Why farmpunk?

A farmpunk could be described as a neo-agrarian who approaches [agri]culture, community development and/or design with an anarchistic hacker ethos. "Cyber-agrarian" could supplant neo-agrarian, indicating a back-to-the-land perspective that stands apart from past movements because it is heavily informed by conceptual integration in a post-industrial information society (thus "forward to the land" perhaps?) The art and science of modern ecological design—and ultimately, adapting to post-collapse contexts—will be best achieved through the combined arts of cybermancy and geomancy; an embrace of myth and ritual as eco-technologies. In other words: the old ways of bushcraft and woodlore can be combined with modern technoscience (merely another form of lore) in open and decentralized ways that go beyond pure anarcho-primitivism. This blog is an example of just that. Throughout, natural ecologies must be seen as the original cybernetic systems.

**What we call for at the farmpunk headquarters**
°Freedom of information
°Ground-up action + top-down perspectives
°Local agricultural systems (adhering to permaculture/biodynamic principles) as the nuclei of economies
°Bioregional autonomy
°Computers are optional but can be used for good—see peer to peer tech, social media for direct popular management of natural or political disasters (e.g. Arab Spring), or the mission of the hacker collective Anonymous
°You

Thursday, October 2, 2008

All the thrill of industrial farming from the comfort of your bedroom

So apparently tractor & "farm" simulation games are really popular in Northern Europe. When I out of curiosity searched for game-cam clips of SimTractor, they were all set to Finnish happy hardcore or German metal.

Far be it from me to take a jab at gamers. Totally not the purpose of this entry. What I find kinda silly is what's going on developer-side. John Deere has an entire suite of farm simulation games for sale and a French company makes SimTractor which realistically simulates operating combines, sprayers, tillers and pretty much all those one-job beasts made by the world's biggest industrial farm equipment manufacturers (Deutz Ag and Massey Ferguson, to name a few). I'm not saying I haven't done my time with WASD, but I think that this sort of propaganda that showcases the 'technological fruits' of Agri-Biz and dubs it "farm simulation" is kinda fishy. And by fishy, I mean that fish meal has mercury in it, yo.


Depleting the soil of organic matter has never been so action-packed.
Posted by the faun at 1:32 PM

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