Sustainability in Action: Moving Toward an Agricultural Ethos

By

Samuel Burris DeBoskey

Div III Hampshire College

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Dedicated to all who have gone before, all here now, and all those yet to come

Acknowledgments:

This paper would not have been possible if it weren’t for the guidance and support of my committee at Hampshire College. Sue Darlington, Steve Roof, and John Gerber have helped me tremendously in my quest for understanding. I would also like to offer gratitude to my parents, Bruce and Anne. Throughout my life and this endeavor, they have contributed to my personal sustainability and continue to exemplify unconditional love.

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Table of Contents:

Ch. 1: Sustainability in action______Pg.7 1.1 Methods 1.2 Farm and Farmer Profiles 1.3 Sustainability and Agriculture

Ch. 2 Agriculture: Where does food come from?______Pg.20 2.1 What is it? 2.2 Exchange of Energy: Open Systems, Natural Capital, and Throughput 2.3 History of Agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution 2.4 Agriculture's 'Original Sin' 2.5 Industrial Revolution, Fossil Fuels, and the Dust Bowl

Ch. 3 Industrial Agriculture: Where are we now?______Pg.33 3.1 Machines, Pesticides and Fertilizer: Tools for efficiency 3.2 Characteristics of Industrial Agriculture 3.3 Industrial Agriculture: Societal Myopia 3.4 What do the farmers think?

Ch. 4 Alternative Agriculture:______Pg.56 4.1 Valuing Soil and Water 4.2 Conservation as Priority 4.3 Working with Other Species 4.4. Community Supported Agriculture 4.5 Natural Systems Agriculture 4.6 Standards for Sustainability

Ch. 5 Trade-offs in pursuit of balance:______Pg.72 5.1 Economy and Ecology 5.2 What is Balanced Farming? 5.3 Steady State and Buddhist Economics 5.4 Trade-offs 5.5 Sustainability Paradox 5.6 Holistic Agriculture Ch. 6 Personal Sustainability:______Pg.86 6.1 Self, Family, and Community 6.2 Fulfillment 6.3 Believing in their work: Farming as activism, farming as fun 6.4 Teaching/Sharing 6.5 Health Ch.7 An agricultural ethic:______Pg.101 7.1 We are what we eat 7.2 Good stewardship 7.3 Nature as model 7.4 Inter-generational 5

Ch.8 Emergence of a new understanding:______Pg.109 8.1 Changing trends in agriculture 8.2 A new understanding of sustainability 8.3 Finding our niche

Ch. 9 Conclusion:______Pg.125

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“The ‘key-log’ which must be removed to release the evolutionary process for an environmental ethic is simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” -Aldo Leopold1

“People ask: Can it be done? And the answer comes back: It must be done and therefore it shall be done.” -E.F. Schumacher2

1 Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac with Essay on Conservation. 2001. Pg. 17 2 Schumacher, E.F. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. 1973. Pg. 3

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Chapter 1

Sustainability in action:

It was a windy day in western Massachusetts. I remember that detail because while I was walking up the road to Simple Gifts Farm my hat blew off the top of my head and landed in a roadside garden. I retrieved it from the grip of a thorny perennial of some kind and continued on my way to meet Dave, one of the farmers and founders of Simple Gifts Farm. I met Dave close to the main farm house and we stood and talked for some time that morning. He was quite friendly and didn’t seem to mind taking the time out of his day to talk to an eager student interested in sustainability.

I was driven, curious, intrigued, and confused by the term sustainability. It seemed to carry so much weight and have so much meaning for our species while at the same time being effortlessly used by marketing and political campaigns seeking to cash-in on sustainability’s altruistic implications. I needed to know what the term meant. I devised plans to find out: sending a survey to contacts around the world; interviewing students across the country; and researching its use in advertisements. Surely those things would lead me to some kind of answer.

After working my way through the myriad fantasies of coming up with a new and improved holistic and world-changing definition, I directed my pursuit towards an age-old tradition, a practice encompassing thousands of years of wisdom and connection. I sought out the farmers of this land. I sought out the bearers of fruit for our communities and looked towards the source of sustenance for answers. I brought my questions to local agrarians who are 8 experimenting with sustainability in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. What better way to learn about such an elusive term than by asking those who practice it? Who else could I turn to in order to fulfill my driving curiosity to learn about how we can sustain on this planet in a time of uncertainty.

I carried this energy with me as I walked up the road to Simple Gifts farm. I learned a lot from that conversation, but nothing stuck out more than his response to my first question. “What does sustainability mean to you?” I asked with a smile sprawled across my face. Finally, I thought, I will have my answer. He paused for a moment and looked around the farm. His gaze landed on an old tractor, probably from the 1950s, that was parked next to the farm house.

“Well, right now sustainability means getting this tractor to work.” Soon after, a mechanic arrived and I spent the next 30 minutes watching them work on getting the machine back running. It finally did and Dave’s sustainability dilemma was solved. If only it was that easy for the rest of us, I thought.

This was not the answer I had expected and yet it grounded my understanding of sustainability in a new way. What became clear to me as I reflect on that day is that sustainability can simply imply the continuation of something for some time. Dave’s ability to sustain his work ethic on that day was hindered by a broken machine. So while the term continues to be used in advertisements and by concerned individuals hoping to make a difference, Dave’s tractor lurks in my mind as a reminder to keep asking: What are we trying to sustain? For how long? And, at what cost?

For my next interview I had curbed my enthusiasm somewhat since my interaction with

Dave, his proclamation of, “I’ve been trying to live that question since 1988” (a year before I 9 was born) was still fresh in my memory. I remember showing up to Many Hands Organic Farm on a cold and wet spring morning. I met Julie at Many Hands Organic Farm and by the time I arrived at eight in the morning she was already out in the field directing her team of help towards the day’s tasks. We talked as we worked in the field planting lettuce and I couldn’t help but notice she was barefoot. I asked, and apparently she was relishing the opportunity to feel her feet on solid ground after the arduous winter coated the earth with layers of snow and ice. It was

March, and while still chilly, the land was beginning its annual thaw.

I asked her the same question, “What does sustainability mean to you?” She smirked when she said “It can mean everything and it can mean nothing.” Once again my revolutionary answer eluded me. How can this be? How can it be both everything and nothing? At this point,

I was learning more about sustainability by becoming less sure of what the term means.

Nancy, the third farmer I interviewed and one of the two managers at the Hampshire

College Farm Center, rounded out my understanding of sustainability with a more concrete explanation. I asked, at this point with some hesitation, “What does sustainability mean to you?”

Her response was gentle and slow and offered a window into the complexity of the term. “It’s hard to define,” she said, “Some people mean financially…others use it more from an environmental perspective. Is it a system that can continue long-term? But, some systems that can continue long-term are ‘bad.’” Not only does the term sustainability inherently contain vagueness (think tractors, everything and nothing) but, within it also exists a disconcerting contradiction. What is sustainable for one thing, may be entirely unsustainable for another. This illuminates what I call the sustainability paradox: a fundamental impediment to the effectiveness of the term. Its danger lies in that it can refer to the ability of our species to sustain while at the same time imply the growth and productivity of an economic system that is destabilizing the 10 biosphere.

Many have gone before who sought to mend this contradiction. Definitions of sustainability have been offered for decades by governments, organizations, communities, and individuals in an attempt to create a unified understanding of the term. No definition or explanation of the term has had the same effect as what the Brundtland Commission of the

United Nations offered in 1987. This group explained in their report “Our Common Future” that

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”3 Their explication continued through explaining sustainability in terms of their triple bottom line consisting of environmental, social, and economic systems. For the Commission, these three aspects comprise the whole system that is the human enterprise on earth. For our species to endure, all three of these systems must be sustainable.4

While this was a crucial step in the direction towards clarity, there are troubling aspects of this definition. Namely, in the way the Commission presented the triple bottom line, it displays all three systems as equal. While sustainable development must take place in all three systems simultaneously, it must be understood that social and economic systems are dependent upon the health and vitality of the biosphere. Environmental sustainability is a prerequisite for the other two. Also, the Commission’s inclusion of ‘social’ is very important, as inequity and violence are major roadblocks towards a sustainable human presence on earth. Yet, I feel that social sustainability also depends on sustainability of the person. One’s physical and mental health is what makes social sustainability feasible. Regardless, “Our Common Future” offers a holistic definition for sustainability that can significantly contribute to the conversation about

3 Brundtland, Gro Harlem. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: ‘Our Common Future." United Nations. 1987. NP. 4 Brundtland, 1987. NP. 11 how we apply this understanding to the real world.

I sought a deeper understanding of sustainability by interviewing six agriculturalists:

Five farmers from western Massachusetts and one rancher from outside of Denver in Colorado.

As a student at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to seek out guidance from the abundance of farmers in the area. Additionally, my occupation of the last two summers in my home state of Colorado was as a ranch laborer at Pine Cliff Ranch. This position afforded me the chance to learn about sustainability on-the-job. By interviewing six agriculturalists and engaging with each of their different operations, my immersion into agriculture was a hands-on investigation of the various interpretations of sustainability, from the personal to the global level.

