But the other day, I saw that Sustainable Developmentcontradicts itself! (See my essay, “Primates! We Keep Sabotaging Sustainable Development Goals & Do Not Realize Our Crime Against Our Humanity!” 01 Feb 2022, Primate Change, blogspot.com). It is simply because Sustainable Development, as formulated by the United Nations, depends much on chemical agriculture, which has been proven by the UN itself to produce many and much greenhouse gases (GHGs).
Technically feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, socially acceptable. That is to say: With chemical agriculture that produces GHGs, Sustainable Development is notsustainable!
The above image is that of Filipino Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas, local practitioner and international avid proselytizer of organic farming/biodynamic farming. Guess from whom Nicky first caught the virus of organic farming? In 1968, a non-conforming Ilocano instructor began teaching at the Xavier University College of Agriculture (XUCA) in Cagayan De Oro City – about Organic Agriculture (OA), unheard of at that time even at the UP College of Agriculture (UPCA) where the instructor came from. Nicky was one of the XUCA students, and he became a believer in OA. I was that instructor.
I have always been an original. At the open shelves of the UPCA library, I had discovered the book Soil Development (published 1952) authored by American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner whose intellectual position was that plowing was foolish and that trash mulching was smart. He explained – Clever! Trash mulching/organic farming went into my XUCA lectures on Horticulture. Nicky was one of my students. (Years later, he graduated to Biodynamic Farming, which means the teaching was good as the student learned more even afterwards!)
Later, Nicky was involved in the Sustainable Development moves of the United Nations that came up with the characteristics of sustainable technology or system:
Technically Feasible, Economically Viable, Environmentally Sound, and Socially Acceptable.
Perfect, right? Not so. When you apply a sustainable something, it does not automatically replenish the components of that system; in agriculture, that refers first of all to the natural wealth of that soil.
That brings me to my latest espousal, Regenerative Development, which goes beyond sustainable development.
Yes, chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides are sustainable – but they are generators of GHGs, direct causes of climate change. The Sustainable Criteria should be changed to Generative Criteria, thusly:
Technically Feasible, Economically Viable, Environmentally Regenerative, and Socially Acceptable. (That’s FAH revising the UN!)
To fight Climate Change, I insist on Regenerative AgriForestry (RAF) – this is the extensive growing of food crops with wood crops in the same area. How do you start RAF? Easy! Trash farming via rotavator. (See my essay “Primate Change – How To Remake The World We Have Remade. We Start With Agriculture,” 18 Jan 2022, Primate Change, blogspot.com).
I assert: To fight Climate Change, Regenerative Development must replace Sustainable Development as a United Nations principle!@517
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