GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS
Australian storyteller Emily Lush has been nicely positioned in Georgia to take advantage of the summer season slow travelling her way around local villages and countryside. She also joined Georgian travel tour hosts, Karavanly. Rich with cultural diversity, including the world's oldest wine-making tradition, we've definitely got Georgia on our minds…
WORLD’ FARMING AND ALL THE RESPONSIBILITIES THAT COME WITH BEING A KEY PROVIDER TO WORLD FOOD CHAINS?
Ah, perhaps this is the problem. That local farmers and local resources are being exploited to provide ‘world food chains’. The world needs more small land holders engaging in farming. The more this happens, the more you see biodiversity in local farms and healthy communities that consume their yields closer to home. This way we can mitigate climate change and start to see a reversal in the trend of diseases and illnesses resulting from the chemical food chain that we’ve become entangled in as a species. Traditional farmers in Bali are rediscovering the true wealth of their island by coming back to natural modes to manage their fields. Tumpang sari (known as ‘biodiverse polycropping’ or ‘intercropping’ in regenerative farming circles), is a traditional concept that we hope to help re-establish on the island. Some of the old farmers look at the chaotic rows of our community gardens, packed with all manner of plants living in symbiosis. They smile and exclaim, “Tumpang sari!”
This is not the way to feed the masses but we do believe that by allocating a portion of their fields to sustenance farming using biodiverse intercropping methods, that more and more locals will come to appreciate ‘slow world’ ancestor heritage. Not only will this inspire healthier lifestyles, but hopefully more human contentedness. As a species, we are so desperately in need of this now.
HOW DO YOU THINK THE YOUNGER GENERATION REGARD FARM CULTURE ON BALI?
The younger generation have come to think of farming as dirty, uncomfortable, low-status work. Ironically, this impression of farming has been reinforced by their parents who would prefer to see their children in the air-conditioned comfort of a foreign-owned hotel earning a predictable paycheque than under the hot sun succumbing to the capricious will of nature. But we are confident that farmers can earn a better living at farming than they would simply by servicing the tourism industry if they are given adequate mentorship and tools to produce valuable goods and also provided access to local and regional markets. So many young people are returning to the fields to farm out of necessity now due to the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. The time is now to engage with these young people and support them to find viable ways to become successful agri-entrepreneurs.
If you fancy a pilgrimage experience in Bali, flick to page 82 to learn about the Astungkara Trail.
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