The great Roman statesman Cicero once wrote: “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”. Today, almost two millennia later, his words are perhaps even more relevant than when they were written. There are many simple reasons we grow gardens; producing fresh food, crafting beauty from nature or enjoying the outdoors. Our gardens though, represent so much more – they offer solutions to many of the problems we face in modern times.
Industrial agriculture, with its carbon emissions, poisons and environmental degradation, contributes to some of the problems we are facing. Large-scale monoculture farming is proving to be not only environmentally destructive but also lacking the diversity and resilience to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Monocultures of a single crop are necessarily unhealthy, unbalanced and prone to pest, disease and weed problems. As a result, each year in Australia we use over 15,000 tonnes of carcinogenic glyphosate and over 13,000 tonnes of pesticides, much of it on the food we eat. The lack of diversity in these agricultural systems creates problems that can only be addressed with harsh poisons and the manipulation of seed genetics.
The loss of many of our seed varieties is another indication that something is fundamentally wrong with the way we farm. Since the beginning of the 20th century, over 93% of our vegetable varieties have become extinct and over 75% of the world’s plant genetic diversity has been lost. Where there were once multitudes of unique varieties of our food crops, they have been replaced by a monoculture of standardised, hybrid crops specifically developed to grow in the unnatural conditions created by factory farming.
The garden gives us hope for a better alternative, showing how we can grow, create and thrive while giving back to nature. Healthy gardens are diverse ecosystems of vegetables, fruit, flowers and wild patches that attract beneficial insects, build soil and eliminate the need for poisonous chemicals.
Rather than monocultures of near-identical hybrid crops, our gardens celebrate genetically diverse heirloom species from around the world – the result of centuries of movement between cultures, cuisines and continents. Our open-pollinated varieties can adapt and evolve with their local environment from one generation to the next. Healthy soil, enriched with organic matter and teeming with life, stores carbon that would otherwise pollute our atmosphere and worsen the climate crisis. Every garden, from balconies to backyards and orchards, has a role to play in protecting biodiversity and growing clean, fresh food – proving another way is possible.