How much do we value our environment?
I am a member of a internet forum about lifestyle farming. It is a great forum and it is full of helpful people. It is probably the only place in online New Zealand (can you say this?) where I would go to get answers for farming questions. This combined with the fact that I met many friendly people on there, some of them even became friends, makes it very special and precious to me.
But - and here comes the other side - quite often it just upsets me. And that's when I usually get into trouble and when I take a break. Like at the moment. What upsets me is the way people or should I say small farmers and lifestylers treat our environment and the creatures in this environment. The issue I see is that people make up the definition of good things and bad things themselves.
Examples: Magpies are usually bad unless they are found on your driveway and are younger than a couple of months and alive obviously. Then they become cute and helpless and you need to rescue this little birdie. You then keep it as a pet and you even let it allow to breed and produce even more (bad? good?) magpies. Mice and rats are bad. 100% As are possums. Oh hang on, except if they fall under the same category as the baby magpies.Cats are 100% good. Dogs are probably 50/50 which I put down to the bad rep they often get in the media. Currently a discussion about Pukekos makes them 100% bad because they eat our vegetables. So they are a pest! Just recently someone defined ants as a pest only because they appeared in the hen house (outside) in big numbers.
"Lets just kill them!" "Shoot the bastards!"Statements like "They eat my apples so they are a pest and I can shoot them!" appear quite often. And by the way you can extend all of the above to plants as well. What was the topic the other day? "What spray can I use to kill the daisies in my lawn?" And one member is surprised that they sprayed a highly poisonous chemical and the grapes are dying. They are surprised not about the effect of the spraying but rather how poisonous this spray really is. So people apply agri-chemicals without knowing what they actually are and what the dangers are? One member actually recommends to spray when it is slightly windy because then at least you know where your spray drift - well - drifts! Is the principle here in New Zealand that different to what I learned during my apprenticeship in horticulture back in Germany? Yeah I know, if I don't like it here .....
In a perfect world - yeah right! - I would wish that especially people who live on small farms and are often not dependent on the income produced from their holding would not only look for a alternative lifestyle but would rather apply alternative methods to achieve this lifestyle. Are small farmers mainly people living in a rural setting with manicured lawns and Alpacas who spray the edge of the lawn with whatever is available to make it a nice straight line? I would have hoped that we small farmers are more a group of people who put our lifestyle above some of the usual farming practice to squeeze another 5 cents out of an acre of farmland. Or are we just too lazy and don't care at all?
I realised that we are looking at a lot of people who are actually not really farm people but rather urban people. Would a farmer pick up an injured magpie, raise it at home, teach it some tricks and let it roam freely to mate and breed? Probably not. Should they?
I guess that raises the old question again, what are we? Are we farmers? Hobbyists? Or just city people living in the country? And how should we run our lifestyle? Like people living in the suburbs, killing everything which threatens our manicured lawns, our straight vegetable beds and our pruned fruit trees?
But I guess we have to accept that many people do not really look for a better and healthier life. Well at least not what I understand by this. Everybody has different ideas about living on a small farm. Which is a bit a shame in some cases because especially the small farmers would have the chance to things differently than the big farmers who have to make money.
I leave you with the definition of pest:
But - and here comes the other side - quite often it just upsets me. And that's when I usually get into trouble and when I take a break. Like at the moment. What upsets me is the way people or should I say small farmers and lifestylers treat our environment and the creatures in this environment. The issue I see is that people make up the definition of good things and bad things themselves.
Examples: Magpies are usually bad unless they are found on your driveway and are younger than a couple of months and alive obviously. Then they become cute and helpless and you need to rescue this little birdie. You then keep it as a pet and you even let it allow to breed and produce even more (bad? good?) magpies. Mice and rats are bad. 100% As are possums. Oh hang on, except if they fall under the same category as the baby magpies.Cats are 100% good. Dogs are probably 50/50 which I put down to the bad rep they often get in the media. Currently a discussion about Pukekos makes them 100% bad because they eat our vegetables. So they are a pest! Just recently someone defined ants as a pest only because they appeared in the hen house (outside) in big numbers.
"Lets just kill them!" "Shoot the bastards!"Statements like "They eat my apples so they are a pest and I can shoot them!" appear quite often. And by the way you can extend all of the above to plants as well. What was the topic the other day? "What spray can I use to kill the daisies in my lawn?" And one member is surprised that they sprayed a highly poisonous chemical and the grapes are dying. They are surprised not about the effect of the spraying but rather how poisonous this spray really is. So people apply agri-chemicals without knowing what they actually are and what the dangers are? One member actually recommends to spray when it is slightly windy because then at least you know where your spray drift - well - drifts! Is the principle here in New Zealand that different to what I learned during my apprenticeship in horticulture back in Germany? Yeah I know, if I don't like it here .....
In a perfect world - yeah right! - I would wish that especially people who live on small farms and are often not dependent on the income produced from their holding would not only look for a alternative lifestyle but would rather apply alternative methods to achieve this lifestyle. Are small farmers mainly people living in a rural setting with manicured lawns and Alpacas who spray the edge of the lawn with whatever is available to make it a nice straight line? I would have hoped that we small farmers are more a group of people who put our lifestyle above some of the usual farming practice to squeeze another 5 cents out of an acre of farmland. Or are we just too lazy and don't care at all?
I realised that we are looking at a lot of people who are actually not really farm people but rather urban people. Would a farmer pick up an injured magpie, raise it at home, teach it some tricks and let it roam freely to mate and breed? Probably not. Should they?
I guess that raises the old question again, what are we? Are we farmers? Hobbyists? Or just city people living in the country? And how should we run our lifestyle? Like people living in the suburbs, killing everything which threatens our manicured lawns, our straight vegetable beds and our pruned fruit trees?
But I guess we have to accept that many people do not really look for a better and healthier life. Well at least not what I understand by this. Everybody has different ideas about living on a small farm. Which is a bit a shame in some cases because especially the small farmers would have the chance to things differently than the big farmers who have to make money.
I leave you with the definition of pest:
A pest is an animal which is detrimental to humans or human concerns.[1] It is a loosely defined term, often overlapping with the related terms vermin, weeds,parasites and pathogens. In its broadest sense, a pest is a competitor of humanity.[2]but also
An animal could also be a pest when it causes damage to a wild ecosystem or carries germs within human habitatsSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pest_(organism)
Comments
Post a Comment