestry and local food production to mainstream?