I often catch myself inclined to give up. Climate change is steadily doing its work while all efforts fail. This is one of the main reasons I chose to study environmental sciences, as I thought studying the problem would ease my worries. I thought that studying the problem would show me what exactly needed to be done, but in reality, it only strengthened my fears and anxiety. Furthermore, I often feel like a hypocrite, as I am learning to become an environmental scientist, not even knowing what plants I have in my room, not having touched soil in ages, just concrete. I know I am not alone in these feelings, and I know that I am not the only one searching for what we can do to ease the pain. I recently had an opportunity to experience those emotions with others during a community-supported agriculture event. In this blog post, I want to write about reconnecting with nature, soothing the pain and the feeling of being powerless.

A couple of weeks ago, I went a community-supported farm (CSA), Pluk, which was hosting a festival by the name ‘Reclaim the seeds’. The farm is located in Fruittuin van West, close to Schiphol airport. It was focusing on regenerative agricultural methods, seed exchange and education. One of the workshops I attended was focusing on soil, and the first question they asked everyone there was when we touched the soil for the last time. People gave wildly different answers, but generally speaking it was in the range of months. Following this, we touched all kinds of soil accompanied by planes flying over our heads, at times so loud we could not even hear each other.  This gave me a feeling of a funny dualism of being so close to nature yet so close to the very thing destroying it. This workshop visibly showed us that the problem lies not with nitrogen itself but with the balance it has with other nutrients. 

In the aftermath of the festival, I had the luck to get into contact with one of the volunteers for both the festival and the farm itself, Emma. Two things stood out for me in our conversation: one was how CSAs can help with climate anxiety on an individual level and improve resilience in our food system, and the other was seed patents and the role of the festival ‘Reclaim the Seeds’ in fighting against multinational agricultural companies privatising the seed market.

Community supported agriculture

As industrial agriculture is exhausting the earth’s resources, a kind of new agricultural revolution is needed. A viable and sustainable option would be Community-supported agriculture. “Community-supported agriculture (CSA) seeks to create a direct relationship between farmers and those who eat their food—farm members or shareholders.” (Cone & Myhre, 2000).  Emma, who is an active member of the CSA, which hosted ‘Reclaim the seeds’, described being part of a CSA in light of climate change as “empowering”. 

“the climate topic is so zoomed out, it’s so big, and we feel helpless because we realise we are these tiny humans and we can’t do anything. But then you zoom in, and then you see that in this CSA on these six beds, I can do something.”

We talked about how, in a global problem such as climate change, it is easy to feel like you have been stripped of any autonomy and agency. According to Emma, being in a CSA helped her tremendously. 

“Being in a CSA and feeling there is agency within your small community, this helped a lot because suddenly, yes, the climate is fucked, yes, the food system sucks, but there is also this little community and this little piece of land where you feel like you can do something. Okay, I can feed people, I can learn about things even with this small patch of land, we can regenerate the soil, and we can do something within our capabilities.”

CSAs are a viable alternative for industrial agriculture as they are adaptive in nature. With climate change having an increasingly bigger impact on agriculture as well. CSAs are more adaptive and flexible when it comes to changing harvesting dates, as there is a whole community behind. 

“We had seedlings the other week, and we put them outside for them to harden a bit so we can plant them, and then it was raining so much that they sprouted so quickly and were so much bigger, and we wanted them to be, so we were like we need to plant today. Otherwise, they are going to go bad. This is when the community aspect of the CSA comes in because there is this group chat, and we can text that we need extra hands because we need to plant, and suddenly, ten people show up ready to help.”

Reclaim the seeds and seed patents

The global agricultural and seed market is increasingly characterised by multinational firms owning everything. The rapid privatisation in the seed market started in the 1970s; the seed market used to be characterised by thousands of small, family-owned businesses, but by 2011, three multinational agrochemical firms controlled more than half of the global seed market (Howard, 2015). ‘Reclaim the seeds’ is a festival about seed sovereignty and food autonomy, which happens once a year on the little regenerative farm called Fruittuin. The festival promotes seed exchange as multinational corporations own the patents of the seeds.

“You are not allowed to exchange seeds anymore because they have patents on them (The multinational corporations).”

The patents on these seeds result in decreasing genetic diversity, as only a selected number of seeds are allowed to be used commercially. ‘Reclaim the seeds’ serves as a counter-movement to this trend of privatisation and patenting. “The event is basically about how we make sure that we, within our network, can still exchange seeds with a seed exchange table.” Upon visiting the festival, the seed exchange table really grabbed my attention, it was heartwarming to see how many people were participating. Furthermore, the same companies own the patents and industrial fertilisers used in industrial agriculture. Through this, “the whole system of dependency on these companies gets bigger, and small-scale farmers are getting smaller.” This further proves the importance of fighting this monopolisation through CSAs and seed exchange events. 

On a positive note

While climate change might make you feel anxious and insignificant, plenty of positive things are happening. ‘Reclaim the seeds’, serves as a reminder of these positives, fighting for a better and more sustainable future.  I highly recommend visiting Fruittuin, there is also a little market and a café, where you can have a lovely cup of coffee. There is also the possibility to get involved at the farm by volunteering in projects there. So, while industrial agriculture and multinational corporations own the majority of our food system and climate change is doing its thing, there is hope, and we, as individuals, can partake in this revolution. Simply put, we should all get closer to nature, starting with getting dirty again, touching some good old soil.

Sources:

Cone, C., & Myhre, A. (2000). Community-Supported Agriculture: A Sustainable Alternative to Industrial Agriculture? Human Organization, 59(2), 187–197. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.59.2.715203t206g2j153

Howard, P. H. (2015). Intellectual Property and Consolidation in the Seed Industry. Crop Science, 55(6), 2489–2495. https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2014.09.0669