#earthdeeds: planting for free food & nutritional density

earthdeeds 1.png

I have, for years, had a seemingly irrational urge to plant for nutritional density. Everything in my 6th sense has screamed that we need to grow less, use our energies far more wisely and plant differently. We need to be channeling our energies into trees that will yield every year, in great abundance, and feed half a village, rather than planting lettuces to feed a family of 4 for a month. We need to be focusing on trees which produce high value edible fats and oils, given the massive environmental destruction caused by global canola, soy and palm production. We need to be planting things that have multiple functions - food, and oils, and timber, and natural medicine. And something has always screamed in my head that we need to be planting more now, for people who won't be able to fend for themselves.

Till now, I have equated this feeling with my refugee friends along the Thai-Burma border. I have always assumed this 6th sense niggle related to them, and the need to create food security for large numbers of vulnerable, displaced people.

Only this week I began to understand that this 6th sense is also about our changing global demographic. I read a report of a study conducted by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and reported in both the Lancet and on the BBC.

The number of over 80-year-olds will soar from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2100. Source

Wow. We think we have an aging population now. 80 years from now we are projected, based on current falling birth rates, to have 8 times the number of needy, old and less-than-optimally-healthy people than we have now. And we're already swamped.

It seems a wonderful outcome for Mother Earth, to have fewer people competing for resources. And in many ways, it is. But it raises some huge questions:

Who pays for healthcare for the elderly? Who looks after the elderly? Will people still be able to retire from work?

Which countries will be most affected?
Japan's population is projected to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century.
Italy is expected to see an equally dramatic population crash from 61 million to 28 million over the same timeframe.
They are two of 23 countries - which also include Spain, Portugal, Thailand and South Korea - expected to see their population more than halve. Source

Populations more than halved in many of the world's big food producing countries, and the average population age skyrocketing. Hmmmm. ?? 🤔 Working in a sweltering rice field, vegetable farm or an orchard at 70 years of age? 🤔

As I read this study, I suddenly had a flash of more and more people, depending on fewer people who actually work and produce food. And I knew then, again, that nutritional density is a HUGE issue for Mother Earth in so many ways.

Why??

  • More high yield trees which don't require pesticides will be a game changer for a cleaner world;
  • More nutritionally dense vegan food will mean millions of animals wont need to be slaughtered;
  • More nutritionally dense foods will mean fewer grains, less big-agro mono-cropping and healthier people;
  • Planting a tree once which yields annually for 30 years means labour can be used more wisely elsewhere;
  • Trees, as opposed to fields of mono-cropped grains, encourage biodiversity and help stabilize things like soil erosion and the water table;
  • Trees which can be used for timber at the end of their 20-30-50 years of fruiting makes so much more sense than annual ploughing of bare fields;
  • Trees which yield not only oil seeds, but greens for food, bark and leaves for medicines, and ultimately timber are a wonderful use of limited time, space and water resources.

So this week, pondering the changes in my world and how I could best engage and support a different future, I planted.

I planted moringa seeds.

MoringaSeeds6 2.jpg

MoringaSeeds1 2.jpg

You can read more about my upcycled monsoon seed raising capsules Here.

The moringa seeds join my baby avocado trees, and my young chestnut trees, all grown from seed. All 3 trees grow huge, yield extravagantly and for decades, and will feed many families with almost zero care. All 3 trees yield exceptionally high value food. All 3 trees grow easily here in north Thailand, with almost zero care.

My baby trees will be planted around the edges of poor mountain villages along the Thai-Burma border, this year and next.

Screenshot 487.png
Local boy from a Lahu tribal village picking wild avocados in the jungle.
Chiang Mai Province, Northern Thailand

I expect to be an old lady in my mountain village home, enjoying the abundance the trees will give so freely and easily, for so many. I look forward to relieving the burden on Mother Earth in future years as we learn to eat differently and become less dependent on Big Agro, mono-cropping and cheap carbohydrates. I look forward to free, high value food being available to anyone who needs it. I look forward to enjoying the feeling that I have contributed to the health and abundance of others.

