FAMILY FARMING CHILDRENS HEALTH NATURALLY

Starting, sustaining & growing life organically

by micheal sunanda

Growing our food locally was natural for centuries, using childrens help, growing up with the family farm. But the old family farm has almost disappeared from America, because of agribiz mechines, toxic chemicals & dominate banking landlords, commodities & inflation. Most family farms depend on cooperating with neighbors during planting, round-up, barnraising, harvest &or processing foods, & often having a big feast party celebration.with the com- munity spirit of cooperation & sharing the abundance of nature. Cooperating locally takes plenty of trust & agreement to connect & fill needs with local resources, simply herenow. Our natural health depends on local purity, that 'organic food" markets now have agreed-on-stardards of certified 'Og' food-purity we can trust our immunity & vitality on eating natural diets.

So what are kids needs, roles & skills in our family farming, gardening & marketing food fields? Pure whole fresh food is about 1/3 of our total health influences, with family cooperation & clear neighborhood peace! I assume kids have freewill choice to be & eat here or not; to join or leave a stressful or polluted place, farm or home. The other side is kids growing food & animals, & how much responsibility can we give & trust kids, testing their learning, honesty & skills?! Should kids work on farms, gardens or animals by choice, for pay, bribed or forced into jobs under threats of punishment, starvation, etc?

In agribiz farms & gardens, safety from toxic chemical is critical, plus are kids free to leave or protest it, like adults can do with civil rights now? Beside the toxichemicals, accidents & injuries with vehicles; mechines, poisons & radiation are threats on most farms today. In fact agribiz farms have hier rates of stress, injuries & poisonings than most other industries, all depending on imported resources & $$$, not mothers natures local supply we share fairly in our bioregions.

Most farm business & families are run by patriarchy, by the owner/elders, not in democratic & cooperative decision making openly & fairly now. So do we let, employ or demand kids work on land, growing things we sell like commodities or cooperatively, with shares? Do we hire them for a 'job' apart from the whole growing cycles with nature & markets?

Do our families & kids have fully informed concent, access & equal rights in decisions & agreement, knowing &or risking the 'health' consequences of farm/food labor environments, agrichem, mechines & radiations? How does 'truth in labeling' apply to farm/food products, so our 'informed choices' depend on informed concent & decisions. Conversely now, do our kids know the forestry, animal & water quality locally? & the trends of destruction of bio-regions? What efforts do children try to preserve some animals & natural wilderness they love? Some farm-youth work hard in balance? or crave city excitment, vacations & pop-media? they/we have to earn, beg or steal money for video games on farms! cars & foodrug entertainments.

How much reliable responsibility for one simple job or growing whole crops do we give kids? assuming they'll be honest & helpful?

In order for this wholenergy system to work, we must train children to grow up with the land, plants & animals, learning daily what's new & needed. How do we trust their work, agreements on goals & results? 1,000s of family farms now trust their kids to do chores, both essential & casual helping out. Using kids for working family land was done ever since farming began 5-50,000 years ago. We gradually grew up, enjoying helping out, unless under threats of stress or punishment by relative tyrants of the family farm.

The rebirth of the small cooperative family farm growing naturally & organically is blossoming now, from seeds in 1970s back to the land movements, ie Mother Earth News, Whole Earth Catalog, etc. We are far more cooperative than our city families were. But still deep gaps of fear & denial seperate us from our inner child spirit of magic trust, that needs intimate bonding with babies instincts, to transfer those trustbonds to mother nature, more than $tores, pop media & conflicts. We acclimatize daily & thru the seasons with our lands, is true homework & play in balance.

If we aim to continue or growing family farming & gardening

into the next decade, century & generation, we need to learn daily energy cycles, like in Permaculture, Biodynamic gardening & Eco-forestry do so well. Many native Indians living on land have such awareness about their local ecozones dimensions & creature cycles interacting with weather. We need to cooperate with kids to teach & enjoy them in natural,local & creative skills , by growing awareness, cooperating together in harmony. Natural kids are more flexible & sensitive than most adults, except the city kids, & strong & soft country farmers, who grow with nature, grounding, trusting & evoluting with daily instincts, intuition & helping our fertility needs.