Issues of Scale

I love having a human scale farming operation, where Sammy and I can really notice the small things like this worm enjoying some spinach on an extremely wet day. The worm got to snack and take refuge from its flooded home while we watched and thought “Hopefully it dries up soon, we can add water but not take it away”.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of supply chain issues and shortages. Food will go up because of not only rising fuel costs, inflation, but also because large scale agriculture depends on chemicals mined and/or made in factories far away. When you scale up to a point where you need a cargo ship, a tractor trailer delivery, and a skid loader to unload your fertility needs, you have a problem.

I do not buy into the manufactured scarcity we are experiencing, and have been primed to anticipate. If you ask me about supplying food for a growing population, I will take you to a box store and tell you this place selling cheap goods produced by exploited people and exploited environments should be a family farm, or a cooperative operation of production of sustainable food products and or textiles. If you ask me if I think we can feed the world with non-gmo food I will ask you to visit our farm, then ask you to visit a broad scale gmo soy bean farm that is likely exporting the goods and ask you how many small farms like Full Circle CSA could you fit into that 100-1000 acre farm. With a few piles of compost 2 people produce food for 25 families a week and 2 farmers markets. That big farm is not only subsidized by our tax dollars, it is supporting big pharmaceutical and chemical companies while relying on fossil fuel for artificial fertility for some animal feed or tofu or most likely vegetable oil. (Animals only need supplemental grain because of scale, and can be kept on terrain not suitable for vegetable production but I digress)

We live in a vast world, and it only takes a couple square feet to grow a garden. To depend on systems that export all of the work and resources it is inevitable to out grow this system because it has been artificially propped up by said exportation. Someone is going to run out of something, someone is going to be interrupted somewhere. When you can’t see or experience the cost of production, you don’t realize the downstream effects of the goods. If we continue on expecting everyone else and everywhere else to be the producer, all the while we continue on consuming more and expecting more comfort, we will be checked. With the knowledge of such an impending natural cycle of re-scaling, we can anticipate the effects and create lifestyle choices and community resilience to prepare for the due consequences of our lack of consideration of the 7 generations to come, as the Indigenous people of the Americas did.

I personally look forward to the day people come together around this common purpose rather than dividing themselves into enemies. The battle is not a linear one, and we are all on the same plane. Let us ignore our propensity for destructive solutions, and see the opportunity of destruction with purpose to create what we wish to live. We HAVE to collaborate and work together for it isn’t the ordinary people who do the colonizing that perpetuates the consolidation of power to the point of collapse, but we certainly don’t stop it either. Now is a time that will be ceased by us, or by big business interests that will get our money to invest in their own green business that will be sold back to us rather than shared by the people who’ve bought it for them.

Are you ready to scale down? We can participate in our towns, in our neighborhoods. We can produce in our yards, in the parks, even in our apartments. We could stop buying stuff eventually if we can produce what we need and share our efforts and time instead of money. The choice is ours to be free to produce, or trapped to consume. The only solution is scaling down, back to staying in balance with what the natural resources can replenish. With the efficiency of our modern technology, we can find the right tools to scale production for more local distribution creating many small businesses.

Imagine a resurgence in manufacturing, but on a small scale to produce for other local businesses. If I had a local guy I could say hey man, this tool I thought would be sweet (their likely there just don’t know) and we build a relationship. Custom manufactured equipment for a resurgence in small family owned businesses. Imagine instead of parking lots and shopping malls we had diverse farm operations collectively owning land producing veggies, meat, dairy, textiles from plants and animals, fruits, honey, mushrooms, grains. Then you can have a certified kitchen that can be rented out by producers who preserve and make value added products. The human imagination and creative potential is infinite, you get the idea.

Instead of fighting big business, we just out compete them with our creative output. Only restaurants supporting local farms will survive. Grocery stores will have to contract local farmers to stay in business against all the farmers markets popping up. We can create a new culture around our creative potential. Seasonal traditions of the fruits of the land, how to preserve them, and why we are grateful for the opportunity to produce for ourselves.

Scale is the problem and the solution. Not capitalism or communism. Not left or right. Not gmo or non. Not pipelines or none. I had never heard of cottage industry before, if you haven’t I suggest you also learn about our history, and how we’ve come this far. If we can merge the future and past, I think we can get it right this time.

We would like to acknowledge that we live and farm on Lenni Lenape land.