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Salvataggio in Dropbox • 6 gen 2019, 08H59
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Emergence Magazine, an initiative of Kalliopeia Foundation
© 2018 Emergence Magazine, all rights reserved | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Notice
Made with in Inverness, California & Utrecht, The Netherlands.
by
Robin Wall
Kimmerer
As spring progresses my
neighbor’s sprouting corn
inscribes glowing green lines
against the dark soil, drawing the
contours of the land, like isoclines
on a living topographic map. Its
hypnotic evenness makes it look
like it was planted by machine,
which of course it was. I smile at
the occasional deviation where
the lines go askew for a few yards.
Maybe the driver was distracted
by an incoming text or swerved to
avoid a groundhog. His
distraction will be written on the
land all summer, a welcome
element of humanity in a food-
factory landscape.
My garden looks different. The
word “symmetry” has no use
here, where mounds of earth are
shoveled up in patches. I’m
planting the way I was taught,
using a brilliant innovation
generated by indigenous science:
the Three Sisters polyculture. I
plant each mound with three
species, corn, beans, and squash
—not willy-nilly, but just the
right varieties at just the right
time. This marvel of agricultural
engineering yields more nutrition
and more food from the same area
as monocropping with less labor,
which my tired shoulders
appreciate. Unlike my neighbor’s
monoculture, Three Sisters
planting takes advantage of their
complementary natures, so they
don’t compete but instead
cooperate. The corn provides a
leafy ladder for the bean to climb,
gaining access to more light and
pollinators. In return, the bean
fixes nitrogen, which feeds the
demanding corn. The squash with
its big leaves shades the soil,
keeping it cool and moist while
also suppressing weeds. This is a
system that produces superior
yield and nutrition and requires
no herbicides, no added fertilizers,
and no pesticides—and yet it is
called primitive technology. I’ll
take it.
As contemporary bioengineers
learn more about corn’s chemical
constituents, they too are
developing promising new
materials from corn, such as
bioplastics, textiles, adhesives,
and biofuels. This new demand
produces competition between
hungry people in some regions of
the world and hungry cars in
need of cheap gas in others, and
you can predict who is winning.
Western science and its
worldview allow us to answer the
question “Can we do it?” but are
ill-equipped to address the
question of “Should we?”
When harvest time rolls around,
my neighbor and I are grateful for
the warm, windy days that make
dry corn rattle in the breeze. At
this end of the season, we watch
for rain again in order to bring in
the crop before it gets wet.
1
Gail Woody, “Where Corn Is King,” West Virginia
Living, May–June 2013, 18–19.
Credits
Writer
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen
Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific
Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a
SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and
director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
Experience Design
Studio Airport
Studio Airport is Maurits Wouters and Bram Broerse. Together with a small team of creatives,
they run a design practice based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The studio has been recognized
with international awards for projects such as Hart Island Project (New York), Amsterdam Art
Council, and Greenpeace International.
Paper Artist
Suus Hessling
Suus Hessling is a stop-motion designer and animation director based in Utrecht, the
Netherlands. She is a graduate of University of the Arts Utrecht and specializes in working
with paper to build sets and sceneries that bring stories to life.
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