While the implementation of sustainability must resonate throughout the different systems outlined by the Brundtland Commission, agriculture has the potential to be our laboratory for the experimentation of this term. It represents a synthesis of the many fragmented aspects of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic) and is our primary relationship with the earth. It is a juggling act, where the balance and desegregation of fiscal and ecological responsibilities are imperative to the survival of the operation. From this we can learn how to do just that in other facets of life. It is the essential and often overlooked practice of grounding the theories that guide us. Farming and food take the notion of sustainability and make it real; it is right where humans and the earth meet.

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Methods:

I interviewed five farmers in Western Massachusetts and one rancher in Colorado asking what sustainability means for them and their work. These interviews took place between the spring and summer of 2010 and each lasted from 45 minutes to an hour. I used a tape-recorder and transcribed the interviews in order to directly quote the agriculturalists in my writing. In addition to the interviews, I spent extensive time at several of these operations: volunteering at

Simple Gifts Farm and Many Hands Organic Farm and being employed at the Hampshire

College Farm Center for two school years and Pine Cliff Ranch for two summers. My tenure at

Pine Cliff Ranch and the Hampshire College Farm Center has given me a wealth of experiences and information beyond my interviews.

In tandem with my field research, I explored a wide variety of literature focused around these central themes of sustainability and agriculture. Two of the leading contributors to this study were true pioneers in the fields of conservationism and organic farming: Aldo Leopold and

Sir Albert Howard, respectively. These voices are supported and adapted by innovators from the organic and alternative agriculture movement (such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and

Frederick Kirschenmann) as well as innovators in the field of ecological economics (Herman

Daly and E.F Schumacher). Other sources include the United States Department of Agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, various articles from journals such as Science and Ecology, as well as books and other articles about economics, ecology, soil biology, systems theory, agricultural history, conventional agriculture and sustainable agriculture.

A synthesis of my time spent in the field and these authors' ideas and research form the basis for my argument that sustainability must be understood and implemented holistically and it must begin in agriculture. The time I spent with the farmers in western Massachusetts and on the 13 ranch in Colorado was invaluable in broadening my understanding of the term sustainability.

Listening to and learning from these agriculturalists was a unique opportunity to immerse myself in the field and I experienced firsthand the complexity and intensity of fully working with the land.

In these locations I saw, learned about, and worked with a variety of different animals, plants, and techniques for managing it all. There was grass-fed livestock on 3,9000-acres of range land, leafy greens in hoop houses and rows of beans in the field, pigs being raised for slaughter and seeding, chickens used for fertilizer and eggs, bees for honey and pollination, and sheep for grazing. I saw and worked with windmills and solar pumps for irrigation, tractors, back hoes, balers, and no till seeders.

Within the different farms I experienced, there was an interesting variety of scale and structure. From an institutionally backed operation at Hampshire College and a privately owned ranch in Colorado to a small-scale, community-supported endeavor at Simple Gifts Farm, the question of who owns the land and how they get their money is a crucial part of agriculture in action.

Other than the cultivation of fiber (such as cotton for clothes) I experienced a lot of how agriculture is being expressed in this part of the world at this time first hand. I did not talk with and learn from any large-scale industrial farms, which if I were to more fully enter this research would be imperative, but I have a general understanding of that scale of operation from relevant literature and conversations with farmers.

The scope of this study is primarily limited to agriculture as a method of food production.

While agriculture’s purposes are diverse, I focus on food production and land relationship in general as the primary indicators of sustainability for our species. While the differences between 14 agricultural structures, such as that between a farm and ranch, are important, I combine the many titles of food production into one generalized term: “Farming.”

Farm and Farmer profiles:

The Hampshire College Farm Center5 - Amherst, Massachusetts:

The Hampshire College Farm Center is a working farm and educational center that has served the Hampshire College and Amherst community since the late 1970s. It is located on 65 acres and managed by two farmer/educators employed by the college: Leslie Cox and Nancy

Hanson. Nancy runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)6 that offers over 210 people

(including students of the college) weekly vegetables throughout the fall semester. Leslie manages a meat share of grass-fed beef and milk-fed pork, chickens for eggs, turkeys for meat, honey and maple syrup, as well as hay in the summer. Classes from Hampshire interact with the farm and its resources regularly; it is worked by the two managers and students throughout the year; and during the summer the farm is the home base for several camps for young children and aspiring agriculturalists. I have worked on this farm several days a week during the last two school years.

Leslie Cox grew up in up-state New York and was working on his grandfather’s farm as soon as he could walk. After going to school at Cornell for agricultural studies and working with the United States Department of Agriculture for some years he came to Hampshire College in

1997.

Nancy Hanson was raised on a farm in Connecticut and by the time she could walk she

5 For more information on the HCFC see www.hampshire.edu/academics/5728.htm 6 I will explain what a CSA is greater detail in Ch. 4 15 was working with her family on the land. She learned how to drive a tractor when she was eight and growing up she would work before and after school on her family's farm. As she put it

“farming was part of the fabric of my family's life.” She has been at Hampshire since 1999.

The farm is financially supported by Hampshire College and both farm managers work on a salary. This structure allows the farmers to work without the pressure of the farm being their sole source of income. As both Leslie and Nancy mentioned, they have less of a need to maximize production, so they are allowed to work the land and animals at a slower pace with more focus on the ecological aspects of the farm. They sell their products directly to customers, as well as to the dining commons on the Hampshire College campus.

Many Hands Organic Farm7 - Barre, Massachusetts:

Many Hands Organic farm is located just east of the Quabbin Reservoir in Barre,

Massachusetts. Julie and her husband Jack Rawson have been farming on the land since 1982 they have been selling produce to the public since 1985. Julie has been farming all her life and when I asked how many generations back farming goes in her family she simply responded “a looooong time.”

The farm has a 40-member spring, 120-member summer, 45-member fruit, 30-member flower, and 40-member fall CSAs. They use three acres for vegetables and one acre for fruit on their land to go along with raising organic meat. There is meat from pigs, chickens, and turkeys, as well as fresh eggs from the chickens and lard from the pigs. Both Julie and Jack have extensive roles within Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) and offer workshops ranging from “food preservation” to “how to run a CSA” on the farm.

7 Farm information: www.mhof.net 16

It was amazing that in the few hours I spent talking with Julie and working with her team of support how much of a community field was generated. People from nearby came to help, one being a new mom with her baby in her arms. In total, there were three generations present.

While we worked everyone was talking, laughing, and sharing stories of their lives. The whole group was involved with the interview, as I would ask Julie a question and a discussion involving multiple people followed. To see this type of working together was an example of how food and farming can bring people together in a healthy and productive way.

Simple Gifts Farm8 - Amherst, Massachusetts:

Simple Gifts Farm is located on 37.8 acres in Amherst, Massachusetts. The land is owned by the North Amherst Community Farm (NACF), which is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and support sustainable agriculture in the heart of North Amherst.

The NACF came together in 2006 and purchased the farm in order to prevent its development into a housing subdivision. Their primary objective is to preserve and develop its 37.8-acre farm site into a productive and educational agricultural resource for the community. Simple Gifts

Farm is in its sixth year on the NACF land and offers a full CSA, which includes naturally raised pork, beef, lamb, and eggs. As well as being a place for the growth and distribution of food, the farm does an excellent job of incorporating the community into their work and lives. From the sharing of a big farm house on the land to hosting the North Amherst Harvest Festival, Simple

Gifts Farm is actively pursuing the coming together of people interested in developing a different kind of relationship with food and others.

8 Farm information: www.simplegiftsfarmcsa.com 17

The farm is run by two families: The Tepfer/Lowy family and the Barker Plotkin family.

I interviewed David Tepfer, a fourth generation farmer from Minnesota who specializes in animal husbandry and pasture management. My understanding is that the farm supports itself through the sale of produce and meat directly to consumers, as well as having some support from

NACF.

I was deeply inspired and excited by the farm’s movement towards a lower carbon footprint. The two families managing the farm recently added a zero-fossil-fuels greenhouse that burns used vegetable oil and are in the process of training a team of oxen that will help reduce the amount of fuel used on the land.

Joe Czajkowski Farm 9- Hadley, Massachusetts:

Joe Czajkowski has been farming in the Hadley area his whole life. He now runs a 400- acre farm, a quarter of which is organic, that serves a variety of academic institutions in western

Massachusetts. Joe has established fruitful relationships with several of the colleges in the valley and provides them with fresh and local vegetables throughout the school year. His farm sells a variety of fruits, jams and vegetables directly to consumers through CSAs and farmers markets.

It was fascinating to see that while most of the farm still uses conventional techniques (to be discussed in chapter 3) he is slowly moving towards organic methods. This movement stems from his own ethics of land stewardship as well as from the demand for organic produce in the area.

We sat and talked in his office while it poured rain outside. Throughout the interview his phone rang four times and he was visited by another farmer needing to borrow a truck. Even when we were talking he was periodically working on the computer and staying focused on the

9 Farm information www.czajkowskifarm.com/ 18 tasks for the day. This demonstrated both the busyness and business that his work entails.

Pine Cliff Ranch10 - Sedalia, Colorado:

Pine Cliff Ranch is a 3,900-acre, privately owned, working ranch that has been grazed by cattle since the 1880s. It is managed by Justin Walker and his wife Sheryl. I had the opportunity to work as a ranch laborer at Pine Cliff during the summers of 2010 and 2011. During the summer months the ranch grazes over 200 cattle, some of those are owned by the ranch, but the majority are brought in and worked just for the season before being returned to their respective owners. Pine Cliff is just beginning to experiment with selling grass-fed beef from the land.

