Sep 5, 2020. Updated: May 26, 2023.

Part of "Natural Living" series

Building Alternatives

When natural living alternatives are available and feasible, their production and sale in a sustainable and profitable manner must commence. And in such ventures, all processes followed in all departments, must also be ecologically and ethically sound to the best it can be.

Where such alternatives are unavailable or infeasible, the production and sale of healthier, ecologically friendlier and ethically sounder products with sounder business operations must commence. Lest, the older system will serve the market with far riskier, ecologically destructive and ethically unsound processes¹.

All alternatives must be produced through a decentralized, distributed and diversified production system to ensure sustainability and resilience. This system must rely on locally available resources and raw materials; and must be distributed according to the population spread across the geography.

Natural living alternatives can be loosely classified into farms, health, ecology, energy and construction, and each of them carry the aspects of health, ecology and ethics in the over their various stages.

Farms

The goal of farms must be to produce nutritious food that are ethically and ecologically sound, and produce raw materials for natural products. Money is and must be a consequence, not a goal.

Farms must be distributed according the population spread in order to serve their goal to the masses. Only distributed farms can serve food fresh that can be consumed within a day. People can order food in various ways but since food must be eaten fresh, they are allowed to order no more than a day's requirement. It is time people source their food on a daily basis, and because food is an essential element for life, prioritise it too.

Money should be nothing more than a consequence. Farms must not charge for food, instead charge for the service rendered. This will ensure that all food cost the same, whether exotic or not, scarce or not, in demand or not. It is unknown yet as to how practical this pricing method is in today's economy where market is the fundamental factor driving the price. But the pricing philosophy is worth a try especially if farms have zero existing financial liabilities.

To prevent farmers and vegetable sellers from losing their livelihood from the growth of natural farms and the new business model, join hands with farmers and work together on their farm, transforming it, producing food and also uplifting their financial state. Sell produces to localities through their respective vegetable sellers, much like how it was earlier. Customers living around the farm can directly source their food by visiting the farm.

Plants do not bear fruit for us, they bear for their progeny and to feed other organisms that help in their progeny. Therefore only about 50% of the produce of each plant (if the food is a part of the plant, eg. tomatoes) or 50% of the lot (if the whole plant is the food, eg. cabbage) must be used for human consumption. The percentage of 50 is derived out of fairness: there is no data to calculate what percentage will strike the balance between ecology and human needs. But as farms operate, enough data will exist to calculate a precise number, upon whose calculation, it must be practised. The percentage would be different for each farms since the ecosystem is different. Nonetheless, humans should not disturb the ecosystem by claiming 100% of the farm produce. As they get more focused on efficiency and zero wastage, and use 100% of what is claimed from the farm, either for food or for natural products, and returning no part to nature, it is imperative than ever that humans do not claim 100% of the produce.

The farm should not treat plants and animals merely as commodity: they are lives and must be treated so. A practical guide on treating them is to simply think whether you would like to be treated by a superior species the same way you intend to treat plants and animals.

Farms must publish their farming methods and techniques, researches, failures and other resources freely for anyone to refer and practice. This will accelerate the adoption and practice of natural farming.

Farms must serve three segments: general public, hospitals and military bases. Nutrition is an important aspect of healing the sick and the orders from healthcare centres can become monotonous. Military must be served separately because they are the nation's defence mechanism and their health is imperative to every citizen, perhaps even superior to their lives if there is such an unfortunate circumstance of making the choice. Both hospitals and military bases can put enormous load and anomalies on general farm orders and therefore, must be separated from the public farms.

In addition to farms for healthcare centres, public farms must discriminate consumers as sick and healthy. Healing the sick is not just the sick person's necessity, or the family's, or society's, but the necessity of humankind itself. In the event of scarcity, the sick must get priority over others for farm produces.

Farms must conduct consistent nutritional tests for their produces, and make them available to public to make informed nutritional decisions. Natural farms must also allow customers to consistently conduct unannounced verifications of the natural authenticity of the food. "Organic" and "natural" have become two attractive slogans to sell food and often used as a lie.

