Beginnings of a new agricultural tradition

Things didn't make sense in the village. You could spend all your day asking people oh why is that so and they will give you one reason or another, because our ancestors did it because so and so told us to because that is our fate because this is what we've always done. The more contemporary ones would say it was our culture and tradition and since we lived in a village that's what defined us. It was stupid. Rabin knew it was stupid already when he was quite young.

If you want more vegetables he said to them, you need to give them what you need, you need to follow the rules of the tomatoes not the rules of our ancestors. They didn't pay attention. All your modern tricks and flamjams will be follied one day when the weather goes bad and our traditional techniques will survive, they said. It might, he retorted, but there needs to be some logic behind it, they're going to survive for a reason not because you wish them to or because this is that of our ancestors. You have barely starting farming what do you know about tomatoes, they told him. It will take time and experience the rules of the universe, the logic behind the tomatoes. He agreed with them. But you need to pay attention to what the universe is actually saying not take it words for whatever you make out of it and lose your curiosity. The world was ruled by more fundamental rules and logic like the ones they taught at school, it wasn't just a matter of melting ice and boiling water. By applying the same logic to the fields, you could increase your gains.

The gods didn't do agriculture the way the ancestors farmed was different they didn't have six billion mouths to feed the world had shifted fundamentally since the ancestors had come up with the traditions and applying the outdated tenets in a world that was cut-throat competitive was hard to explain. Even simple things, to make lakes and swales on the mountains to preserve water so they didn't need to wait for the rain water or the freaking government to get motors and expensive irrigation projects went over people's head. They didn't want to innovate they didn't want to change, not even if the changes were so simple they might as well have been originated by the ancestors if they'd just been more observant and a tad bit cleverer. No the ancestors were the same, just as risk-averse and set in their ways. There was no explaining to these people they who believed in fate and ancestors so much.

That's when he hit the golden idea that reshaped his life forever. What if, he figured, I could come up with a way to explain to them that my ideas are not modern or imported and not scientific, but it's actually what the books say. What if I convinced them that this was not my idea at all but that it was something our ancestors did but we forget. If traditions matter to them so much, i can adjust what the traditions were. Not like they know what the books say first hand anyway. They get their traditions and religion third-hand, fourth-hand. And now they'll get a taste of what religion and beliefs about farming should have been like.

He got to writing.

Three months later he came out with a heavy tome that was a thousand pages long.