Justin and Sheryl have also grown and sold hay as well as raised chickens, turkeys, and quail.

The ranch is privately owned and Justin and Sheryl have been hired to manage and improve the land. They receive a salary, which gives them a lot of freedom to work on conservation instead of production.

There are some unique features about the ranch that make it an interesting and insightful case study. It is under a conservation easement, which by definition “is a voluntary, legally binding agreement that limits certain types of uses or prevents development from taking place on a piece of property now and in the future, while protecting the property’s ecological or open- space values.”11 This is indicative of the ranch owner’s intentions and demonstrates a commitment to the conservation and regeneration of this range land for years to come. In 2011 the Douglas County Conservation District recognized this commitment and effort by giving Pine

Cliff Ranch the Outstanding District Conservationists Award.

Both Justin and Sheryl grew up on farms in the Midwest, spent some time away from

10 Ranch information www.pinecliffranch.org/ 11 "Private Lands Conservation." The Nature Conservancy. 2011. NP. 19 agriculture as young adults and made the decision to come back to the land to establish their home and careers. They have been at Pine Cliff Ranch for three years.

Sustainability and agriculture:

The sustainability of our species depends on the health of our relationship with the environment. By learning more about the fundamentals of agriculture, we can see that our primary relationship with the land revolves around cultivating sustenance. Certain technological advances in the last few centuries have dramatically changed this relationship. While this has resulted in an abundance of wealth and an unprecedented quality of life in some parts of the world, it has simultaneously contributed to the degradation of health for humans and the environment. Alternative methods of being in relationship with the environment and cultivating sustenance are arising around the world. These alternatives are an attempt to discover a more balanced agricultural system that healthily integrates economic, environmental, and social systems. For those three systems to be sustainable, the health of the individual is essential. This personal sustainability is dependent upon physical health and relationships with family and community. Based on this holistic understanding, we can continue to formulate agricultural ethics that will guide our actions into the future. With these arising ethics comes an emerging understanding of what sustainability is for our species at this time.

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Chapter 2

Agriculture: Where does food come from?

“The root of human existence has to do with food production...there is no single more important job on the planet...if no one has food, nothing else is going to happen.” - Nancy Hanson, farmer at HCFC

“A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one’s accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes.” - Wendell Berry12

One of my most impacting moments from working on the ranch was two weeks after I watched Bud, the cow, get driven away to the slaughter house (only 15 miles away). After a long day of work, the other ranch laborer, Justin, Sheryl, and I came together and grilled some hamburgers from the recently departed steer. It was incredible to look out over the range land where Bud spent his entire life. I was thinking about each blade of grass that passed through

Bud and was now about to pass through me. I thought to myself, “This is how it should be; I should know where my food comes from and trust that source.”

Agriculture is ultimately the question of sustenance: where does it come from and how do we get it. The complexity of this question increases with the size of the population involved and incorporates many facets of human life. It is a truly inter-disciplinary endeavor as it revolves around the central themes of ecology and economics. The age-old need for food and provisions has bound us to this earth throughout our evolutionary journey. Our relationship to food is an active ingredient of our health and a fundamental aspect of our interaction with the natural environment. The question of food is the determinant of populations and a deciding factor in the

12 Berry, Wendell “The Pleasures of Eating.” 1989. NP. 21 sustainability of any species. We need sustenance to survive and agriculture represents our life- giving relationship with the larger ecosystem with which we are bound

Being so close to the source of my food for that particular meal was especially nourishing. With Bud, there was a visceral intimacy with the nutrients, proteins, and minerals that he and I shared. Essentially, all I was doing was chewing some dead meat, but it represented so much more. I was actively participating in my agricultural needs. I was, as Wendell Berry speaks to, conscious of the life of my food and of the world from which it came. I was actively and happily participating in this essential relationship with sustenance.

That is what agriculture represents: our relationship with sustenance. It has evolved as we have and takes on many forms and functions, but ultimately it is about how we participate in the food-chain. My understanding on that day, as I looked across the range land at Pine Cliff

Ranch and remembered Bud, is that this relationship is, in the end, about health. Our agricultural endeavors need to be oriented toward health: for ourselves, each other, and the entire biotic community.

Agriculture: What is it?

When you hear the word agriculture, what comes to mind? Is it a tractor plowing the fields? Rows of golden corn covering the plains? A farmer and his family? These are certainly iconic images commonly associated with agriculture, but they do not do the importance and complexity of agriculture justice. Agriculture is the science and practice of working the land. It is based on the cultivation of soil for the growing of crops and the raising of animals to provide food, cloth, and other products.13 Other names that are part of the field of agriculture are Animal

13 Vandermeer, John H. The Ecology of Agroecosystems, 2011. Pg 10. 22

Husbandry; Crop Farming; Dairy Farming; Fiber Farming; Forestry; Poultry Farming; Soil

Management; and Ranching.14 Additionally, agriculture represents the fundamental exchange of energy with our environment and our involvement in the food-chain.

Agriculture is our method of supplying the population with the food and sustenance needed to survive: from food to fiber and fuel utilizing plant and animal. It has been carried out in a wide variety of ways around the world: from the rice paddies of Asia, the corn belt of North

America and the Alpaca farms of South America. All of these activities create a product which humans use.

As well as being the source of sustenance, agriculture, and specifically food, has been the cause of communion since time immemorial. It is important to understand that the entire agricultural cycle extends well beyond the farm and into the homes and bellies of people. Not only does agriculture provide us with food, but it physically connects us to the earth and brings us together with our fellow humans and the entire biotic community we are a part of.

The myriad functions of agriculture directly affect our way of life. From where we are able to live, to the freedom of individuals to pursue other passions and necessities, our societies are deeply intertwined with our relationship to the land. It is important to understand key aspects of the development of that relationship in order to discuss agricultural, and in turn cultural, sustainability for the future.

14 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011. NP. 23

Exchange of Energy: Open Systems, Natural Capital, and Throughput

Why do we need agriculture? We need agriculture because our bodies are open systems, meaning that human life requires an intake of energy to move, grow, and reproduce.15 We receive energy from the earth, which receives energy from the sun. Ludwig Bertalanffy, a founder of systems theory, explains that an open system is a system that continuously interacts with the environment through the exchange of matter and energy.16 This interaction is an exchange of matter and energy into or out of the system boundary. In comparison, a closed system is held to be isolated from the environment and impermeable to matter from outside of its limits.17

While our pre-agricultural ancestors were able to survive and receive adequate energy for consumption, our populations were always limited by the amount of energy made available by an ecosystem.18 Similar to a human body, an ecosystem is an open system that involves the larger community of life: from plants to bacteria to animals. It relies on the constant inflow of solar energy to survive.19 Agriculture has essentially allowed our populations to grow by tapping into reserves of energy within the soil and generating an abundance of sustenance from our stock of natural capital.

Natural capital is a term used to describe the goods and services made available from natural resources.20 E.F. Schumacher, in his book Small is Beautiful, described it as the

“irreplaceable capital which man had not made, but simply found, and without which he (or she)

15 Pidwirny, M. "Food Chain as an Example of a System." 2006. NP. 16 Bertalanffy, Ludwig Von. General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. 2008 Pg. 4. 17 Pidwirny, 2006. 18 Kirschenmann, Frederick. Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Philosopher Farmer. 2011 Pg. 218. 19 Dilworth, Craig. “General Principles.” Principles of Environmental Sciences. 2009. Pg.75. 20 Schumacher, E.F. Small is Beautiful, 197. Pg. 3. 24 can do nothing.”21 Fossil fuels are an example of natural capital, as well as trees that are used for wood and topsoil that is used to grow food. An important aspect of natural capital is the acknowledgment that it is a limited resource and must be conserved. In this sense, agriculture has always tapped into the finite reserve of natural capital and has used this energy to supply our populations with the sustenance needed for survival and growth.

Within an agricultural framework, we interact with the environment through the movement of energy (i.e., food) into and out of our bodies. An open system entails a throughput process, or the conversion and transformation of resources within a single system.22 We consume inputs from the environment, transform them in our bodies, and return them back to the environment as outputs. Ever wonder why a salad looks so different coming out of our body system than it does going in? This is due to the throughput process that extracts the usable energy from a resource and discards the rest as waste. These are the necessary biological processes that keep us alive and link us to the rest of the food-chain. With a basic understanding of the workings of an open system, we can clearly see agriculture, and our practice of eating, is a physical give-and-take relationship with our environment.

History of Agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution:

People have been agriculturalists for roughly 10,000 years when groups in and around

Egypt and India began the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild.23 It was this transition from hunting and gathering that allowed us to grow beyond our nomadic limitations and settle in for growth and development as civilizations.

21 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 4. 22 Herman E. Daly, Steady State Economics, 1977, Pg. 23; Pidwirny, 2006. NP. 23 Pimentel, David. “Agriculture and Food Problems.” Ch. 27 in Principles of Environmental Sciences. 2009, Pg. 513; Vandermeer, 2011, Pg. 40 25

This shift, called the Neolithic Revolution, represents a remarkable change for the human species and the planet. Hunter-gatherer societies mostly fit into a subsistence pattern that resembled most of nature's other populations.24 Humans gathered, as the bee does pollen, and hunted, as the hawk does in the prairie. Our populations were limited by the amount of energy an ecosystem made available. The revolution occurred with a total shift in our relationship to the environment. We began 'domesticating' our sustenance by taming certain species of plants and animals to benefit our cause. According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a domesticated species refers to “a species in which the evolutionary process has been influenced by humans to meet their needs.”25 We honed our skills of seed-sowing and animal-husbandry through actively selecting species to cooperate with. Corn, wheat, sheep and cows are examples of these species humans have sought out for use all over the world. Some domestication techniques that have been used are saving seeds, eliminating competing species, selectively breeding, and providing food, among other things.

