A potential learning environment

From a young age, children benefit from gathering the knowledge and skills necessary to raise plants and develop an organic garden. In earlier times, a significant percentage of people depended on their own abilities to provide sufficient food for their families. While subsistence agriculture is still a factor in many regions of poor and developing nations, the emphasis has now shifted toward large scale commercial plantations. Such enterprises are dominated by limited numbers of high demand crops which are largely processed with the assistance of mechanised technologies.

For the last century, sociologists have explained the importance of guardianship in relation to food, development, and sustainability. By establishing guardianship over any resource, each assigned individual is obliged to assume responsibility for the positive and negative consequences of their actions. Unlike most paid work, subsistence farming encourages a continuous engagement with the natural environment.

Across many cultures, this level of engagement is defined by the practice of ritual and celebration. Ritual determines the boundaries of connection between individual and environment while celebration enables these boundaries to be upheld in the social domain. In the poorest communities of the world, the majority of children participate substantially, along with their relatives in the timeless rituals associated with subsistence agriculture. These include all the variations of weather watching, planning, sowing, maintenance, and harvesting of food and fibre crops. Their ongoing participation is recognised through their inclusion in the preparation and delivery of important social celebrations such as harvest feasts, seasonal festivals, religious events, weddings, storytelling, and funerals.

For a variety of reasons, children raised within economically prosperous nations are often provided with few opportunities to assist them in developing the levels of responsibility which are assumed and taken for granted in adulthood. The social impact of this oversight can be grasped through media reports which describe an increased dependence and lack of genuine autonomy for young adults today.

Over recent decades the average age for leaving the family home and establishing regular income has continued to increase. Many parents are confronted with the prospect of supporting their adult children despite approaching or entering their own retirement years. This situation contrasts with the measured progression of social learning and responsibility which occurs naturally for many children raised in economically poor and developing nations.

While aspects of this can and should be viewed positively, there is no advantage in seeking out romantic representations of subsistence living, since this is most typically harsh and unforgiving. A significant proportion of the learning and development opportunities gained through participation in subsistence agricultures are inextricably linked to complex problems and human suffering.

Would it be possible for our own children to undertake some of these learning opportunities without experiencing the problems and suffering which occur throughout the developing world? Despite the privileged security of material wealth and prosperity, developed nations have consistently neglected to provide innovative opportunities for developing responsibility and community awareness at an early age. Due to its status as a practical and philosophical pursuit, organic gardening represents an ideal framework for developing these essential skills.