In his book Agri-Culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature, Jules Pretty argues for a sustainable agricultural revolution by showing that agricultural and food systems, and the landscapes they shape, are a common heritage to us all. For all our human history, we have been shaped by nature, while shaping it in return. In recent times Pretty argues that the shaping has been destructive, with food seen as a commodity and no longer part of culture. As Jules Pretty points out, Roman agricultural writers spoke of agriculture as two things: "agri and cultura (the fields and the culture). It is only very recently that we have filtered out the culture and replaced it with commodity." (p.7) In our modern and industrial ages, we are losing languages, memories and stories about land and nature. These disconnections matter because they serve to promote a persistent dualism - that nature is separate from people, that nature can be conserved in wildernesses and reserves, and that economies can succeed without regard to the fundamental significance of agricultural and food systems.
I really feel that it is vital for people to return to the land (whether by working on a farm practising sustainable agriculture or growing vegetables in gardens, allotments or windowsills) to help shift peoples understanding of the world around them. Currently, a small percentage of people in this country (and other "developed" countries) work the land as shown in the following diagram (in the UK, according to the BBC, around 2% work in agriculture):
Figure 5-5 Agricultural employment as a share of total employment versus GNP/capita, 1985.
Source: G. Norton and J. Alwang, 1993, "Introduction to the Economics of Agricultural Development" (McGraw Hill), pages 89 and 90
(for more on this, see notes from one of my lectures on The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development here, here and here)
I've come to believe that this is one of the main reasons why there is such a disconnect between people and the rest of the world's ecosystems (which leads to climate change and other problems such as global peak oil). People are not in touch with the rhythms of the land or what foods are in season. People are often unaware of the effects that modern agriculture has on our soil and ecosystems or how brutal and painful factory farming is to animals.
Changing our lifestyle to one which is more sustainable first requires a thorough understanding of the problem we face. E.F. Schumacher believed that this understanding leads to "seeing the possibility of evolving a new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a life-style designed for permanence." I am only just beginning my journey of discovery in these areas as this previous blog post shows.
However, for now, I wanted to reproduce two sections from Chapter 8 of the Jules Pretty's book because I think they are both thought-provoking and truly beautiful:
Crossing the Internal Frontiers: A Fundamental Redesign
"Human connectedness to nature has deep roots. For 5 million to 7 million years we walked this earth as hunters and gatherers, entirely dependent upon our knowledge of wild resources, and on our collective capacity to gather plants and catch animals. About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, we began to domesticate plants and animals. For most of the time since then, the culture of food production was intimately bound up in some form of collective action, and in an intimate knowledge of nature. Where city-states emerged, as in Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, China, Maya and mediaeval Europe, the number of people no longer needing this intimate connection for their livelihoods grew. But it was not until the advent of the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions, just 200 years ago, that food production in some countries began its drift away from the majority of the population. It is barely two generations since agriculture became industrial, and modernist agriculture came to dominate, producing food as commodities. This industrialization of a basic human connection has undermined many things.
"So, for 350,000 generations, we care and hunt, use and overuse, harvest and replant, cut and re-seed, and from all this emerges the human condition. The state of the world is an outcome of this relationship. For generations, our effects were globally benign, though not necessarily locally benign. Today, however, we are largely disconnected, and because of that we are less likely to notice when the environment is further degraded, or when valued resources are captured and damaged by others. We are satisfied to know (or, at least we believe we are) that more and more food is being produced. But if we lack the innate connections, we no longer question when environmental and social problems emerge. We do not notice that the extrinsic is damaged at the same time as the intrinsic withers away. Although these breakdowns are symptoms of systemic disarray, there is still hope.
"There is a great hero in landscape and community regeneration, and he is the fictional creation of author Jean Giono, resident of Manosque in France for most of his life. In Giono's The Man Who Planted trees, Elzeard Bouffier, shepherd and silent roamer of the hills and valleys of Provence, helps to transform a whole rural system. Giono stands alongside all of the 'greats' of nature and wilderness writing, perhaps surpassing many since his concerns are centred on the connection between land and its people, and on what each can do for the other. According to translator Norma Goodrich, Giono termed his confidence in the future esperance, the word describing the condition of living in hopeful tranquility.
"In the fiction, the narrator comes upon Elzeard, who is planting acorns amidst a desert landscape. There are no trees or rivers, houses are in ruin, and a few solitary people eke out a meagre living. 'In 1913, this hamlet of 10 or 12 houses had three inhabitants...hating one another...all about, the nettles were feeding upon the remains of abandoned houses. Their condition had been beyond hope.' The unnamed narrator returns 5 years later, then again in 12 years, and finally 32 years after the original visit. During this time, Elzeard continues to plant acorns, and seedlings of beech and birch, and the landscape is steadily transformed. When the forest emerges, then the wildlife returns, the rivers run freely, and the community is regenerated.
"Everything had changed. Even the air. Instead of the harsh dry winds that used to attack me, a gentle breeze was blowing, laden with scents. A sound like water came from the mountains: it was the wind in the forest...Ruins had been cleared away, dilapidated walls torn down...The new houses, freshly plastered, were surrounded by gardens where vegetables and flowers grew in orderly confusion, cabbages and roses, leeks and snapdragons, celery and anemones. It was now a village where one would like to live.
"This is the glorious key to whole landscape redsign - the creation of places where we would really like to live in esperance.
