Champs d'Avenir: Fields of the Future

This is a little essay I wrote to share with my French class about “fields of the future.”  It was based on an article in Strasbourg Magazine, Oct.-Nov. 2025. I quoted a few lines from the article, but I wrote most of it and cannot guarantee the accuracy of the translation. This article shows that what is considered rare and progressive in America is ordinary and mainstream in France.

First, the English translation:

In America and France, most food production is in big fields which contain only one type of crop. In Alsace, one sees big fields of corn, sunflower, beets, and wheat. The big fields need lots of pesticides and fertilizers. Big machines consume a lot of fuel. In the future, we need organic food (“bio” in French). People want organic food. This is an excellent business opportunity for farmers in Strasbourg and for consumers, especially for school cafeterias.

Ms. Anaïs Meyer planted thousands of crocus bulbs in the soil on the roof of a parking garage near Deux Rives. Crocus flowers are the source of saffron. “I do everything with my own hands; there is no need for watering or pesticide,” she explains. The article does not say, but saffron is a high-value product (very expensive at the store).

Urban agricultural projects at Neuhof, the Cité d’Ill, and at Elsau. Nicolas Burgmann, a gardener, cultivates tomatoes, squashes, carrots, leeks, and beets in Neuhof.

The farmers welcome groups from pre-schools, schools, and retirement homes.

It is the agriculture of the future! According to the mayor of Strasbourg, “The agriculture of tomorrow is growing in Strasbourg.”

In French:

En Amérique et en France, la plupart de la production alimentaire est en grandes champs qui contiennent qu’une type de plante. En Alsace, on voit des grandes champs de maïs, tournesol, betterave, et blé. Les grandes champs ont besoin de beaucoup de pesticides et de l’engrais. Les grosses machines consomment beaucoup de carburant. À l‘avenir, on a besoin de nourriture biologique (bio). Les gens veulent des aliments bio. C’est une excellente opportunité commerciale pour les agriculteurs à Strasbourg et pour les consommateurs, spécialement pour les cantines scolaires.

·         Mme. Anaïs Meyer a planté des milliers bulbes de crocus dans le sol du toit du parking près de Deux Rives. Les fleurs de crocus sont la source de safran. « Je fais tout de mes mains, il n’y a ni arrosage, ni pesticide, » elle explique. L’article ne le dit pas, mais le safran est un produit de grande valeur (c’est très cher dans la supermarché).

·         Projets d’agriculture urbaine au Neuhof, à la Cité d’Ill, et à l’Elsau. Le maraîchère Nicolas Burgmann cultive des tomates, courges, courgettes, carottes, poireaux, et les betteraves en Neuhof.

·         Les fermiers bio accueillent des groups venant de crèches, d’écoles, et d’Ehpad.

C’est l’agriculture de l’avenir ! Selon le maire de Strasbourg, « L’agriculture de demain se cultive à Strasbourg. »

Jardins Familiaux de Strasbourg : Family Gardens of Strasbourg

All around me in Strasbourg I see little gardens that people rent from the city. This is one of the things that make living in Strasbourg so pleasant. This time of the year, the gardens are dormant, but they are full of activity from April to November. I described it in a little article I wrote for my French class.

First, the English translation:

What do you do when you don’t have a house but you want a garden? You could rent a “family garden” from the Strasbourg Eurometropole. [Strasbourg thinks of itself as European, not just French.] In this garden, you can raise plants: a vegetable garden, and flowers. According to strasbourg.eu, our city has 4,800 family gardens. According to jardins-familiaux.org, there are only 13,000 family gardens in France, thus Strasbourg has the most!

These gardens are bits of land for inhabitants of the municipalities to use. The garden requires regular maintenance, maybe once a week. No weeds allowed! Commercial use is prohibited. The demand being much larger than the supply, delays could reach several years to get a garden.

How much does it cost? It depends on whether you want just a plot of land, and pay for all the improvements yourself (51 euros a year), a garden with just a shelter (97 euros a year), or a garden with all the amenities (170 euros a year). [I think I’ve seen some with running water, but many people have cisterns where they collect rainwater.]

If you live in an apartment and you can’t barbecue, rent a garden and invite your friends to a party!

The gardens have to meet criteria such as biodiversity, absence of invasive species, and use of biological pest control.

As for me, I do not want to rent a garden. Too much work for me. I prefer to walk around and watch happy people in their gardens.

The original French:

Que faites-vous quand vous n’avez pas de maison, mais vous aimerez avoir un jardin ? On peut louer un « jardin familial » du Eurométropole de Strasbourg. Dans ce jardin, on peut faire pousser des plantes : un potager, et les fleurs. Selon Strasbourg.eu, notre cité dispose de 4 800 jardins familiaux. Selon jardins-familiaux.org, il n’y a que 13 000 jardins familiaux en France, c’est donc Strasbourg qui a le plus !

