Quinta das Abelhas

This appeared in this month’s issue of the WWOOF newsletter “WWINDY NEWS”

From: Vinod, India.

There was a farmer who grew superior quality, award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the State fair, where it won honour and prizes.

A newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. He discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours!

“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours, when they are also entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “don’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn.”

The farmer gave a superb insight into the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbour’s corn also improves.

Success does not happen in isolation. It is very often a participative and collective process. So share the good practices, ideas, new learnings with your family, team members, friends and neighbours.

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