[div class="excerpt"]
snip

Ultimately, in addition to the economic drivers that our new energy future will likely impose on us, we will need to develop social and human capital. That implies an ethical imperative that we must encourage as part of a new culture and a new post-industrial economy.

Throughout this paper there has, in fact, been an implicit, two-fold ethical imperative. On the one hand, our post-industrial understanding of the world (that it is a complex, highly interdependent biotic community replete with unanticipated and unpredictable new “emergent” properties) suggests an ethical imperative similar to Aldo Leopold’s “ecological conscience,” which embraces the value of the entire biotic community. On the other hand, the practical necessity of conserving our soil, water, climate, human, and social resources in order to feed our human population under challenging circumstances suggests a utilitarian ethic. I think both ethical perspectives will be important to our future, and must be incorporated into any economic incentives strategy.

As with all externalities of production, the depletion of our human and social capital — perhaps the worst toll exacted by our industrial agriculture — is a consequence of an economic system that promotes short-term profits for individuals and corporations at the expense of long-term sustainability. Industrialization of our farming systems has systematically eliminated the very farmers who were most closely connected to their land. Market forces in our capitalist industrial economy favor centralized farm management of large, consolidated operations that can reduce the transaction costs of transferring raw materials to large manufacturing firms. But our culture still seems to be largely oblivious to the impact that this erosion of indigenous human know-hot and creativity may have on our ability to address the challenges ahead. Here, an appeal to an ethic that stresses the outcomes (or consequences) may be the most compelling.

Wendell Berry has perhaps articulated most clearly and succinctly the connection between human/social capital and our ability to maintain our productive capacity:

If agriculture is to remain productive it must preserve the land, and the fertility and ecological health of the land; the land, that is, must be used well. A further requirement, therefore, is that if the land is to be used well, the people who use it must know it well, must be highly motivated to use it well, must know how to use it well, must have time to use it well, and must be able to afford to use it well. Nothing that has happened in the agricultural revolution of the past fifty years has disproved or invalidated these requirements, though everything that has happened has ignored or defied them.22

Berry reminds us that we cannot reasonably expect ecological or agro-ecological systems to be managed well without people living in those ecologies long enough and intimately enough to know how to manage them well. And he correctly asserts that we need social, cultural, and economic support systems in place to sustain such wise management. Proper land management, in other words, is a practical, ethical imperative not provided for in industrial-capitalist economies, which are focused solely on maximum production and short-term economic returns.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has articulated a similar position. Over a decade ago the NAS asserted that “soil degradation is a complex phenomenon driven by strong interactions among socioeconomic and biophysical factors.” The NAS recognized that proper soil management is a key factor in improving soil quality and that healthy soils provide the opportunity “simultaneously [to] improve profitability and environmental performance.”23 Long-term productivity and profitability, in other words, is not a simple business arrangement but is grounded in social and cultural factors that attend to the long-term care of the soil. A sustainable farm economy is ultimately tightly linked to social, cultural, and ethical commitments that safeguard the health of the land.

The core strategy of industrial farming systems has been to specialize in one or two crops with little or no biological diversity, and reduce production management practices to the use of one or two single-tactic inputs such as commercial fertilizers and pesticides. This approach has yielded production systems that are extremely labor saving but tend to be so focused on maximizing production and short-term economic returns that little consideration is given to the need for long-term resilience.

Another hallmark of agribusiness has been the systematic elimination of the very farmers with the ecological and cultural wisdom and commitment required to restore the physical and biological health of our soils. These farmers owned their land, lived on their land, were intimately related to their land, and planned to pass it on to future family members — all factors that nurtured a culture of caring for the land.

