Market Farming

["Jill Taylor Bussiere" <jdt AT itol.com>]

Rick,
    I hear what you are saying about wolves being a threat to farming.

    At the same time, there is a worldview, outlook, whatever you want to
call it, that is pretty common in our country.  Let me give you an example
of another worldview to point out what I mean.

    I was reading a book about elephants, and their current situation
worldwide.  Some of the book was about Africa, and some about India.  In
Africa, people sometimes killed/poached elephants illegally - sometimes it
was just to get by, as many are poor there, and selling forbidden elephant
tusks was one way to get by.
    In India, however, the elephants are looked at in another way, as is all
life.  Sometimes elephants will go on a rampage  and stomp a farmer's crops
to bits.  The farmers' reaction is very different than the common one in the
US.  Their reaction is to acknowledge the right of the elephant to live, and
to shrug it off as a part of life, with all of us here on the earth
together.  Life is revered, all life, and seen as a part of existence.

    Let me tell you another story.  I hit a deer recently with my car.  I
was going about 45 or 50, I guess, just on the road near by us.  Two
absolutely beautiful deer crossed the road in front of me.  I swerved and
missed the first, but hit the second.  I am pretty certain that it had
internal injuries as a result, along with much pain, and I doubt that it
lived, although it kept running until out of sight.  Our car was totalled -
with the repairs costing 3 times what the car is worth in the Blue Book.
The car would not start after that.
    When I was talking with the insurance man, who was very nice, he said,
"Isn't it a shame that there are too many deer!"  and I said,"I think the
problem is too many people.  It isn't the deer that are taking over the
planet!"  He laughed and acknowledged that that was true.

 As someone else said, if things were more in balance, then there would be
more predators, and perhaps a lower deer population.  But just because our
many, many cars hit deer, and suffer damage, does not give us a right to
eradicate the deer.  If anything, perhaps we should determine other ways of
travel.

I saw a movie - can't remember its name - it was of a group of Tibetan
community members building a building.  They carefully moved each earthworm,
one by one, from the building site as they were digging the foundation, so
as not to harm any.

    The earth is out of balance - largely because of our attitude that
whatever activities we deem necessary take precedence over the interweavings
of the ecosystem.  Therefore, if we grow something, and a kind of insects
dares to eat them, then we eradicate the insect.  If weeds dare to grow up
amongst our crops, then we eradicate them and all else in their path.  If a
wettland is in the way of where we want to build, then we eradicate it.  If
a country is in the way of an oil supply that we would like, then we
eradicate the people.

    Well, I've more than made my point - but I just wanted to point out
another way of looking at the world - one that may enable us to survive as
humans on the earth - although I have my doubts - as the dominator attitude,
which has already wreaked incredible damage, still prevails.  It even has
residence in pockets within my soul.

    Yet, these last years, I have been trying to learn how to grow plants
with nature, rather than against her.  As a result, these last years I have
grown, the earth and the plants have been healthier, and more resistant to
insects and disease.

                                                        Jill (also from
Wisconsin)