These relationships birthed a more productive agriculture that paved the way for larger populations. With a resource base more aligned to our needs, humans could abandon a nomadic lifestyle and settle into long-term relationships with particular landscapes. These larger and stationary groups formed civilizations, and eventually the great societies of ancient Egypt,

Mesopotamia, and the Hindus Valley.26 This growth and development elevated our species to new heights; with a secured abundance of food and increased input, people could focus time and energy on other activities. As Daniel Webster, a pre-civil-war statesman, stated "When tillage

24 Weisdorf, Jacob L. "From Foraging to Farming: Explaining the Neolithic Revolution." Journal of Economic Surveys, 2005. Pgs. 561-563. 25. Convention on Biological Diversity. 2011. NP. 26 Weber, Max. The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations, 1988. Pg 3. 26 begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization."27 It becomes clear through this historical understanding that our societies are bound to the earth.

Like any other member of an ecosystem, we are dependent upon our environment to supply us with provisions. Thus, any discussion about the sustainability of our species is inherently tied to our agricultural practices.

Agriculture's 'Original Sin':

While the emergence of agriculture created the foundation on which societies could be built, it also set in motion powerful cycles of soil depletion that continue to this very day. Wes

Jackson refers to the explosion of agriculture as our “original sin.”28 For while our more organized extraction of sustenance from the land has led to the proliferation of our species, populations have risen and fallen with the use and subsequent depletion of the soil.

Desertification, drought, and famine have gone hand and hand with the tillage of the land around the world. The rise and fall of ancient Egypt, the Mayan civilization, Greece, and Rome have all been connected to the uninhibited use of this valuable resource.29 Our farming techniques have namely relied on digging, stirring, or turning over the land, which more often than not leaves soil vulnerable to the forces of wind and water. These elements contribute to the degradation of land by blowing or washing away the topsoil. Also, our Neolithic ancestors almost exclusively domesticated annual plant species. Additionally, our domestication of animals has often led to over-grazing which has similar consequences.

Although poor land management has been prevalent throughout the history of civilizations, some groups of people have managed their land use well and have minimized

27 "Learn About Agriculture." Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. 2011. NP. 28 Jackson, Wes. New Roots for Agriculture, 1985. Pg. 62 29 Montgomery, David R. Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations. 2007. Pgs. 49-53 27 impact.30 This seems to be the exception though, not the rule, as we can see the remnants of a land-degrading agriculture speckled around the globe in dessert areas such as the Sahel region in

Africa, much of the Middle East, and southern India, places where our use of the land has literally sucked it dry.31 While human-induced degradation is crucial to highlight, it is important to understand that non-humane forces, such as climate, contribute to soil loss as well. But while we often work to understand and solve the problems in agriculture, we have failed, at this point, to address the problem of agriculture itself.32

When I interviewed Julie she referred to this dilemma, reminding me that “organic farming is not even sustainable, because agriculture in its self is not natural...we are essentially forcing an unnatural system.” It is important to consider these perspectives when examining the two words of “agriculture” and “sustainability,” since the agriculture we have known and implemented for thousands of years may be inherently un-sustainable.33

Jack Harlan, a 20th century agronomist, proposed a provocative set of questions in his book Crops and Man that sheds light on the problem of agriculture to which Wes Jackson alludes:

Why farm? Why give up the 20-hour work week and the fun of hunting in order to toil in the sun? Why work harder, for food less nutritious and a supply more capricious? Why invite famine, plague, pestilence and crowded living conditions?34

This quote, and especially the last line, illuminates the precariousness of our agricultural endeavors. While claiming that the Neolithic revolution was our ‘original sin’ is a bold and

30 Jackson, 1985. Pg. 16. 31 Montgomery, 2007. Pgs. 3, 217-219 . 32 Jackson, Wes, 1985. Pg. 1. 33 Jackson, Wes and Jon Piper. “The Necessary Marriage between Ecology and Agriculture.” Ecology, 1989. Pgs. 1591–1593. 34 Harlan, Jack R. Crops & Man, 1992. Pg. 27. 28 radical assertion, Wes Jackson offers insight into the fragility and complexity of our relationship to sustenance. It must be understood that the domestication of species and consumption of natural capital necessitates care and caution. The effects of our choices, philosophies and practices have a dramatic influence on our environment and by questioning the role of agriculture in the depletion of topsoil throughout the world, we see an admirable attempt at getting to the ‘root’ of the problem. But, no alternative is in sight and we must, as Wes Jackson is doing at the Land Institute, look for ways to address the challenges and drawbacks of agriculture, as well as those in agriculture.

Industrial Revolution, Fossil Fuels, and the Dust Bowl:

Regardless of whether our agricultural practices are sustainable or not, this has been the source of nourishment for human populations since the Neolithic revolution. While this shift to agriculture allowed civilizations to thrive and humans to reach new heights, global population remained relatively constant. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution and the ensuing global transformation that populations began to skyrocket. It is estimated that around the year 1800 CE, global populations were at one billion people. That number has multiplied by seven in the ensuing 210 years. Just to put it in perspective, it took the whole history of Homo sapiens, which is roughly 200,000 years, to reach one billion people.35 In just 210 years since then we have reached that number six more times. This is truly a remarkable feat, a statistic that should not be discounted as one of the single biggest phenomena to happen on the planet.

The causes and effects of the industrial revolution are beyond the scope of this study, but what is important to understand is that it paved the way for an industrialized agriculture that is

35 "World Population to 2300." United Nations. U.N. Economic and Social Affairs: Population Division, 2004. NP. 29 still in place today. The dominant trend in this industrialization is the replacement of human and animal power with machine power. From the Neolithic revolution until the industrial revolution, an assortment of agricultural adjustments (inter-cropping, use of draft-animals) and technological advances (the plow, seed drill, and combine harvester are examples) changed agricultural productivity, but only slightly in comparison to the shift caused by the discovery and widespread implementation of fossil fuels.36

These fuels are hydrocarbon deposits, such as petroleum, coal, or natural gas, derived from living matter of a previous geologic time.37 Upon combustion, they generate an immense amount of usable energy. Today, they heat our homes, generate our electricity, fuel our cars and planes, and even form the plastics of which many of our modern conveniences are made. It is hard to imagine what life would be like without the widespread availability of all of those things.

But, interestingly enough, most of human existence has sustained without these luxuries. It is postulated that cavemen once burned peat, which is decayed plant materials that have not reached the coal stage, so forms of these fuels have been used for a long time.38 Although it wasn’t until the commercially mined coal of the 1740s that fossil fuels began powering what is known as the Age of Machinery.39 The ensuing discoveries of natural gas and petroleum further catapulted fossil fuels towards the center of our energy consumption. Along with the discovery of these fuels, technological advancements allowed us to harness their energy in more and more efficient ways.

Changes began to sweep throughout agriculture, aided by fossil fuels and other

36 Montgomery, 2007, Pg. 146. 37 Armaroli, Nicola, and Vincenzo Balzani. Energy for a Sustainable World: From the Oil Age to a Sun-Powered Future. 2010. Pg. 213. 38 Atwater, Gordon I., and Joseph P. Riva. "Petroleum -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 2011. 39 Demirbas, M. F. "Progress of Fossil Fuel Science." 2007, Pgs 243-245. 30 technological developments that took hold of society during the industrial revolution. In the 20th century steam, gasoline, diesel, and electric power came into wide use.40 The tractor, which utilizes these various forms of power, became an essential tool for the farmer in the early 1900s and increased the efficiency in which he or she would be able to work.41 Additionally, chemical fertilizers, which are produced using natural gas, were manufactured and employed in greatly increased quantities. The discovery of certain vitamins and their role in animal nutrition led to supplements that allowed livestock to be raised indoors. Selective breeding created improved strains of both crop plants and farm animals. This selective breeding led to 'hybrids' of desirable characteristics in plants and animals.42 Improvements in processing, storage (refrigeration), and transportation also increased the marketability of farm products. All of these changes, which happened in a relatively short amount of time, drastically changed our human presence on the planet. Food was being produced at an incredible rate, and these technological advances allowed for human populations to proliferate with a quality of life never seen before. These developments first took hold in Britain, and eventually spread to the United States and as far east as Japan.43

While these cultural feats did amazing things for people around the world and paved the way for the quality of life many in the industrialized world enjoy today, a string of incidents in the United States in the 1930s shed light on the vulnerability of this newly industrialized agriculture. From 1930 to 1936 a combination of severe drought, economic strife, and extensive farming without concern or awareness of soil conservation caused major dust storms that ripped

40 Armaroli, Nicola, and Vincenzo Balzani, 2010. Pg. 223. 41 Olmstead, Alan L. and Paul W. Rhode. “Reshaping the Landscape: The Impact and Diffusion of the Tractor in American Agriculture,1910-1960.” The Journal of Economic History. 2001. Pgs. 663-698. 42 Smedshaug, Christian Anton. Feeding the World in the 21st Century: a Historical Analysis of Agriculture and Society. Pgs. 113, 127-129. 43 McLamb, Eric. "Impact of the Industrial Revolution." Ecology Global Network. 2011. 31 across the prairies of our country.44 The ‘Dust Bowl’ affected 100,000,000 acres, centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and reaching all the way to parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.45

There were many contributing factors to this catastrophe, but most important for this study is the negligence of farmers to protect the soil. Increased cultivation without crop rotation, fallow (or rested) fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent wind erosion led to the blowing away of precious topsoil. Native and deep-rooted grasses of the Great Plains were displaced by deep plowing of topsoil. Without these natural anchors (the grass) to keep the soil in place, it dried, turned to dust and was blown eastward and southward creating gigantic dust clouds that enveloped massive areas of land. Millions of acres became useless and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes.46 The reasons for this negligence are diverse, but I cannot look past the influx of technology as a major influence. Farmers were able to till more soil with greater ease, and understandably this generated an excitement about our evolved capabilities. We failed to realize the consequences our farming practices would have.