Fortunately, in the wake of this loss of human know-how and community (with the land, as well), some research continues to demonstrate the broad principles we must employ to restore soil health. Science magazine reported on a research project in Switzerland that traced the biological and physical properties of soils by comparing soils under conventional industrial management with soils under ecological management, over a twenty-one-year period. The researchers found that ecologically managed soils, using complex green manure and livestock manure to replenish soil nutrients, showed remarkably higher soil quality, including “greater biological activity” and “10 to 60 percent higher soil aggregate stability” (promoting better intake and storage of water for plants to use) than the conventional industrially managed soils.24

Such information suggests a critical ethical imperative. Since we have been able to conceal the decline in productive capacity arising from the loss of soil health over the past half century by applying cheap fossil-fuel based ingredients to the soil, we have not confronted the fact that ultimately soil health is crucial to maintaining productivity. The NAS study reminds us that “soil degradation may have significant effects on the ability of the United States to sustain a productive agricultural system.”25 That statement takes on new significance in light of the depletion of the very conditions that have allowed us to ignore the importance of the health of our soil: namely, cheap energy, surplus water, and stable climates. So one could argue that there is now a compelling, practical imperative for exploring nature’s ways of restoring soil health and employing the cultural, social, and economic incentives to put people on the land who know the land well and know how to use it wisely.

All of this indicates, I think, that we are increasingly recognizing that the health of the soil is, as Sir Albert Howard noted seventy years ago, an indicator of the health of the entire living community. Hopefully, the dual drivers of increased energy costs and a renewed land ethic will bring about the sustainable agriculture our children and grandchildren will need.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/091019kirschenmann.php[/quote]

The only dispute I'd have with this excerpt is the implication(not really stressed) of private ownership, community ownership has and will work nicely.

to eco-agro-management. I really like the idea of bringing city-dwellers out to help at appropriate intervals - the community could and should extend to everyone, regardless. There seems to be a different kind of imperative for the production of food,than for other needs (maybe housing would also be in that category?) and It seems to me that the more citizens involved in the production of foods and the hard work needed to do it, the better. Didn't mean to get off topic, but this is a really interesting area for discussion...

It can't be Capitalism causing the problems. It must be "corporate agribusiness," or "industrial farming systems."

I think the article is a bunch of double talk, and only useful for generating rationales for population control, green entrepreneurship, "better food choices," and the whole rotten mess of gentrified liberal approaches. We are to believe that the food crisis is not being caused by Capitalism, but rather by "oil dependency" - farming is not dependent upon oil, oil allowed people to leave the farm and it is the non-farming activities that depend upon oil - by "farming methods" that can be solved by some "new" technocratic approach and incentives for capitalists to "do the right thing," and because there are too many people, and because of our "ethical" failings, and because people are "making the wrong choices."

God save us from "our agriculture of the future" and the people who lust after the opportunity to "design" it for us.

The following two key paragraphs are a lie:

[div class="excerpt"]The core strategy of industrial farming systems has been to specialize in one or two crops with little or no biological diversity, and reduce production management practices to the use of one or two single-tactic inputs such as commercial fertilizers and pesticides. This approach has yielded production systems that are extremely labor saving but tend to be so focused on maximizing production and short-term economic returns that little consideration is given to the need for long-term resilience.

Another hallmark of agribusiness has been the systematic elimination of the very farmers with the ecological and cultural wisdom and commitment required to restore the physical and biological health of our soils. These farmers owned their land, lived on their land, were intimately related to their land, and planned to pass it on to future family members — all factors that nurtured a culture of caring for the land.[/quote]

What is being described there are the "hallmarks" and "core strategy" of Capitalism, and this has nothing directly to do with agriculture and cannot be solved by "new farming methods."

Pisses me off that they use Berry to promote this crap.

"Berry reminds us that we cannot reasonably expect ecological or agro-ecological systems to be managed well without people living in those ecologies long enough and intimately enough to know how to manage them well."

Right. Therefore, since it is oil that allowed 12 farmers to produce the food that once took 1200, and that is what allowed people to leave the farm and pursue capitalist fantasies, we should see oil depletion as a good thing, and as a threat to suburbia, not as a crisis for farming.

The challenge of feeding suburbia (and that is merely a stalking horse for preserving Capitalism) does not require a "new approach" to farming, it requires a new approach to everything else. It does not call for the overthrow of the farming community - and that is what the liberals seek, the destruction of the agricultural infrastructure with their CSA, and "sustainable," and "organic" ideas - nor the "fixing" of it, but the overthrow of Capitalism.

