One doesn’t have to work on the land to learn from it; that’s the message at the heart of John Connell’s latest book. The writer and farmer argues that one of the biggest problems with 21st-century living is that humans have severed our connection to nature, resulting in not just environmental catastrophe but a breakdown in community across the planet.
It was during the industrial revolution that our relationship with the earth became dysfunctional. As the rural poor moved to cities to become factory workers in the capitalist dream, we cut the ties between ourselves and the food we eat. “We haven’t lived within the limits of nature for 200 years, so going back is not an overnight journey,” Connell writes, “but it is a necessary one if we are to survive this epoch.”
Describing himself as a “messenger from the quieter road of life” rather than an evangelist for the earth, Connell proves an engaging narrator, even if his worldview verges on naivety on occasion. He references Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari’s brilliant 2011 book about the history of humankind, but ignores Harari’s assertion that although the agricultural revolution may have provided the tools to feed more people, it certainly didn’t add to human happiness.
Connell also examines why joy eludes us despite the fact that we have more freedom, more technological advancements and more disposable income than ever. He examines China’s “lying flat” movement, whereby increasing numbers of young people are rejecting that nation’s 996-working-hours system (9am-9pm, six days per week), ‘I feel so much freer’: Beijing residents escape back to the country.
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It’s not all paradise in the pastoral, though, with Connell highlighting the high suicide rates among farmers, including here in Ireland, while he also disavows any urban utopia, stressing the World Economic Forum’s statistic that living in overcrowded cities increases loneliness by 38 per cent.
[ John Connell: ‘I did an accidental trilogy on Longford’Opens in new window ]
“The path we are on in this Anthropocene age is not working,” he states simply. So, what’s the solution? Connell provides a compelling case for sustainable, regenerative or organic farming, rather than the intensive systems that proliferate across the globe. He offers not a manifesto, but practical advice on how we can reconnect with nature and with our community, in order to live more fulfilled, nurturing lives that allow us to tackle hunger and poverty without destroying the planet.
