Reclaiming natural bounty

Choose life, (and you shall live)

This summer, after abundant spring rains, the vegetation is more lush than I’ve ever seen. I’m trying to grasp this breathtaking surge of life, even just across my few hectares. What exuberance!

My fields haven’t been grazed by horses as usual because the grass was too rich. Yes, horses can make themselves sick from too rich a diet.

The fields have thus turned into true flowering meadows. I’ve never seen so many butterflies and bees!

This abundance of nature is so far removed from the economic logic that has governed our Western societies since (at least) the Industrial Revolution. The system is running out of steam, and we would do well to relearn how to live by drawing inspiration from the way nature functions. That is indeed my intention at Cantobria: to serve as a small-scale model, capable nonetheless of offering great inspiration.

That our economic model is depleting as much as it depletes is no longer something that needs to be proven. All scientific reports point toward a future of major and frequent upheavals. Yet, it has become easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Nature, for its part, has not waited for us to express its boundless imagination and intelligence. It gives us reason to hope.

Let’s return to the starting point of the economic model that led us to this dead end: it’s the assumption of resource scarcity and the pressing need to appropriate, exploit, and optimize them. This assumption is not unique to capitalism, but it is indeed capitalism’s most refined version that has brought us to the peak of economic performance and limitless growth.

To find a way out, some imagine taking further leaps in performance through technology.

Why not hit the wall even faster? Others prescribe sobriety—a sort of collective, never-ending diet. I don’t doubt that we can live more happily with less, but the vital impulse seems absent from a project whose only horizon is reduction.

What does nature offer us—both around us and within us? Although perfectly well-designed, nature does not pursue performance or growth as an end goal.

It instead seeks balance and resilience. Performance, defined in terms of efficiency and productivity, is an exclusively human obsession... thankfully not shared by all!