When is the best time to plant a tree? Yesterday.

We have much work to do. Join me?


All images used in my posts are created and owned by myself, unless specifically sourced. If you wish to use my images or my content, please contact me.


HiveOnBoard1.gif

Get Your FREE Hive Account

Come check out my natural Thai herbal business… yes, we ship world-wide

pure thai naturals 3.png
Visit our online store here



Join The Best Natural Health Community on Hive


ABUNDANCE TRIBE.gif
Creating Abundance for & on Hive

Sort:  

This was so interesting to read, Marike!
I got here thanks to the Best of Natural Medicine curation post and I'm so glad I did since I had never thought about it! I had been putting all of my efforts in planting a family garden so yes, tomato, peppers, onions indeed 😅 although I have a beautiful baby avocado.

This made me realize it doesn't matter if I have a land to plant trees or not as the real work would be planting them everywhere so people can harvest them. A beautiful and much more practical, useful and healing perception on trees!

Just think how easy life will be for someone when they can harvest avocado, for free, from wherever you choose to make its forever home. I think of it as a kind of green-thumb-abundance-pay-it-forward - I am resolved and intentioned and committed to allowing and being a conduit for abundance in this world.

!ENGAGE 25

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

That's a good way of thinking - getting those nutrient dense food producing trees in the ground growing to help feed the hungry!

Well done! I hope many more pick up on this idea - reblogged to hopefully get a few more eyes on it!

Thank you @porters - so many of our regular, "old face" @naturalmedicine, @ecotrain etc community people are TIRED and not often showing up to comment much - maybe they think 0.05 by autovote is enough?? I really appreciate YOUR CONSTANCY and your personal comments, despite knowing you have some big family adjustments in process right now. The encouragement from the reblog is wonderful.

Thank you. x

!ENGAGE 25

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

This post has been manually curated by @steemflow from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.

Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share 80 % of the curation rewards with the delegators.

Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.

Read our latest announcement post to get more information.

image.png

Please contribute to the community by upvoting this comment and posts made by @indiaunited.

Thank you @steemflow - appreciated. Look forward to your next great post. 😊

!ENGAGE 25

Ahh...I am kind of on & off nowadays...hopefully will get back sooner....

You are welcome. 🙂

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Very commendable effort and wonderful work! I think it’s your destiny to be there in Chiengmai like many of my friends and acquaintances.

But I will have to give you some information that you probably already know that the north is sitting on a fault line with tendency to experience more frequent earthquakes in the future. Several years ago, there was a special meeting of big foreign investors at an embassy in Bangkok. My friend who was invited to the meeting told me that they were all advised to sell their condos and not to invest in the area. I did warn all my Thai friends but their souls were still very attached to their previous past lives in that area. So, they told me they were willing to die in earthquake disaster! But there will be other environmental problems too and water problem. I don’t consider that area is safe for settlement even though I got an offer for free lodging within the big compound many years ago. In fact I got three offerings of land and house from my friends. They thought I was a lucky charm for them! LoL

Perhaps I should have accept one of the rare and special offers. But my inner voice told me that was not my land nor destiny. Still, the future may change according to new karmic flows. We could make part of our fate somehow.

Good luck.

I think you should have accepted. 😆 Major earthquake is far less likely to happen than Bangkok being slowly sunk into the sea. Which is inevitable, and coming sooner than most people think. Chiang Mai sits on a MINOR fault line only. Water and environmental problems are solvable and, indeed, our responsibility to address. And repair.

We each go where our inner voice leads us - that it was not calling YOU then, doesn't make it unsafe. Me?? I would choose the pristine jungle areas any day over chemically contaminated, "safer" parts of Thailand. It is just so beautiful here. Life to me is mostly about joy and service, not necessarily safety. 😊

!ENGAGE 25

By the way, something else much more serious will happen to Bangkok before it actually sinks into the sea! And this does not look pretty at all. Any way. What will be, will be.