Eventually, rains grounded the dust in 1936 and government-implemented programs like the Soil Conservation Service and the Farm Security Administration began taking conservation measures across the country. President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant more than 200 million trees from Canada all the way down to Abilene, Texas.47 These trees were intended to break the wind, retain water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in place. For the first time in the United States, the importance of soil conservation was widely touted as a prerequisite to farming. The Resettlement Administration (implemented in Roosevelt's 'New

44 Schubert, S. D. "On the Cause of the 1930s Dust Bowl." Scienc,e 2004. Pgs. 1855-859. 45 Montgomery, 2007.Ppg. 152. 46 Montgomery, 2007.Pgs. 151-157. 47 Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: the Southern Plains in the 1930s. 2004. Pgs.1-7 . 32

Deal') acquired some ten million acres of former farmland throughout the Great Plains. These lands are now mostly managed by the U.S. Forest Service as National Grasslands leased to nearby private ranchers for grazing.48 These events shaped American farming and placed precedence on wiser agricultural practices. The United States Department of Agriculture was formed in order to help shape an agriculture that would not lead to another disaster like the Dust

Bowl.

The Dust Bowl and ensuing government involvement marked a historic occasion for agriculture in the west. It illuminated for our young country that we are intertwined with the health of the land and that our soil is among our most precious resources. While certain technological and cultural 'advancements' have been a success story for humankind, ultimately our agricultural practices must be aligned with health. The natural capital we have been endowed with is our life-line. Agriculture is the practice of being in relationship with our environment and the web of life of which we are a part. With a global population increasingly dependent on industrialized food, great measures must be taken to avoid a misstep like that of the

1930s. It serves as a recent and poignant example of how an agriculture not focused on healthy systems can result in catastrophe.

48 Worster, 2004. Pg. 113. 33

Chapter 3

Industrial Agriculture: Where are we now?

“Farmers must produce more food in the next few decades than they have in the past 10,000 years combined.” – Monsanto49

“The question is not can we produce more food, but what are the ecological consequences of doing so?” - Lester Brown50

I interviewed Leslie at Hampshire College on a rainy spring morning. We talked as he was boiling off the last gallons of maple sap from the year’s harvest. I remember the windows of the kitchen steaming up as the moisture from the rain and heat of soon-to-be syrup fogged up the glass. Our conversation moved to the subject of conventional agriculture and the importance of machines and fossil fuels in his work when he said, “Why do ten hours of work by hand with five people on something that will take one person one hour in a tractor?” This quote stuck out as a poignant insight into the modality of an industrialized agriculture; it is all about efficiency. As

Leslie said, why do anything else when you have the access to great tools and machinery that make life easier for the farmer.

There are now approximately 6,976,684,35351 people on the planet and every single one of them needs to eat. The efficiency mindset of industrial agriculture is aimed at providing enough food for our growing populations while also increasing productivity for economic gain.

The question of how and where we produce this sustenance is staggering. Modern agriculture in

49 “Producing More.” Monsanto. 2011. NP. 50 As quoted in Daly, Herman E. Steady State Economics. 1977. Pg. 11. 51 Census Bureau, November 2011. 34 the United States has been focused over the last 60 years on “feeding the world”: a seemingly altruistic effort to share in the bounty with which this vast and fertile land has endowed us. With the rising population there is a rising demand and need for food, not only in this country but around the world. Agriculture has recently been re-engineered and industrialized to maximize productivity in order to feed the growing populations and alleviate the roughly 920,000,00052 malnourished individuals from hunger. Increased efficiency of our agriculture production has made this possibility feasible. While there are two sides to every story, industrial agriculture is undoubtedly producing food at a phenomenal rate and has reshaped our relationship with sustenance in a monumental way.

Machines, Pesticides and Fertilizer: Tools for efficiency

The main contributor to our increased efficiency is fossil fuels. They represent a burst of usable energy, a spike in available resources that have allowed the proliferation of our species to reach unprecedented heights.53 As mentioned, our population boom in the last few centuries is largely attributed to the surplus of energy made available from tapping these natural resources.

For agriculture, this has resulted in an influx of tools and materials that have reshaped our methods of cultivation around the world. Tractors, pesticides, and fertilizer have become agricultural staples and are the main instruments of the industrialized modality.

The United States Department of Agriculture reports that in the year 1900 there were an estimated 21.6 million working animals that tilled, plowed, and fertilized the soil in the United

52 "Hunger." United Nations World Food Programme, 2011. NP. 53 Daly, 1977. 13-19. 35

States, participating in an age-old system of animal husbandry and symbiosis.54 By 1960 there were a reported 4.7 million tractors and three million working animals.55 These numbers represent the shift of power from human and animal to machine. It is important to ask, why would this shift be made? Simply put, because the tractor and machines in general greatly increased the scale and pace of production for the farmer. They replaced the need for human labor in a variety of ways and made life and work for the farmer more efficient. The farm tractor is used for pulling or pushing machinery or trailers, for plowing, tilling, disking, harrowing, planting, and similar tasks, all of which used to be done by hand or with an animal. Now all one needs to do is fill up the gas tank and attach the right tool. As Leslie mentioned above, the use of these machines, which depend on fossil fuels, increases the capabilities of a single farmer dramatically.

Industrialization continued to seep into agriculture through its influence on pesticides and fertilizer. These are both key ingredients to successful agricultural endeavors. While they have many forms and functions and have effectively been used since the Neolithic Revolution, the modern version of these inputs and practices are based on fossil fuels.56 Both of these are essential ‘inputs’ for a farm, meaning they are very often additives that come from off the farm and perform the necessary functions of maintaining soil fertility and mitigating pests.

Fertilizer is an essential part of the farming process, as it supplies the soil with a variety of nutrients needed for plant growth. These additives can come from natural sources such as compost, rotting leaves, and manure, but as of recently, they can also be derived from synthetic sources. In the early part of the 1900s, soil analysis led to the identification of nitrogen,

54 Dimitri, Carolyn,et al.. The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy. Rep. United States Department of Agriculture, June 2005. Pg. 4. 55 Dimitri et al., 2005. Pg. 4. 56 Horrigan, Leo, Robert S. Lawrence, Polly Walker. “How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture.” Environmental Health Perspectives. 2002. Pg. 446 36 potassium, and phosphorus (referred to as NPK) as essential factors in plant growth.57 Through this discovery, synthetic fertilizers were manufactured and marketed on an increased scale. These fertilizers are typically synthesized using fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal.58

Similar to fertilizer, pesticides are a long-standing agricultural technique that is currently petroleum based.59 Pesticides are substances used to mitigate insects, mice or other animals, unwanted plants (weeds), fungi, bacteria or viruses that are harmful to an agricultural operation.

For each specific type of pest there is a specific type of pesticide. For example, herbicide targets weeds, fungicides target fungus, and bactericide targets bacteria.60 The relationship with 'pest' in agriculture is as old as the practice itself as we are clearly not the only organisms who put crops and animals to use. The dominant trend today is the widespread application of chemical pesticides, which have effectively wiped out targeted species and aided a farmer in the pursuit of a high yield. Prior to the development of synthetic pesticides following World War II, farmers controlled weeds by tillage, mowing, site selection, crop rotation, use of seeds free of weed seeds, and hoeing or pulling by hand.61

The combination of these three agricultural advancements and the widespread use of fossil fuels throughout the industry have led to very different agriculture than that of our

Neolithic ancestors. With the ability to pump the soil and crops with fertilizers and pesticides as well as use a tractor to till, seed, harvest and plow, production numbers have skyrocketed. These three represent the major 'inputs' for the farm and farmer in the industrial age. They are the main

57 Smil, Vaclav. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. 2004. Pgs 13-16. 58 Pimentel, David and Giampietro, Mario. “Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Executive Summary,” Carrying Capacity Network. 1994. NP. 59 Cleveland, Cutler J. "”Natural Resource Scarcity and Economic Growth Revisited: Economic and Biophysical Perspectives." Ecological Economics. 1995 Pg. 313. 60 Unsworth, John. History of Pesticide Use. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. 2010. NP. 61 Heimlich, Ralph. “ Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators.” ERS USDA. 2003. Pg. 1. 37 reason for the level of productivity of which we are currently capable. Justin at Pine Cliff Ranch talked about the power of these additives by plainly stating, “High input equals high yield.”

