Hello? ?
This is "Noji-Strawberry" from <Byeol-At-Gan Farmers>. ?
I read a book called "What is Ecological Agriculture?" and it gave me a lot to think about. I am writing this to share some of those thoughts with you.
Before talking about the contents of the book, if you look at the representative photo for this article, you can see that most of the soil in Korea has a fertility level of 7.
On the other hand, in countries like the United States and Ukraine, land with a fertility level of 1 is the norm. As farmers responsible for the soil of Korea, I started my reflection on the book while contemplating deeply about what we should do.
Reading the book "What is Ecological Agriculture?" brought many thoughts to mind.
I thought that the goal of ecological agriculture is to carry out farming while adhering to "no-till, no-weeding, no-pesticides, and no-fertilizers" in the process of planting, growing, and harvesting crops.
While reading the book, although it is an introduction to ecological agriculture, the following keywords appeared much more frequently than agriculture itself.
Organic matter
Microorganisms
Compost
Humus content
Soil
Seeds
Mulching
By listening to the experiences and thoughts of fellow farmers regarding the words above, I was able to think about ecological agriculture once again.
Perhaps I am not just farming to reap the fruits of a harvest, but am at the beginning of a journey to restore the land to what it was before the Industrial Revolution, and to create soil that flows with milk and honey like in the past.
Whether you are a farmer cultivating 12,000 pyeong or a farmer on a 60-pyeong plot, what matters is not how much yield you get, how high-quality crops you harvest, or how much profit you make per pyeong.
What matters is whether you can build the strength of the land you are farming on, organize ways to build that strength, and continue to plant the seeds of crops grown on that land.
I was able to catch a glimpse of the importance of the experiences in which humans understand and commune with nature, even if only slightly, during that long journey, and a small spark has ignited in me that I also want to experience it.
There was a passage in the book that said:
In the solar system, not only the sun, but all the stars that make up the solar system influence the Earth.
I had never thought of that.
I have studied and known about the solar system with my head, but I had never thought about the relationship between the solar system, the Earth, and furthermore, 'me'.
What a wondrous and amazing world it is.
Being 'natural' was never easy or small. It was natural from very huge things to faint things that cannot be seen or felt.
In it, humans are just living.
Because nature allowed it. I realized that we are just creating the unnatural within that, within naturalness, and if nature did not allow it, humans would not be able to achieve AI, science, industry, finance, and other so-called "civilizations" that humans have achieved.
I am grateful, and grateful again, and I intend to make even a small effort to understand nature from now on, little by little.
I think it will start with 'soil', and end with 'soil'.
I intend to find the beginning, that original 'soil', by using the experience and knowledge I have learned so far on how to revive the soil.