Conflict – JP026

We take umbrage with the promoted hippie-nature of interacting with nature. We offer some molecular biology of course to make our point. Enjoy.

Works Referenced

Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊ
Medase Paa ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ
Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏ

Thank you for listening to

Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬

Transcript

Peace,
I am Mason Olonade and this is Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions: How do you grow while you grow Kale, Collards, Tomatoes, and Melons. And why, do you think, the healthiest soils are Black?
Conflict. Chemical Warfare.
What happens when the poetic palliative “Everyone’s gotta eat?” What happens when the deer come and eat my purple bok choy that was going to seed? What happens then when that doesn’t soothe the pain of another plant lost?
We become conflicted.
I think someone has lied to me, shown me an image, a simulacrum of our hands in the soil, turning it out, growing avocados and peas from the grocery store in inappropriate soil or microenvironments, leaving us indignified, despondent, when our disney-fied dirt dreams begin pushing up daisies.
Growing your own is hard work, even moreso, because of ego, for those of us who believe we’ve inherently got it like that.
Perhaps it isn’t seen as this to you my loving Sibling of the Soil but I’ve seen it perpetuated too many times to not speak on it. The portrayal of agriculture as this entire act of loving misses out on the fact that agriculture also happens in reality. Famines, crop failures, pests, weather, all of these happen in reality and any palliative poem like “Everybody’s Gotta eat” is just that. Palliative, numbing, and an attempt, feeble at best, Garnered towards gathering likes, yet it actually does not do anything to appease your real pain.
Right now today is April 33rd, and it is the time where Kale, Collards, and all brassicas are in full seed setting mode, if you haven’t harvested them already. Very soon the harlequin bugs will be ready to munch on everything that is out there. Can you really just be satisfied with derivatives of “it is what it is” when you are satiated?
I am definitely fortunate to be in a position to be able to not have to sustain myself from the soil, but my food comes from the soil somewhere.
I’ve been reading Barry Estabrooks Tomatoland, and it is anything but the rosy red hue of the tomato. I say “been reading” because the book details some individuals whose maladies from the amount of pesticide used to bring pasta to our plates has done more thaupset my stomach. It’s not that I haven’t heard it before, practically every conversation about food in DC is about whose not getting tomatoes, who picks tomatoes, or “how come no one is buying my tomatoes?” Hearing that it cost the life of a child born without an anus and jaw, and later took that newborns life, that a very different story. Heating that that mother can’t necessarily convince a jury against the corporation she worked for because she doesn’t know english, let alone Spanish, because she really only knows her indigenous tongue is very different than hearing the organizational echoes of Castro, Mao, and Toure, in a misapplied act of nostalgic academic rhetoric.
So you say, bet, I’ll buy local yet that doesn’t solve that previous problem. And we are here again.
Conflict.
So lets grow our own. Great. And when the birds, the squirrels, the cats, Monkeys, other humans, hornworms want a juicy bite of your loving tomato? What happens then?
Conflict.
My favorite method of, “management,” is the employment of parasitoid wasps, to lay eggs in the backs of those hornworms. Then the palliative turns positive as you whisper to the caterpillar, everybody’s gotta eat!
Many of the aromas and prized secondary compounds we love from plants are their adaptation to this facet of life.
In the episode Sankofa we spoke about the jasmonic acid pathway being activated by the rain. Jasmonic acid is one of many plant hormones and along with Salicylic acid, better known as Aspirin, these are involved in plant defense and immune responses. These two compound set off many changes within the entire plant to prevent it from being eaten. Because of their immobility plants even signal to their siblings in the soil that “I am being consumed, if you are smelling this, produce oxalate crystals within your leaves so that the Giraffee doesn’t eat you, my dearest Acacia.”
Lean into conflict, my Siblings of the Soil, constructive conflict is expeditious growth. It is differentiation and adaptation to the landscape which at times can appear bleak and unforgiving. It is just appearances, sometimes it really is that way. And that’s fine. Embrace the Monkey, mite, and most important your own mind as you ease your kind hands into the loving soil you are building.
Share jigijigi with your friends, family, and closely related siblings of the oil. Give us a 5 star review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now, Asante Sana, Medase Paa, Modupe O!
Thank you, for listening, to Jigijigi.
Peace