Farmers in the United States took this straightforward equation to heart and greatly increased inputs in order to achieve the highly desired yields. The Economic Research Service of the USDA reported that between 1960 and 1980 the consumption of fertilizer consisting of nitrogen, phosphate, and potash more than tripled, from 7,464,000 to 23,083,000 nutrient tons per year.62 From 1964 to 1982 the amount of pesticides consumed went from 215,000,000 to

572,000,000 pounds of active ingredients.63 In that same time period, from the early 1960s in to the 1980s, the amount of metric tons produced in the United States of certain principle crops

(maize, soybeans, and wheat) increased dramatically. Maize jumped from 91,388,000 to

206,222,000 metric tons per year; wheat from 33,539,000 to 75,806,300 and soybeans from

18,468,000 to 54,436,000.64 Not only that, but this monumental increase in production took place on less land. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. reports that in 1960 the total area of land used for agricultural production was 447,509,000 hectares. In 1980 the number shrunk, just slightly, to 428,163,000 hectares.65 This phenomenon truly illuminates the power of fossil fuels and a testament to the effectiveness of these inputs.

In addition to boosting yield, the increased use of petroleum products has replaced human and animal power with mechanical power. This is demonstrated by the number of tractors that have flooded the agricultural scene as well as the increased use of fertilizer and pesticide, all products of, or dependent upon, fossil fuels. All three of these innovations (tractors, fertilizer,

62 “Fertilizer Use and Price.” USDA. 2011 63 “Pesticide Consumption.” FAO. 2011 64 “Metric Tons Production of Maize, Wheat, Soybeans.” FAO. 2011 65 “Agricultural Area.” FAO, 2011. 38 and pesticides) can be seen as a huge help for farmers and have been labor-saving tools for the agricultural industry as a whole. Their prevalence throughout the industry continues to influence an exodus of rural populations to urban settings, where they can contribute to the growing economy by working in other sectors. Nancy explained it as “petroleum replaces people,” and according to some that is a really good thing. As the former secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz put it back in 1974, because of the influx of mechanical power “96% of America's manpower is freed from food production.”66 That was in the early 1970s; as of 2011 the numbers have declined even further with less than 1% of the population working in agriculture.67

Characteristics of Industrial Agriculture:

The term 'conventional agriculture' is used to describe our current agricultural methods. It can be interchanged with industrial agriculture, factory farming, and a variety of other terms to describe the dominant agricultural trends of modern age. These are some of the predominant characteristics of our industrialized food system:

Tillage based

Food production in industrial agriculture, and agriculture in general, is predominately based on tillage-farming. Tillage is the most wide-spread method of preparing the land for growing crops. It occurs through “mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging,

66 Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. 1996. Pg. 32. 67 “Ag. 101 – Demographics” EPA, 2011. 39 stirring, and overturning.”68 It incorporates loosening the soil to mix in fertilizer and plant material, turning the soil over to eliminate weeds, and forming of rows and seed beds. The most common benefits of such a practice are breaking up soil compaction, redistributing crop residue, and forming the rows or beds that are desired.

Large-scale

A widespread trend that has gone hand-in-hand with industrialization is an increase in the scale of farming operations. This upsurge of acreage per farm is connected to the growing world population as well as technological and mechanical advances that allow fewer people to manage more land. Pesticides and fertilizers can be applied over large areas of land using airplanes and crops can be managed from the convenience of a tractor. Additionally, satellite data and GPS increase the farmer’s ability to monitor larger tracts of land.

The average farm size in this country has more than doubled from 1900 to 2002, jumping from roughly 150 to 450 acres per farm.69 Correspondingly, a smaller percentage of the population works in agriculture: dropping from 41 percent in 190070 to less than one percent as of today.71 And, in that same time period, the number of farms in the country has decreased by

63 percent. Larger farms making sales of at least 500,000 dollars accounted for nearly half

(45%) of production in 2003, which has increased from 32% in 1989.72 This shift to larger-scale farming is in part because it is more profitable. Economies of scale provide a platform for high

68 Sprague, Milton A., and Glover B. Triplett. No-tillage and Surface-tillage Agriculture: the Tillage Revolution, 1986. Pgs. 13- 17. 69 Dimitri et al.,USDA, 2005. Pg. 5. 70 Dimiti et al., USDA, 2005. Pg. 5. 71 “Agriculture Demographics”, Environmental Protection Agency, 2011 NP. 72 MacDonald James, et al. Growing Farm Size and the Distribution of Farm Payments. USDA, 2006. Pgs 1-3. 40 returns: meaning that with an increase in the size of a facility and the amount of inputs there is a reduction in cost per unit; this is the benefit of buying in bulk.

We can look at the industrial meat system, or ‘factory farming’, as a perfect example of this trend. The general characteristic of these farms is raising livestock within confinement in high-density populations. These farms contain large numbers of animals, normally cows, pigs, turkeys, or chickens, and are often indoors.73 The U.S. government calls these facilities

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). CAFOs can contain thousands of cattle and even millions of chickens on a single farm. Through this model, the number of farms producing meat for the general population is highly consolidated. In the U.S., just four companies produce

81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens.74

The idea behind the operation is to transfer the efficiency of an assembly line to meat production. F.J. “Sonny” Faison, the CEO of the second largest pig producer in the U.S.,

Carrolls Foods, illustrated the modality of these farms succinctly when he said, “Only the least- cost producer survives in agriculture.”75 According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.76

Specialized

Farm operations have become increasingly specialized, shifting from an average of about five commodities per farm in 1900 to about one per farm in 2000.77 Mono cropping, the planting one type of crop in a field year after year, is the epitome of the efficiency standard of

73 “Factory Farms” Farms Sanctuary, 2011 NP. 74 Scully, Matthew. Dominion: the Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. 2003. Pg. 7. 75 Scully, 2003. Pg 35. 76"Watching What We Eat." Worldwatch Institute. 2004. NP. 77 Dimitri et al., 2005. Pg. 5. 41 industrialization and is prevalent throughout the industry.78 This allows for specialized machinery to focus on that particular crop from planting to harvesting. The crops that U.S. farmers predominately harvest are almost exclusively annuals, meaning the plant’s life cycle is just one year or season. Today, all of the major grains that feed billions of people (wheat, rice, corn, etc.) come from annual plants.79

Contributing to the specialization of agriculture is the use of Genetically Modified

Organisms (GMO). These are organisms whose DNA is modified using genetic engineering techniques. It is now possible for entire crops not only to contain the same type of plants, but homogenized genetic structures of plants. I view this as the next level of domestication as we are altering the genetic structure of organisms to suit our needs. For plants, the dominant trend is to introduce or remove certain traits within the particular species. An example of this is the

FlavrSavr tomato. This was a crop, introduced in the early 1990s, that was genetically altered through the addition of a specific gene to prolong shelf life and slow down the rotting process.80

Another example of GMO crops is Bt corn, which is a variant of maize that is genetically altered to include the bacterial Bt toxin within its genetic make-up. The Bt toxin is poisonous to insect pests, so in this case the pesticide becomes part of the plants genetic structure.81 According to the U.S. Department of Energy Genome Program, in 2006 roughly 250 million acres of genetically modified crops were planted in 22 countries by 10.3 million farmers.82 The majority of these crops were herbicide-included and insect-resistant alfalfa, corn, cotton, and soybeans.

78 Crist, Eileen, and H. Bruce. Rinker. Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis. 2010. Pgs. 213-217. 79 T.S. Cox et al., "Research Priorities in Natural Systems Agriculture." 2004. Pgs. 511-531. 80 Kramer, Matthew G., and Keith Redenbaugh. "Commercialization of a Tomato with an Antisense Polygalacturonase Gene: The FLAVR SAVR Tomato Story." 1994. Pgs. 293-97. 81 Saxena, Deepak and Saul Flores. “Insecticidal toxin in root exudates from Bt corn.” Nature. 1999. Pg. 480. 82 “Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms" Human Genome Project, Oakridge national laboratory, 2008. NP 42

Other GMO initiatives include sweet potatoes that are resistant to a virus that could decimate most of Africa's annual harvest and a type of rice with increased iron and other vitamins that may help alleviate malnutrition in Asian countries.83 Benefits of GMOs proposed by the Oak Ridge

National Laboratory (OKNL) include enhanced taste and quality, reduced maturation time, increased nutrients, yields, and stress tolerance, and a longer shelf life.84

Input heavy

This increased specialization is dependent on a large amount of inputs to sustain production. As mentioned earlier, production has largely come from the influx of pesticides and fertilizer. The numbers of fertilizer and pesticide used and the corresponding high yields demonstrate the effectiveness of using lots of inputs. This system seems to epitomize industrialized notions of efficiency. Specialization, economies of scale, and genetic domestication all have led to a more proficient and organized agriculture that has generated an abundance of food. So much so that, having deemed our own country’s food needs fulfilled,

American farmers are currently exporting 45 percent of their wheat, 34 percent of their soybeans,

71 percent of their almonds, and more than 60 percent of their sunflower oil.85

This ability to export large amounts of food, in part, has contributed to a globalized food system that provides us with luxuries such as coffee from Sumatra, banana’s year round from

Latin America, and sugar from Thailand. This phenomenon represents an unprecedented culinary freedom; it is now possible to enjoy a seemingly limitless variety of cuisines and, even

83 Ackerman, Jennifer. "Food How Altered?" National Geographic Magazine. 2002. NP. 84 “Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms" Human Genome Project, Oakridge national laboratory, 2008. NP. 85 USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, 2011 43 more incredible, is the opportunity to eat a single meal with components flown in from all around the world.