Health

Health is the most important asset for any organism. And so the goal of health care systems must transcend every other goals and serve nothing but life. The unavailability of free health care to all and the absence of a robust health care system in every community is yet another failure of human intelligence.

Health must be focused through nutrition and lifestyle. Healthcare centres must emphasise on nutritional treatment of various ailments and fund researches on the same. Information regarding health like diseases, conditions, nutrition, exercises, healthy habits must be published by the healthcare centre.

Pragmatism must be exercised and various medical disciplines that can cure must be accepted, irrespective of the presence of a scientific explanation. To claim that a system cures, one only needs to establish that the system indeed cures through causal reasoning; one does not need to establish why.

A public repository of various natural remedies must be created and maintained, with research conducted and published to verify what works, what does not and why what works work if it can be established.

Diagnostic machines are marvels of science and technology that accurately and timely helps figure out ailments. All people must have access to such machines and at an almost negligible cost. Medical pods equipped with such machines with a professional operator must be installed across populated areas to provide easy medical diagnosis.

Doctors and nurses must be the highest paid workers in any health care centre with a moderate pay difference. One diagnoses and treats the sickness, while the other executes the treatment — both indispensable to healthcare.

Ecology

Organizations must carry out the creation, preservation and restoration of ecologies like reforestation, vegetative regeneration of barren land, natural water conservation, ecological clean ups, etc. Ecology is a collective responsibility; therefore, ecological operations must be run by volunteers consisting of laymen to experts.

If taxpayer money or crowdsourced funding is used for such campaigns, a publicly auditable and non-tamperable accounting system, like a blockchain, must be used.

Mining activities are indispensable so long as humans use tools and technology. Therefore, the only practical ecologically good act to do is to restore the area post mining. Special care must be taken to conserve the top soil while commencing mining activities, which must be used during the restoration. Yes, such measures are costly and will reflect in the final price of the product which consumers buy; but this is the true price of the product. Ecology must be a cost factor.

Energy Production

There is no true clean energy, one must produce it in the cleanest way possible. Energy production must be local and distributed across the population spread to serve communities. Energy consumption must be divided into three slabs: essential, convenience and luxury.

The essential slab includes the amount of energy required to light up a house and run medical devices if there are any; and must be offered at an extremely cheap rate.

The convenience slab includes the amount of energy used for convenience like mixer grinders, water heaters, water pumps, room heaters, computing devices and entertainment units, and must be offered at a slightly higher price.

The luxury slab includes the amount of energy required to satisfy needs rising from unnatural designs and urges for luxury, and must be sold at an premium price to curb the use. Usages like refrigerators, air conditioners, fans and jacuzzi fall into this slab.

Construction

Construction must be conducted with the least ecological intrusion from all aspects of construction. Landscaping must not alter topology because the biological activity of the top soil will be affected and the physical integrity of land will weaken and disintegrate.

The design and construction of buildings and townships must not cut down trees of immense size, age and heritage; but include them in the design.

Buildings must be designed to go along with the topology. For instance, instead of levelling the slopes, piers and beams must be used to create an even surface to construct the building.

Buildings must be designed to optimally use natural elements like sunlight and wind for lighting, cooling, airflow, etc. Roofs must be made of natural materials to maintain a cool temperature and avoid the need for air conditioning or fans. Materials used for structural construction and interior design must be natural materials.

Firewood or renewable energy must power the energy requirements of the house.

Demand

When you sell natural living alternatives, non-practitioners can buy them for their easy availability and convenience; not for the practice of natural living. When the demand exceeds the supply, alternatives must be sold only to those who truly practice natural living. Lest the practice will die.

If such a discrimination is illegal, the business establishment must be transformed into an exclusive club of natural living practitioners where all one has to do to get admitted is practice natural living.

If the produces become extremely rare to suffice natural living practitioners, it must be sold to the most sincere and committed practitioners first and then to the lesser ones. Meanwhile, to curb scarcity, required amount of resources must be put into producing enough alternatives. Note that the management of the organisation must be such that scarcity of this sort must not occur in the first place.