Ces jardins sont des parcelles de terrain mises à la disposition des habitants par les municipalités. Le jardin demande un entretien régulier y compris en semaine. Pas de mauvaises herbes ! L’usage commercial est exclu. La demande étant largement supérieure à l’offre, les délais d’obtention d’un jardin peuvent atteindre plusieurs années.

Combien ça coûte ? Selon le website du métropole,

Jardin traditionnel (tous les équipements à la charge du  locataire) :

    loyers : 51 euros/an, caution 100 euros à la signature du contrat,

Jardin semi aménagé (abris de jardin à la charge du locataire) :

    loyers : 97 euros/an, caution 100 euros à la signature du contrat,

Jardin aménagé (jardins équipés par la Ville) :

    loyers : 170 euros/an, caution 200 euros à la signature du contrat.

Si vous habitez dans un appartement et vous ne pouvez pas faire de barbecue à maison, louez-vous un jardin et invitez tous votres amis à une fête !

Les jardins doivent répondre aux critères tels que la biodiversité, l’absence d’espèces invasives, et l’usage de pratiques du biocontrôle.

Moi, je ne veux pas louer un jardin. C’est trop de travail pour moi. Je préfère faire de la randonée et voir les gens heureux dans leurs jardins.

Darwin Climbs a Cathedral

When I started making a video on the platform halfway up the cathedral in Strasbourg (which is the highest point that is open to the public and which can be reached on foot), I wondered how I could possibly tie it in with science. My YouTube channel, after all, is about science. I cannot simply post nice tourist videos showing the cathedral spire and the roofs of new and old Strasbourg.

But it didn’t take me long to come up with a science angle for the video. When they started building the cathedral in 1015, no one knew how old or big the world, or certainly the universe, was. People, especially the laborers who built the cathedral, lived in a cloak of darkness. Any question that could not be answered by the church was not worth asking. Scholars knew the world was not flat, but it might as well have been.

The builders kept adding to the height of the cathedral, and it reached its current height in 1439. This was before Copernicus was born. For over a century afterwards, people believed the sun, moon, and stars orbited around the Earth which was the center of God’s attention. From 1647 to 1874, the cathedral in Strasbourg was the tallest structure in the world. It is still the tallest building that was constructed entirely in the Middle Ages.

When Copernicus died, the idea that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the solar system was still heresy. But within a century, all of that changed. By the time the current Horlogue Astronomique (astronomical clock) was installed on the ground floor of the cathedral in 1843, everyone knew the planets orbited around the sun and that Copernicus was right. The giant clock even had the planets that were known at the time moving around the sun, and even had a portrait of Copernicus, the man the church would have killed in 1543 except that he was already dead. Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Copernican view of the universe. The Vatican even has an observatory and an official astronomer.

 

But by the time the cathedral had already reached its full height, the church and world were still in scientific darkness.

Another thing you can tell by looking at the roofs of Strasbourg from the cathedral is that Strasbourg has existed for a long time, at least since Roman times, when it was called Argentoratum (city of silver). Everyone is aware of the ancient legacy of Europe, Asia, and even Africa and Central and South America. But North America also had an ancient legacy of civilization. As I explain in my recent book Forgotten Landscapes, the big cities of North America (such as Cahokia and Spiro) have been forgotten by nearly everyone. Cahokia is now just some mounds of dirt, and Spiro not even that. The historical legacy of my Native American ancestors has been effaced from the surface of the planet.

Joan of Arc and Science

I recently visited the equestrian statue of Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc) in Strasbourg, France. I have posted a video about what I learned.

Joan of Arc was a peasant girl, aged about 17, when she claimed that the Archangel Michael and Saints Margaret and Catherine had told her that she needed to lead the French troops to victory over England, which at that time (1429) occupied a large portion of what is today France. This was during the Hundred Years’ War, and France was not doing too well. The French troops were under siege in Orléans.

Jeanne must have had a mesmerizing personality, because she convinced the future French King Charles VII that the voices in her head had told her France would prevail and Charles would be king. She was put in charge of the portions of the French army that eventually drove the English away from that siege and some others as well. She was a military heroine—a 17 year old peasant girl. The story did not end so well for her. She started losing battles, and when she was 19 she was put on trial and convicted of heresy. She was burned at the stake in 1431. One of the charges was that, in leading battles, she had worn men’s clothing. Later, a new trial found her not guilty and today she is esteemed as one of the patron saints of France. Everyone has heard about her.

Every artistic depiction of her shows her to be very beautiful. The usual standards of physical beauty, however, is not at all necessary. She would have appeared beautiful to those who believed her divine claims, no matter what she actually looked like.

What this means for us, as we examine the role of religion in human history, is that even the craziest of claims are credible if the person making them is persistent and absolutely convinced of them. She heard the little voices in her head and had not the slightest doubt of their authenticity. Many historians today believe that Jeanne was schizophrenic (the little voices were in her brain) or had Menière’s disease (the little voices were in her inner ear). We do not know. More to the point, she did not know.