The industrial food paradigm has undoubtedly been a remarkable feat for human kind.

Efforts have been made to ‘feed the world’ using many of the methods examined above. The

‘Green Revolution,’ an attempt to do just that, is largely attributed to this increased efficiency and technological prowess. Regardless of these efforts, the question of sustenance looms large.

While the current system has provided those who can afford it with a bounty of provisions, there are still close to one billion malnourished people on this planet. We must, as a species, continue to work towards the most resilient, accessible, and healthy food producing system imaginable.

While we have briefly outlined common characteristics of industrial agriculture, we must now ask how these characteristics do or do not contribute to our species’ sustainability.

Industrial Agriculture: Societal Myopia

There are two sides to every story. This is important to keep in mind while discussing the triumphs of modern agriculture. Industrial agriculture, at first glance, seems like an appropriate utilization of technology and a valid attempt in increasing production to meet the needs of a growing population. However, as illuminated by the farmers I interviewed, we cannot judge an agricultural system on its apparently altruistic efforts and, what Herman Daly calls,

“technological razzle-dazzle.”86 Upon further analysis it becomes clear that conventional agricultural practices, which have spread around the world and continue working relentlessly to

86 Daly, 1977. Pg. 44. 44 produce more and more, represents a societal myopia. Myopia, or nearsightedness, implies we have acted without a clear understanding of the consequences.

The critiques of industrial agriculture are immense and range in credibility- from scientifically proven data to folk-tales and horror stories. Entire books have been dedicated to unearthing the myriad problems and challenges our food production system faces. What is important for this study is demonstrating how many of the characteristics of industrial agriculture impede on the sustainability of our species. While there is plenty of material to choose from, the challenges I highlight are how the characteristics of our agricultural paradigm affect the health of the soil, water, and human body, and contribute to the depletion of biodiversity, as well as its inherent unsustainability due to its dependence on fossil fuels. It must be noted that all of these elements are inextricably bound, as they all are a part of a whole system that is the biosphere.

Tillage based

The problems resulting from tillage-based farming are extensive and, as Wes Jackson alluded, may be the problem of agriculture itself. That is because tillage-based farming in-and- of-itself supports degradation through the continuous practice of turning, mixing and disturbing the soil. This dislodges root structure and leaves topsoil vulnerable to the forces of wind and water. Additionally when tillage goes too deep into the soil, it further dislodges soil structure and contributes to erosion. Jackson, in his book New Roots for Agriculture, goes as far as saying, 45

“till agriculture is a global disease, which in a few places has been well managed, but overall has steadily eroded the land.”87

The complications of soil erosion are widespread and directly affect agricultural possibilities for the future. The United States has lost about one-third of its topsoil since settled agriculture began. Additionally, the U.S. is losing soil ten times faster, and China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster, than the natural replenishment rate.88 On a global scale the annual loss of 75 billion tons of soil costs the world about US$400 billion per year and as a result of erosion over the past 40 years, 30 percent of the world's arable land has become unproductive.89 In tandem with soil erosion, intensive tillage releases soil carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide where it can combine with other gases and contributes to Global

Warming.

Large-scale

As the amount of land, crops, and animals involved in an agricultural operation increases, so does the need for water. Each year around 3.8 billion tons of freshwater is withdrawn for human use. 70% of that 3.8 billion tons is used in agriculture. Increasingly, demand for fresh water is greater than its supply and underground aquifers are diminishing at an alarming rate.90

While large-scale agriculture has contributed to increased productivity and profits, it also contributes to fundamental problems that challenge our agricultural sustainability. Soil erosion happens through growing crops on steep slopes or on large fields without protection from wind and water (such as cover-crops). Also, larger tracts of land understandably require the use of a

87 Jackson, 1985. Pg. 2. 88 Montgomery, 2007. Pg. 3 89 Eswaran et al., "Land Degradation: an Overview." Natural Resources Conservation Service. 2001. NP. 90 "The world is thirsty because it is hungry." FAOwater. 2011. NP. 46 tractor for cultivation. Extensive tractor use can result in soil compaction which contributes to erosion through damaging the soil structure. Soil structure is important because it determines the ability of a soil to hold and conduct water, nutrients, and air necessary for plant root activity.

Heavily compacted soils contain few large pores and have a reduced rate of water retention while also requiring roots to exert greater force to penetrate the compacted layers. In addition to compacting soil, intensive use of tractors means more carbon emissions, which pollutes our atmosphere and contributes to global warming.91

The factory farming model, which takes full advantage of the benefits of large-scale farming, is laden with problems that contribute to unhealthy people, animals, and ecosystems.

First, in these factories animals are no longer being fed what they are genetically designed to eat.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) cows eat a diet consisting of milled grains, corn and soybeans, when they have evolved to eat grass.92 Not only is this unhealthy for the cow, but feeding grain, corn, and soybeans to livestock in order to produce meat—instead of feeding these crops directly to humans—involves a large energy loss, making animal agriculture more resource intensive than other forms of food production. Often, factory farms do not grow these crops themselves, but import them from off-site. These large-scale and energy-intensive operations are using a staggering amount of water to make their product. The FAO explains that producing one kilogram of meat uses 15,000 liters of water. The daily drinking requirements for an average person are 2-5 liters.93

Second, the management of waste in factory farms has led to widespread contamination of water resources. Industrial livestock farms generate a massive amount of animal excrement

91 Blanco, Humberto, and R. Lal. Principles of Soil Conservation and Management. 2008. Pg. 339. 92 Scully, 2003. Pgs 13-19. 93 "The world is thirsty because it is hungry." FAOwater. 2011. NP. 47 that is stored in large tanks called “lagoons.” It is not uncommon that some of these storage tanks can hold millions of gallons of urine and manure. These lagoons have been known to leak, overflow, and even rupture. Raw manure is up to 160 times more toxic than raw municipal sewage and, periodically, this toxic waste has found its way into water sources.94 In the year

2000 Canada’s largest waterborne disease outbreak, which infected 1,346 people and killed six, was traced to runoff from livestock farms into a town’s water supply.95

Another example of this can be seen in upstate New York in August of 2005, when manure spilled from a ruptured tank on a 3,000-head dairy farm. Three million gallons of cow manure emptied into the Black River, polluting an area one-fourth the size of the Exxon Valdez spill, and causing towns in the area to shut off water intake from the river. An estimated 200,000 fish were killed.96

CAFOs also present unhealthy working conditions for their employees. Harmful noxious gases emitted from manure can cause disease and even death. In the United States, at least 12 cases were documented over five years of workers dying from asphyxiation in manure pits.97 It has been suggested that long-term indoor exposure for two hours per day for six or more years in swine confinement facilities is associated with several respiratory conditions, including sinusitis, mucous membrane inflammation syndrome, non-immunogenic bronchospasm, and bronchitis.98

94 Greger, Michael. Bird Flu: a Virus of Our Own Hatching. 2006. Pgs. 12-20. 95 "Groundwater" Environment Canada. 2011. NP. 96"Anniversary of Dairy Farm Spill Marks Advancements in CAFOs" Department of Environmental Conservation NY. 2007. NP. 97 “ Recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor for Changes to Hazardous Orders.” National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. 2002. Pg 88. 98 Donham K.J et al. “Respiratory Dysfunction in Swine Production Facility Workers: Dose-Response Relationships of Environmental Exposures and Pulmonary Function.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine. 1995. Pgs.405- 418. 48

While water contamination and harmful effects on human health represent major problems for sustainability, the scariest detriment caused by these large-scale CAFOs is a disaster in the making. Often, animals confined in these CAFOs are given antibiotics in their food. This steady dose of antibiotics creates antibiotic resistant viruses that have would be devastating to the human population on pandemic proportions. The first hybrid mutant swine flu virus discovered in the United States was at a factory farm in North Carolina in which thousands of pregnant sows were confined in "gestation crates.” These veal-like confinement spaces hardly allow room for these pigs to turn around. Such conditions, in addition to consistent doses of antibiotics, has “contributed in the last few decades to more than 30 newly identified human pathogens, most of them zoonotic viruses,” explains Dr. Michal Gregor, director of public health and animal agriculture for the Humane Society of the United States.99 Zoonotic viruses are those that can be passed from animals to humans. Just as we have witnessed an increase in antibiotic- resistant staph infections in hospitals around the globe, the potential for strains of flu, like H1N1 or H5N1, to become resistant to antibiotics is frightening to even think about.

Specialized

While specialization makes farming easier, it contributes to a number of problems in agriculture. Wes Jackson believes that a major contributor to soil degradation in agriculture is prevalence of annual plants.100 These plants, as opposed to perennials, sprout from seeds, produce new seeds, and die every year, resulting in the necessary disturbing of the soil year after year to replant. In addition, annuals have a much shorter and weaker root system, which does a poorer job in holding soil down and retaining water, causing more run off and pollution, all of

99 "Flu Season: Factory Farming Could Cause A Catastrophic Pandemic." Huffington Post. 2010. NP 100 Jackson, 1985. Pg. 13. 49 which contribute to erosion.101 Mono-cropping degrades the soil and increases vulnerability to pests by limiting biological diversity, which contributes to soil health and pest resistance.

