Not sure I understand your objection, t. For me landwork gets to the heart of so many issues with mass civilised society, not necessarily just in the case of food production, but addressing the other fundamental human needs of shelter, clothing, warmth, medicine etc. The dominant culture has expended a huge amount of effort over the centuries and millennia to undermining human autonomy, skilled labour, subsistence-oriented economies, belonging to place etc. with the purpose (often explicitly stated) of removing people from the land, de-skilling them, making them dependent on centralised production, turning them into tax payers, wage labourers and consumers. If we're completely dependent on the civilised system to provide for our every need then we're completely at the mercy of elites and/or the whims of international markets, and must put all of our efforts into work that supports civilisation or face starvation, homelessness, moneylessness. So re-learning some of those lost skills and trying to get a foothold on land that people were cleared from (esp relevant in Scotland where we are) is the best way I can think of to 'change the system' in a meaningful way.

re: defeatism, it rather depends on how whether we're talking about a few isolated, struggling small businesses here & there as is the case currently, or a mass movement leading an exodus from the cities. Hard to imagine at the moment, but in the long term rising costs and depleting resources will make metropolitan life harder and harder to sustain and basically force a reversal of the enclosure process. Plenty of ways it could go wrong, but in the end I think that is the only way to 'save the world' and solve a load of civilisation's ills in one fell swoop. The transhumanists (always a tendency in civilised philosophy - sky gods, heaven, looking to the stars) are going to have to come back to earth. With a thud if they got too high

Fionn said: 'In general 'being close to land' and agriculture is a death sentence for biodiversity and the environment.' - well yes, it rather depends on how it's done. Field agriculture, esp of grains, tends to generate exports and the mercantile/royal/military class to control them. The challenge is how to keep what you produce for yourself and rid yourself of the parasites that are always trying to take it off you and get you to produce more for their benefit. Easier said than done...

cheers,
I