The Natural Movement of Life

Abstract

This chapter presents different ways to perceive the world around us and gives the example of a paddy field. It tells the author’s ideas of where agriculture stands today and how an excessive focus on formal knowledge has put aside more subjective forms of understanding what farming is about. It suggests to reorient agricultural research and funding and to focus on reweaving other more invisible threads such as movement, relationship, vibration and connection, of the living and non-living world. This chapter also introduces the different sections of the book, that is, burying sustainable development, showing the wholeness and rationale of peasant farming, finding inflection points that can trigger change from within communities, telling the story of a new financial scheme tested in a pilot in Africa and finally suggesting some steps and policies for a path to autonomy.