Here it is spelled out:

[div class="excerpt"]The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has articulated a similar position. Over a decade ago the NAS asserted that "soil degradation is a complex phenomenon driven by strong interactions among socioeconomic and biophysical factors." The NAS recognized that proper soil management is a key factor in improving soil quality and that healthy soils provide the opportunity "simultaneously [to] improve profitability and environmental performance." Long-term productivity and profitability, in other words, is not a simple business arrangement but is grounded in social and cultural factors that attend to the long-term care of the soil. A sustainable farm economy is ultimately tightly linked to social, cultural, and ethical commitments that safeguard the health of the land.[/quote]

Improved profitability is the goal. It is not Capitalism that is the cause of the food crisis, we are to believe, rather it is "complex phenomenon driven by strong interactions among socioeconomic and biophysical factors." Pseudo-intellectual claptrap there, in defense of Capitalism and the "free market" approach.

"Loss of human know-how and community" is happening everywhere, and is not specific to farming. It is the inevitable result of Capitalism.

"Since we have been able to conceal the decline in productive capacity arising from the loss of soil health over the past half century by applying cheap fossil-fuel based ingredients to the soil, we have not confronted the fact that ultimately soil health is crucial to maintaining productivity."

Utter nonsense. No farmer is unaware of the importance of soil health. The alternative to "artificial" fertilizers was mass starvation.

Which are we pursuing? "Sustainability" or "productivity?" Kinda sorta both, liberals would have us believe. If we are truly pursing productivity, then the use of "artificial" fertilizers could only be seen as one of the safest and most sustainable methods to use.

Is not 'industrial agriculture' the same as 'capitalist agriculture'? Capitalist would have been the better choice of words.

I don't see any mention of 'population control', did I miss something?

Seems to me that the point of this article is that given the certainty of dwindling petrochemical supplies which have fueled industrial agriculture at the expense of the small farmer, and given that industrial agriculture is very hard on the land that this is an opportunity to turn around the current trend.

Thing is, capitalism has been the determining factor in the adoption of agricultural technique for a while now. Even the slave capitalism of the South had a devastating effect on the land, leaving it only fit for growing conifers( most of the national forest land in SC and a lot of state land too is worn out agricultural land that nobody wanted.) The same is of course true for industrial production. Capitalism surely has raised production to never before seen volume, but only for the purpose of short term profit. No farmer is unaware of the importance of soil health but I doubt the same can be said for the boys in the board room.

We can say 'just get rid of capitalism' but does that automatically imply the rejection of capitalist technique? Judging by history I'd say not. The Soviet Union adopted capitalists technique in most aspects other than social organization and ran into the same problems as the capitalists, we might compare the problems of salinization of the soil in the American West to the Soviet disaster of the Aral Sea.

Productivity is part of sustainability, gotta have it or the whole deal falls through. If artificial means petrochemical based fertilizers, leaving aside any purported 'badness', it comes to a matter of cost and availability, and in that respect the future looks grim.

The main problem with this piece as best I can tell is that it seems to be suggesting solutions that might be made while capitalism stands. That ain't gonna happen.

I don't think it is accidental that various things other than Capitalism are blamed, nor do I think it is simply a matter of word choice. 'Industrial agriculture' is not the same as 'capitalist agriculture' in my view.

Population control is implied whenever we start with a "right" method and then organize around that. Again, it is no accident that the same people advocating methods, such as CSA and organic, that create a two-tier food system and can never feed the general public also advocate population reduction. I will go find the allusion to population control from the article.

I am not sure that this statement is accurate, BP - "capitalism has been the determining factor in the adoption of agricultural technique for a while now." The idea that liberals present, and that the general public is not qualified to understand, is that there are two "agricultural systems" - industrial agriculture and then the good kind. That is a false view of things. The "good kind" is something they are going to sell you - count on that. It is all a fiction, a marketing hustle used to mislead people. The goal is to have the "good people" - organic liberals who sing lullabies to their cows - compete successfully with farmers and make profits. It is all a commercial hustle, it is politically reactionary, and it threatens the public agricultural infrastructure.

The "boys in the board room" have nothing to do with farming.

I don't think there is such a thing as a "capitalist technique" in agriculture.

I don't think that petrochemicals have been used at the expense of the small farmer. Liberals want to portray this as a black and white all-or-nothing situation, and associate everything bad with the presumed "old way" and everything good with the imaginary "new way." Monsanto = Rumsfeld = toxins = chemicals = environmental damage = "conventional" agriculture = GMO = everything else bad, and the alternative to all of that yucky stuff? Step right up and they will sell it to you. What is it? It is "not the bad stuff." You are to assume that they have the good stuff, based on no evidence whatsoever. They merely want to talk about the bad stuff, and then claim to not be that - as a matter of personal spirituality and feelings or some shit.