Religious claims can be made and believed on no further basis than the assertion of those who make them. No other evidence is needed. Many people claim that there is, in fact, evidence other than assertions that support many religious beliefs, such as Jesus’ resurrection. But such evidence is not necessary to true believers.

Scientific thinking, however, requires that the person making a claim provide evidence that is verifiable to people other than the one making the claim. You can read more about it in my book Scientifically Thinking. This is an important reason that we should depend on science, rather than religious assertion, to guide us in making decisions of worldwide importance—which nearly all of our decisions are these days.

Hemp to the Rescue!

Hemp has meant many things to many people. To some, especially in Oklahoma, it is the beloved cannabis, the source of THC and CBD. In France, where I now live, you don’t hear very much about cannabis. But Cannabis sativa is also the source of strong fibers used to make rope. And paper. There are strong-fibered breeds of cannabis that, well, you might as well smoke rope.

Another thing about cannabis is that it can grow in nutrient-poor, contaminated soil. There is certainly a lot of that in both America and France. Growing plants in contaminated soil is part of the process of phytoremediation, in which the roots remove the toxins without disrupting the soil structure. Often, the stems and leaves are then treated as toxic waste.

But, according to the Eurométropole magazine for juin/juillet 2025, Strasbourg has invested in another use of cannabis, or chanvre. They are funding some farmers to grow it in contaminated (though not extremely toxic) soil. The resulting plant matter is also too contaminated for humans to smoke, but is perfectly suitable for…for insulation in walls and ceilings! The fibers are lightweight and block the movement of heat. Nearly every building in Strasbourg and suburbs (where I live) has been built, for years, with very good insulation which has greatly reduced the use of energy from old sources (such as natural gas) or new sources, such as burning organic wastes to heat a network of hot-water pipes that feed building radiators. Green building and green living is second nature in Strasbourg, and has been for many years.

Green living—and I don’t mean THC!

I Love Living in Alsace, A Socialist Paradise

 

I now live in the CeA (Collectivité européene d’Alsace), near Strasbourg in eastern France, just over the Rhine River from Germany. This region, like the whole country, is heavily socialist, which means that taxes are high and life is good. The Alsatian government spends a lot of money on things that make life better for people, including me.

Examples of government spending that makes life better for everyone:

• In 2024, Alsace spent 14.5 million euros on children (enfants);
• In 2024, they spent 28.3 million euros on seniors (aînés);
• In 2024, they planted 500,000 trees including at schools and creating cool, green zones (islands of freshness, or îlots de fraîcheur), which has health benefits and reduces the amount of air conditioning.
• In 2024, they installed 24,000 square meters of new solar cells (panneaux photovoltaïques). They spend a lot of money on energy conservation.
• Right here in the ville d’Hœnheim where I live, they just built a new school building, for 23.4 million euros.
• Every year they add more pedestrian and biking paths, which increase health and reduce the use of cars. As a result, despite high population density, the traffic jams are fewer and smaller than in most American cities.
• They even spend money on bilingual education, which includes, in Alsace, the Alsatian language (which is similar to but not the same as German).

However, these expenditures result in savings over time. The new solar panels will save 3.9 million euros a year, each year, after being installed. The new school building I mentioned above, which cost 23.4 million euros, generates more energy than it consumes.

The French government spends a lot of money to guarantee a minimum income for every citizen (which does not include me). The revenu de Solidarité active (rSa) is a French social welfare benefit that supplements the income of a person who is destitute or has few resources, in order to guarantee a minimum income. Poor people in France do not get project housing built for them; they get supplemental income with which to pay rent to private landlords, who are limited in the amount of rent they can charge.

There is one major difference between French rSa and American welfare. Recipients are required to work as part of their “insertion” into society and the economy. American conservatives starting with Richard Nixon used to call this “workfare” and promoted it, though it does not often occur in America. Well, it happens in France. As a result of expenditure on insertion, the government has reduced its rSa payments by 15 percent.

A lot of the work that needs to be done comes from volunteers. Nine thousand volunteers (bénévoles) collected 70 tonnes of garbage last year in Alsace. In contrast, in Durant, Oklahoma, where I used to live, once a year volunteers would gather for the “Trash-off” and clean up a few blocks, leaving many tons of garbage behind. I think that the retired teachers who run the French language class that I attend are also volunteers. That is, in France, as the Alsace website says, « L’état demande aux collectivités de plus en plus de dépenses sans les compenser » (The state asks communities to make more and more expenditures without compensation.)

Everywhere you look, you can hardly help but see sustainability and preparation for the future. While we were driving through the countryside on our way to visit a castle in the mountains, my son-in-law pointed to a big plastic tarp over a mound in a field. It was a mound of decomposing vegetation. The mulch released methane which is collected by pipes to supplement the natural gas supply (biogaz). As I told him, I think the technology was developed in America, but it is actually being used in France. In America, biogas is not worth it; all you have to do is frack some more. In contrast, in France, fracking is illegal.

France is not really a socialist paradise. I just wanted to get your attention. But it comes pretty close, in terms of environment and education.