11 August 2025

We have so many problems: climate change, food shortages, poverty and chronic disease, just to name a few. But nature has answers for us…3.7 billion years of evolutionary intelligence to be [not quite] exact.

Last week, I attended a program at the Omega Center in Rhinebeck, NY about the future of food in the Hudson Valley. Emergence was a gathering of farmers, food advocates, nutrition educators, community leaders and entrepreneurs “to realign our work with nature’s wisdom and embrace a new paradigm where humans and ecosystems thrive together.”

There were points in the keynote address by Gina LaMotte, of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, that I wanted to cry - who am I kidding? I started to cry - so sad seemed the planet’s state of affairs. Of the 5 billion species of organisms that have lived here, 99% are now extinct! But Gina brought it around with stories of inspiration from nature.

If you think about it, Earth has been through some big changes and pretty serious disasters in its 4.5 billion years.

And it survives.

That fills me with awe.

Maybe we don’t need more Artificial Intelligence (I’m fairly concerned about its drain on our natural resources anyway); we need more Natural Intelligence. We can draw on nature’s experience and knowledge.

In nature, there is often a relationship of cooperation. Organisms help each other (e.g. the mycorrhizal network whereby tree roots and fungus trade nutrition and information). And in times of stress, mutualisms increase. Partners LEAN IN, in an effort to protect everyone. Nature knows that mutualism expands opportunity.

Other features of nature that we can learn from:

• Rest and seasonality - production ebbs and flows. Often a break is needed to restore, revive and re-create.
• Functional redundancy - for the most important tasks, there’s a back up. Researchers are now studying this topic with regard to the gut microbiome.
• Diversity - ecosystems work best when different organisms balance each other out. A species survives a blight because some were different. The Biggest Little Farm found success through a radically diverse ecosystem.
• Decentralization - members of insect colonies are able to adapt to changing conditions in the field. Ants utilize a division of labor to improve efficiency.
• Relationships - nature grows abundance not through extraction, but through attraction.
• Recovery - when systems collapse, nature takes the opportunity for a redesign. And bounces back even better.

When we talk about our food systems - the Hudson Valley has a rich history of farming and food production - we need to ask what would nature do?

Our more-than-human ancestors have answers; we just have to listen. This applies to our personal health and the food system we share, but it could just as easily apply to our general interactions as human beings in the natural world.

Are we moving from the Industrial Age into the Ecological Age? I sure hope so.

Just like nature, though, I expect it’s going to take time…