Farmacology

I recently read a remarkable book titled Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing (Miller, 2013).

Dr. Daphne Miller, a physician, began to search for answers as she struggled with the reality of her patients not getting better in response to conventional medical interventions.  Her questions (and frustrations) led her on a journey of conversations with sustainable farmers around the planet.  Conversation by conversation, Dr. Miller became convinced that our health is inextricably tied to the health of the food we eat, which is inextricably tied to the health of the soil in/on which it is grown.

Some of the big takeaways for me from this book:

• A healthy farm is like a series of conversations - between microbes and plants, between plants and animals, between flora and humans, between animals and humans.
• Healthy humans come from healthy foods, which come from healthy soils.  
• Healthy food diversity itself bolsters the human autoimmune systems. 
• Animals raised in natural, free-ranging environments are healthier and produce healthier food products.
• The very act of raising our own food is therapeutic, in effect.  So is the act of preparing our own food.
• Caring for the farm should be more important than caring for anything the farm can produce. (Same logic applies to our relationships with other humans, by the way).
• Diversity, synergy, and redundancy are the critical, interconnected components of resilient ecology. 

An excellent read.