Here is a question for you - which is that article talking about? Farming, or politics? The answer is neither. Whether you look at it from an agricultural viewpoint, or a political viewpoint, it is bullshit. It is sales and marketing, masquerading as something else.

Productivity is only part of sustainability when it is human beings we intend to sustain, first, foremost, and always. That involves trade-offs.

There are an increasing number of academics pushing this line, even though they may not be directly involved in sales and marketing and commercial endeavors. That is because the organic and alternative food "industry" is applying pressure on the grant agencies and universities to siphon funds in directions that are helpful to their business model. Propagandizing is mostly all they do - not much food is actually produced, and what is produced is all geared for a very small upscale market. Hey, bp, go ask them if you don't believe me, and you will get the usual "there is nothing wrong with capitalism" arguments when you suggest that they have a commercial angle in all of this. "We are saving the planet" is just cover for that - a clever marketing approach that cannot be challenged.

people expected to be supported on the land available for production. The irony (maybe?) of less oil is the need for more land to be put to use for growing food and more citizens employed in growing it. We are really talking about several different things, on a couple different levels. The idea that farmers are depleting their land by not managing crop diversity well, seems untrue, at least for the farmers that I know (I will admit, that I don't know huge numbers); they are always talking about crop rotation and leaving fields fallow and such. Now, granted these farmers are not corporate farmers, per se, but they are driven by the same market concerns as any other farmer is. I think that as capitalism collapses, many people will need to be retrained and put to work growing and processing food. I do not have the answers, but it is an issue where answers will, no doubt, be required...

The use of oil on farms enabled 90% of the people to leave the farm. That was the main impact, not any change in farming. There was a peak oil guy on the Coast to Coast AM radio program a while back - Art Bell? I think was the host - and I called in and debated with him. He said that before tractors a farmer could feed 12 people, and with tractors 1200 people. Since oil is running out, his conclusion was that therefore 1188 people would starve. I said, no, those 1188 people would have to work on the farm, as opposed to whatever it is they are doing now - flying around the country and going on the radio and TV promoting their books, for example. It is not farming that would need to change, and it is not farming that is properly what we should focus on. It is everyone else who will have to change.

The problem with his pitch, is that it leads to the conclusion that we need to develop "alternative energy" or else we will starve. This then leads to - has led to - converting crop land to energy production and exploration. Talk about insanity. There is big money to be made in energy - Wall Street is getting its hands on farm lands now thanks to the energy scare - and that is what will cause us to starve. Putting profits first - and that is what we are doing when we bandy around free market and entreprenuerial and "green" and other "solutions" - is the problem.

Again and again, when you dig in a little bit, the various advocacy efforts for reforming farming are driven by commercialism, and are promoting libertarian political ideas and defending Capitalism. A public that is ignorant of farming and food issues, perhaps more so than ever before, is vulnerable to a wide variety of commercial hustles, whether it is books or boutique food items.

To answer the question posed by the article - "do increased energy costs = opportunities for a new agriculture?"

There may well be sales and marketing opportunities for some, yes. But "new agriculture?" Absolutely not.

A couple of years ago when fuel went through the roof, the farmers I was working with did eliminate 90% or more of their petro-chemical use. They all started using manure, and sold close to home. So what? No "agricultural techniques" changed. Nothing much changed at all.

There aren't any "corporate farmers" that I can see. Would we say that there are "corporate musicians" as opposed to some sort of other ones? Crops are not a product until they are sold, and that is out of the control of the farmer. Farmers are not manufacturers, are not capitalists except to the degree that they are forced to be.

By the way, elimination of private property would not change much of anything in farming, either, in my view. It would dramatically improve things for the eaters and the workers, however. Ownership of the land and equipment is more of a pain in the ass for farmers than anything. There is much sharing of equipment, and the farm credit program gets farm land out of the "real estate market." Nothing about farming is dependent upon oil, nor upon private property. Those are from externally imposed conditions, as is the demand for ever greater productivity - "factory farming" and "high density agriculture" - and as is the loss in crop diversity, and the poor wages for farm workers.