Many people in the US and around the world are angry and discouraged about the current state of agriculture and the environment, and are pessimistic and despairing about the future. This feeling that things are bad and will only get worse motivates a wide range of responses, many of which are hopelessly naïve, painfully selfish, or simply just poorly conceived. While I don’t pretend to offer any sweeping assurances or broad "solutions," I can at least offer a counter-example in the form of an inspirational group of farmers in the Solomon Islands who I have had the privilege of working with since 2011. While I now work in the arid plains of the Western Sahel, this organization continues to be an inspiration for me and a powerful model of agricultural change. I have found that many of the psychological and ecological principles of this group, such as increasing self-reliance through better use of locally available resources, are widely shared among farmers throughout the world. As the vice-president, Jathan Basui, told me when we first met, “We aren’t looking for someone to tell us what to do, we just need some new ideas. We’ll figure out what works best for us on our own.” I have been able to help these farmers develop some new ideas and have supported them from afar to the best of my ability, but my influence beyond that has been minimal and I now return to Malaita simply to learn from the most practical and innovative people that I have ever had the honor of working with. Feel free to contact me directly with any further questions, and if you're ever in Auki, ask for Casper and the Bushmen Farming Network.

Jon Eldon 

(Above) Casper Saefo'oa, president of the Bushmen Farming Network, surveying his creation. This area had previously been a playing field with highly compacted and acidic clay soil, which can still be seen in the foreground. Your correspondent (below), an agricultural scientist at the University of California, would have told Casper that he was wasting his time to work there. Your correspondent would have been wrong.