I also hope that no serious earthquakes around Thailand for at least twenty years. It’s good to live life fully while we can. The future is full of uncertainty any way. Being psychic sometimes could be too much of a burden while troubling the mind. But I have to let go in the end.

Stay strong and healthy.

Funny I was just talking about that with someone today. Yes, many of us see and feel what is coming. I shall be happy to be far away in nature, doing what I can to enjoy this beautiful space and being of service where I can. Hugs. It IS a burden to see and feel beyond this time-space continuum. Always a place for you hidden away in the mountains here if ever you should need it.

Thank you very much for your kindness. Hopefully, the situation won’t be as negative as it could. May be some guardians will be merciful. Keeping my prayer with me everyday.

Have a nice day.
Cheers.

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Thank you for the tip!

I love this contrast to the world overpopulation argument. Well gathered stats/sources with strong rational arguments for your (in my mind) very rational urge for increased growing of plants with more nutritional density. I am totally with you on planting more fruit bearing trees, I wish I had the space to grow some where I live (one day soon if I am blessed enough to receive it). I do caretake some blueberry, rasberry, and special non-invasive blackberry bushes. I also pulled a srouted acorn out my raised bed and the root system was perfectly in tact. As a result, I had a successful transplant and am now nurturing a baby oak tree which I will plant on my own little piece of Gaia one day for future generations to enjoy. I'd say that is a good start, but I will certainly get more essential fruit bearing ones going when that happens as well. Awesome article and #earthdeeds! What is it like living in Thailand on the border of tribal lands? What are the cannabis regulations like in your area?

Thanks for the support @elamental - appreciated. Cannabis has been legalized here already for medicinal use - but must use Thai gov produced low THC product. Legislation IS IN PROCESS to legalize up to 6 plants for every Thai person for personal use. Things are moving along quite nicely. My biz is beginning the probably 2-3 year process to be able to produce CBD beeswax balms and beeswax CBD suppositories. Long Game but def improving everyday, with the focus here on heritage Thai strains, natural growing and the gov says all CBD product MUST be organic. 😍

!ENGAGE 25

Props for planting all them badboys too! Surely many will benefit from the fruits they bear for years to come!

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Interesting write up, and yes, i agree. If we can plant more trees now that will make us more self sufficient in the future. My grandma used to plant fruit bearing trees and its still standing tall and providing for us many years after she passed on. ☺️

What a wise and forward thinking woman your grandmother was!! And yes, we DO all need to start thinking that way, not just for our children, but for ourselves when we are old and food supply diminishes.

!ENGAGE 15

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Hi there!
I like this post!
It really points out the responsibility, or lack thereof that we all have to now and the future.

Your trees are looking Great!
Have an Awesome Weekend!
👍🏼😁👍🏼

We DO have a responsibility to the future - I feel that very much!! Thanks so much for stopping by and spreading some positivity around. Appreciated.

!ENGAGE 15

Hello There!
Thank You so much!
And I am glad that "You"
get it, most do not...
Sadly...
Our fellow man has only
a feeling of responsibility
to "now", and that is a now
only relative to themselves...
(*here I mean.. where You are it is probably different, I know other places I have been are...🤔).
You have an Awesome Sunday!
👍🏼😁🌅😁👍🏼

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Thank You!
👍🏼😁👍🏼

Yes we need to be planting trees, there are so many available that bear us so much amazing food and medicine and in such abundance as well. I agree wholeheartedly with you, I can not wait to find my spot where I can grow a food forest xx

Curated for #naturalmedicine by @trucklife-family.

We encourage content about health & wellness - body, mind, soul and earth. We are an inclusive community with two basic rules: Proof of Heart (kindness prevails) & Proof of Brain (original content). Read more here.

Our website also rewards with its own Lotus token & we'd love you to join our community in Discord. Delegate to @naturalmedicine & be supported with upvotes, reblog, tips, writing inspiration challenges for a chance to win HIVE and more. Click here to join the #naturalmedicine curation trail!