"Most of the main principles for redesign are present in this story. There is leadership from a hero, someone willing to take a risk, to do something different for the benefit of others. There is ecological literacy, with knowledge about the particulars of local agroecology helping to shape actions. There is the building of social and natural assets as foundations for life and for sustainability. There is also a sense of how long it takes, but just how good are the rewards. However, the shepherd is a loner and achieves change only on a small scale. This new agricultural sustainability revolution will not happen all at once. It will take time, and require the coordinated efforts of millions of communities worldwide. But of one thing we should no longer be in any doubt. This is the way forward, and it offers real hope for our world and its interdependent people and biodiversity." (p.170-172)
An Ethic for Land, Nature and Food Systems
"Aldo Leopold's masterpiece, Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There, was published in 1949, a year after his death. His greatest contribution to us all was the idea of the land ethic. This is a proposal for an ecological, ethical and aesthetic science to shape human interactions with, and as a part of, nature. Leopold's land ethic sets out the idea that the beauty and integrity of nature should be protected and preserved from our actions. Ethics is about limits to freedom. We are free to destroy nature (and we do), yet we should prescribe and accept certain limits. Leopold sees humans as part of nature, not separated as distant observers or meddlers. In the Sand County Almanac, he says:
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect...That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.
"Such an ethic should be 'a differentiation of social and anti-social conduct'.
"This land ethic implies thinking of land and community as a connected network of parts, which includes us as humans, and in which each element possesses intrinsic rights. There are many different views of this land ethic: some say it is visionary, others that it is dangerous nonsense. But the point remains that most people inindustrialized countries still see nature as a bundle of resources that are separate from us. Thus, the land ethic remains radical, more than half a century after it was woven together by Leopold.
"In truth, such an ethic is what makes us human - the recognition of, and respect for, these limits. Freedoms are vital, but we have obligations and responsibilities, too. If we accept that we (as global communities) are an intricate part of something, or that something is a part of us (just as our livers or lungs are part of our bodies), it is then absurd to engage in action that endangers a component of the system, since the whole will suffer. The Amazon is not a part of me, so I may destroy it. Yet if I do so, the consequences for the atmosphere are severe, and in the end I will suffer. Leopold understood the connection between economies and nature:
"I realize that every time I turn on an electric light, or ride on a Pullman, or pocket the unearned investment on a stock or a bond, or a piece of real estate, I am 'selling out' to the enemies of conservation...When I pour cream in my coffee, I am helping to drain a marsh to graze, and to exterminate the birds of Brazil. When I go birding or hunting in my Ford, I am devastating an oil field, and re-electing an imperialist to get me rubber.
"These choices matter in today's food system. Each time we buy food, our choices make a difference to nature and communities somewhere - though there is perhaps a danger of overstating the power of consumers in the face of structural economic constraints. We are connected within a much larger system, and we can make these connections work to the good - if we wish. Albert Howard was one of the most influential of British scientists to take a holistic view of the connections between nature and people. He spent 26 years in India, and developed the Indore Process in which modern scientific knowledge was applied to ancient methods. He called for a restoration of agriculture based upon an improvement to the health of the whole system, saying that:
"The birthright of all living things is health. This law is true for soil, plant, animal and humans: the health of these four is one connected chain. Any weakness or defect in the health of any earlier link in the chain is carried on to the next and succeeding links, until it reaches the last, namely us.
"What do we need to do differently? Perhaps the most compelling of Aldo Leopold's essays is a short, but brilliant piece entitled 'Thinking Like a Mountain', in which he details the relationship between the wolf, deer and mountain in Arizona. He first recalls his own shooting of a mother wolf caring for a tumbling pack of cubs: 'in those days, we never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf', and then mourns their loss and his earlier lack of understanding. He goes on to describe the consequences of eliminating the wolves; without them, the deer expand too greatly in numbers, and the mountain loses all its vegetation. In the end the whole system collapses. He says: 'Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf. Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land' These interconnections are true, though, of all lands, and are again something that Leopold foresaw, echoing Thoreau's phrase of almost a century earlier: 'In wilderness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.'" (p.172-174)
He then goes onto describe the Carpathian Mountains which house some of greatest forests in Europe and are "are still farmed as they have been for centuries, with small valley farms, and livestock are herded on the common mountain meadow for the whole of the summer," and finishes by asking some vital questions:
"There is something very significant about the Carpathians that goes beyond the quirky behaviour of town bears or the distant howling of wolves. Cultural traditions still persist in a modern world, the landscape is patchy and diverse, and nature coexists with people. But most people are still very poor, and so the core question is whether there can be sustainable economic and social development without throwing away all that is culturally valuable and distinctive. Will Romanians tread the same path that is followed over much of the industrialized world? I am not suggesting that all landscapes should look like the Carpathians, or that substantial tracts of agricultural land should be converted to forests or set aside for nature conservation. I do believe, though, that it is possible to have food-producing systems that complement and enhance nature. Nature, after all, still exists on farms and in fields. Today, there is growing confidence that we can, indeed, make the transition directly to sustainable and productive agricultural and food systems that protect and use nature. This is such a significant break from the recent past that the movement may become another agricultural revolution." (p.174-175)
The question of poverty vs. sustainability has been explored by people like Michael Lipton and many others. I need to think about this a lot more before I can make any definite decisions.
Posted in Environment | Politics | Stories ed's blog | 1015 reads
Submitted by ed on Mon, 2007-01-08 12:58.
