The Great Re-Think

We—humanity—could and should be looking forward to a long and glorious future – a million years for starters; at peace, personally fulfilled, and enjoying the company of our fellow creatures in great diversity and abundance. Yet, as things are, we seem to be staring Armageddon in the face. So what’s gone wrong? What can we do to put things right?

Agriculture is key— “Enlightened Agriculture”, aka “Real Farming”, designed expressly to provide good food for everyone while looking after the rest of the world—which would be eminently possible if only we applied the established principles of agroecology and food sovereignty. Instead, farming in this neoliberal age is conceived as “a business like any other” and designed to maximize and concentrate wealth —in practice the opposite of what’s required.

Yet we can’t put agriculture to rights in isolation. To create a world that’s safe and good to live in we need to re-think and re-design everything: all technologies, and the underlying science; the economy; the way we appoint governments; and the moral and spiritual mindset that underpins all that we do, think, and feel. In fact we need nothing less than a Renaissance—a re-birth; metamorphosis and metanoia; and the Renaissance we need now must be led by us, people at large. Our present leaders – an oligarchy of governments, corporates, and financiers—won’t do what’s needed. They are committed to the status quo.

The Great Re-Think describes what’s entailed—and shows what we can all do to make the Renaissance happen.

“Colin Tudge, one of our great rural thinkers, argues with eloquence, love and an extraordinary depth of knowledge for a better path, and, with inspirational hope, asserts that such a renaissance is do-able. Let’s get on and do it.”

Guy Singh-Watson, founder-creator of Riverford Organic Farmers

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“The Great Re-think is a beautiful blueprint for a new renaissance…a book of profound wisdom as well as a practical roadmap.”

Satish Kumar, founder of Schumacher College, Devon