Society that doesn't know where its food comes from is a society without culture and humanity without culture will perish.
-Masanobu Fukuoka.
The importance and relevance of Local Food has led Agriculture World request Krishna McKenzie to become a motivational speaker. We have aligned three talks on June 1,2 and 3 where he will focus on Why Local Food is the ultimate solution, Solutions to create community with Local food and The Role of Local food in Policy change. Krishna stays in the beautiful township of Auroville. India has always inspired him and he spends time exploring various local cuisines. He endorses Organic farming owns a cafe called Solitude which specialises in Local Food and also promotes eco-friendliness.
Krishna loves Natural farming and he practices it and is an ardent follower of Masanobu Fukuoka. Krishna McKenzie materialized his dream of Organic Farming in the year 1996 by starting the Solitude Farm. The beautiful farm Solitude spreads over 6 acres and grows over 150 varieties of local food and is under the idea of natural farming and permaculture.
When in a conversation with him he emphasizes the needs for focusing on local foods like papaya, pumpkins jackfruit, yams, tapioca, agathi, moringa etc. This reminds me of our home gardens or the backyards in Kerala. What I have seen in my backyards 20 years ago are all becoming a novelty these days. The Moringa which we daily plucked and had a handful put into sambhar or curd is turned into a powder and recommended in soups. A jackfruit,two ripe fallen mangoes, a handful of keerai or spinach and a bunch of green bananas are distant realities and it’s sad that these Thodis or Backyards are non existent in these times of technology, digitization and supermarket!Its a reality that we have gone too far away from these. There is a much greater need to get back into these corners of nature and rejoice along, make it a part of life and sense their taste. It is very essential that our children instead of mentally picturing the trees nearby should go over to look at and touch the tress directly themselves. Isnt it hard being not to be able to go deep into nature and being one in these trying times of COVID .What else does these times teach us other than to tread carefully with nature.
