AN OPEN LETTER
Dear Friends,
The Natural Leap of Food
I thought that when we tasked ourselves to refresh the business plan for Food Forest Farm for our next phase of growth that it would be about Food and New Markets. As we analysed, researched and deliberated deeper into the significance of this endeavour, it suddenly struck me that it is beyond our existing paradigm and even logical extensions of it.
Why? In this case, it is because the world population is estimated to be at 9 billion in 2050. So we will need food. And we will need chemical free food.
How? We will need to use technology. But more pertinently, we will need to motivate human engagement to the level of care, attentiveness and precision required to grow, not produce, safe, good, food. And we can because the human science is now revealing the paths to healthy and well-being work, play and living.
What? Becomes irrelevant, because the need is so obvious and urgent, we will need to innovate, and rapidly. And we will, given the creative history of human civilisation.
Where? Is actually the very interestingly commonly unasked question. And this was our truest dilemma. We weren’t actually struggling about the business dynamics. The deep struggle is this cultural disengagement. With Nature.
It suddenly occurred to me that food, our habitat (earth), and us, are nature. We are all part of ecology. We are the interweaving biospheres.
So, the business plan quickly got integrated into a larger evolved significance – Nature Plan. By this we mean, in all that we do, we are aware of our contributions to Nature: Earth, Forest, Wildlife Diversity, Food, People, Homes. And we cannot compromise one bit. If we do, it will fall apart eventually. And by that definition, non- sustainable. So non-full integration of Nature actually is non-sustainable. Which makes full integration of Nature, fully sustainable.
So where does the Economy play in this? The economic valuation of Nature has to signal the right attention to all the critical components of Nature that make up Life on Earth – Earth, Forest, Wildlife Diversity, Food, People, Homes.
Markets.
This is our real leap. It is not about market creations per se. We dig down into a deeper rootedness. We create, build, adapt and nourish the market mechanisms that drive the paths towards Nature’s flourishing and by definition, sustenance of the whole existence: Earth, Forest, Wildlife Diversity, Food, People, Homes, Markets. So that market creations become healthily self-revolving in a living manner. The interweaving biospheres need to be self-generating, i.e. self-sustaining. And so the turning point cannot be at a mechanistic level anymore. It will necessarily involve ground adaptations that serve the whole. This integrity will have to stand as the base of sustainability. And this base integrity isn’t knowledge but INTENT.
Our leap was the shift in our own consciousness, one that is of intense, honest and heartful reflections and authentic learning. A consciousness which understands our time in history.
The learning journey of the evolution of a consciousness from cultural disengagement from Nature to one that commits to actions to re-integrate Nature wholistically in our culture and our lives is through understanding that this re-engagement is an honourable call – through personal choices, and through mechanisms that elucidate such sustainable choices. My friends and advisers will literally scold me for writing an open letter such as this.
But – my choice is consistent. It has to be. It is a commitment to life. Why? Because we can. For all of the history of life and human civilisation, we can build a good, healthy, sustainable culture and world.
Markets are entirely but choices. Because markets are driven by human choices. If we integrate Nature into the market mechanism, and individually and collectively make personal, responsible choices with a commitment to all our collective sustainability, we will all be sustainable.
And so, we offer the following committed actions to integrate Nature Consciousness into our market offerings:
Safe Good Food
Forest Nursery
Treehouse Homestead
Tropical RainForest Ecosystem Services
We are Nature. We are what we eat, breathe, do business, and dance.
With much love,
Peng-Ean Khoo
This Open Letter was prepared or accomplished by Peng-Ean Khoo in her personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of Food Forest Farm Sdn Bhd and The Kind Grower Pte Ltd, and all related individuals, and entities, corporatised or otherwise.
first published on February 16, 2017
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