Additionally, while the widespread incorporation of GMO crops may seem to be a positive technological advancement for agriculture, it also raised alarming questions about health, personal choice, and our role in this larger ecosystem. Not only is tinkering with the genetic structures of plants inherently questionable, but the increased homogenization of our food production is risky business. Genetic diversity is a natural defense system that thwarts potential pests and diseases from ravaging entire crops. Inversely, mass production of a single crop variety makes it easier for a disease or pest to wipe-out the entire crop.102 Examples of this can be seen in the Irish Potato Famine of 1840, where millions of people died as a result of being dependent on a limited variety of species of potatoes. Also, massive outbreaks of citrus canker in

Florida in 1984 and in Brazil in 1991 are attributed to genetic homogenization.103

The more dependent we are on GMO crops, the more dangerous our agriculture becomes. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, since 1900, approximately 75% of the world’s genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been eliminated and nine-tenths of the world’s calories now come from 20 crop species, with four making up half of total calories: rice, corn, wheat, and potatoes.104

Also, health risks of GMO foods are very much in question. The Union of Concerned

Scientists lists the human health risks of genetically modified foods as potentially creating and transferring new allergens in the food supply, the production of new toxins, antibiotic resistance,

101 Hooper, David U. and Peter M. Vitousek. "The Effects of Plant Composition and Diversity on Ecosystem Processes" Science. 1997. Pgs. 1302-1305. 102 Olson, Richard K., et al. Exploring the Role of Diversity in Sustainable Agriculture: Proceedings of a Symposium. 1995. Pg. 14. 103 “Losses of Biodiversity and Their Causes.” World Resources Institute. 1992. NP. 104 “Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture: Crop Genetic Resources.” FAO. 1998. NP. 50 and namely, that the effects to human health are largely unknown.105

Input heavy

Industrialized agriculture is increasingly input heavy. While this has led to a spike in production numbers, it has come at the cost of the health of the biosphere. Our dominant agriculture system depends on a flow of fossil fuels, fertilizer, and pesticides to offset the loss of soil fertility and the homogenization of the gene-pool.

Specifically important for any discussion about sustainability is the use of fossil fuels. All but one of the farmers I asked about conventional agriculture responded without hesitation that our dependence on fossil fuels is the major problem facing food production and distribution around the world. If a farmer relies on machines to work the land profitably (which most do), and the machines rely on fossil fuels to operate, we can fairly say that the farmer becomes dependent on these fossil fuels. It is now becoming common knowledge that fossil fuels are non- renewable (in human time) and that the stock is being depleted at an alarming rate.106 The fact that almost our entire industrialized food-producing system, from tillage to transportation, is dependent on a non-renewable resource is case in point that it is unsustainable; it cannot continue in this way much longer.

As mentioned earlier, fertilizers and pesticides rely on fossil fuels for production and distribution as well. Not only are the machines and additives used to grow food dependent on fossil fuels, but in order to distribute the food, even more fuel is needed for long-distance transportation. Craig Dilworth, author of Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological

105 Mellon, Margaret and Jane Rissler. "Environmental Effects of Gentically Modified Food Crops -- Recent Experiences." Union of Concerned Scientists. 2011. NP. 106 Meadows, Donella H., et al. Limits to Growth: 30 year update. 2004, Pg. 87; Crist and Rinker, 2010. Pg. 183. 51

Predicament of Humankind, put our relationship with fossil fuels into perspective by saying,

“Since the resources being used are finite, the process will stop sooner or later; but the later it stops the greater will be the likelihood of our species becoming extinct.”107

Large amounts of fertilizer becomes necessary because we are depleting soil fertility and faster than it can regenerate. Our current industrial agriculture is not recycling soil fertility, but exhausting it. In natural ecosystems, the soil fertility is maintained because the minerals essentially stay in place. Plants uptake these minerals from the soil through their roots and pass them to the leaves, which eventually die and fall back to the earth where they can decompose and the whole process can begin again; this is the original recycling. In agriculture, farmers remove the crops before the minerals can be replaced in the soil. This is why fertilizer is such a crucial aspect of this process as it is essentially replacing the mined nutrients and minerals. With the aim of maximizing productivity we have seemingly lost the foresight that without the recycling of these essential nutrients, soil fertility will dwindle.108 This “mining of the soil,” as Sir Albert

Howard called it, disrupts the natural cycles of the earth because we do not return to the land the nutrients and minerals we have taken from it.

Pesticides become necessary, and in large amounts too, because of the specialization of crop and genes mentioned earlier. In order to protect these increasingly homogenized crops, pesticides are needed to eliminate pests on a large scale. But this dependence on pesticides and rampant application contribute to what many have called the ‘pesticide treadmill.’ A few years after a pesticide is introduced, insects develop resistance to it. So another chemical is used -until the pests become resistant to that one as well. Then another chemical is used and it becomes a

107 Dilworth, Craig. “General Principles.” Principles of Environmental Sciences, 2009. Pg.83. 108 Montgomery, 2007; Daily, Gretchen C. and Paul R. Ehrlich. Population, Sustainability, and Earth’s Carrying Capacity. 1992. Pgs. 761-777. 52 nasty cycle of fighting increasingly chemical-resistant pests by adding more and more types of pesticides to the equation.

These intensive inputs, combined with soil compaction, lead to large amounts of run-off loaded with residue from synthetic fertilizer. When this run-off finds its way to water sources

(for example, the Mississippi River in the case of the American mid-west), it contaminates large bodies of water (like the Gulf of Mexico). These “dead-zones” are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas caused by an increase in chemical nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, in the water.

This process, called eutrophication, leads to algae blooms, which eventually deplete the water of oxygen. This has a number of detrimental effects on marine ecosystems as well as coastal economies. As of 2004 there was an estimated 405 dead zones around the world.109 Run-off also carries residue from pesticides, which can contaminate groundwater sources and ultimately end up in our drinking water.

Global Warming

In addition to all of these problems, which are shaking the stability of the biosphere, industrial agriculture is contributing to global warming and is making people unhealthy.

Agriculture directly accounts for 17% of all the energy used in this country.110 As of 1990, we were using approximately 1,000 liters (6.41 barrels) of oil to produce food off of one hectare of land.111 With the use of fossil fuels, from production to distribution, we have massive emissions of carbon dioxide. Agriculture is the fourth highest sector of the economy in greenhouse gas

109 Diaz, Robert J. "Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems." Science. 2008. Pgs. 926-929. 110 Pimentel, David and Giampietro, Mario. “Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Executive Summary.” Carrying Capacity Network. 1994. NP. 111 Pimental and Giampierto, 1994. NP. 53 emissions by contributing to just under 10% of total emissions for the country.112 Kenneth Sayre, author of Unearthed: the Economic Roots of Our Environmental Crisis, explains the problem with fossil fuels is “not just that they will eventually be used up; more ominous in the long run is the fact the use of fossil fuels leaves behind residues that clog up the biosphere.”113

All of these problems are inter-connected because we are living in one whole system.

The health of the soil is directly related to the health of water and air. The use of fossil fuels contributes to global warming, which contributes to drought, which leads to more input-intensive agriculture, which further depletes our natural capital and further contributes to global warming.

What is presenting itself is an unhealthy feedback loop that leaves no part of the biosphere untouched.

What do the farmers think?

This whole system is what Joe Czajkowski calls “institutionalized stupidity.” In my interview with him he spoke of the role of government in implementing these practices: “The government, with subsidies and payments to farmers, are encouraging mono-cropping and are supporting just one kind of farming; that’s foolish!” With the increased use of chemical pesticides and other synthetic inputs, he said, “it’s not right that consumers don’t know what’s in their food. Corn that's killing bugs in the morning is being fed to your kids at noon. There is no discussion of the ethics of this.” He shared a story of how his grandfather sold to one buyer his whole life, and that now all his customers are just numbers on a computer screen, he laments over there being, “no personal touch to farming.” These complexities, “take away from the actual

112 Robertson, Philip, et al. "Greenhouse Gases in Intensive Agriculture: Contributions of Individual Gases to the Radiative Forcing of the Atmosphere." Science. 2000. Pgs. 1922-1925. 113 Sayre, Kenneth M. Unearthed: the Economic Roots of Our Environmental Crisis. 2010. Pg. 3. 54 pleasure of seeing things grow... I’d rather just be a farmer instead all I basically get is problems.”

Why do we do participate in the food-chain with such reckless abandon? Justin thinks it is because corporate farming is profitable. Nancy points to the fact that “oil is cheap, labor is not.” While the task of feeding nearly seven billion mouths is imperative, these practices are foolish in that they cannot continue for much longer. They are degrading the land and water on which we depend at an alarming rate. Or, what Dave referred to as “poisoning the well.” These symptoms are representative of a societal myopia, a failure to act with the self-proclaimed wisdom we have as homo-sapiens. When we fail to return to the land what we have taken from it, we are failing our responsibility as stewards; we are failing our responsibility to future generations. It is indicative of what Sir Albert Howard refers to as “unbalanced farming,” where we take more than we give back.114

Julie argues that the “whole premise is unsustainable and disastrous for the planet ‘cause you’re dumping poisons in the soil and soil is the basis of life.” She went on to say that through conventional agriculture we are stuck in the mindset that “man is smarter than nature.” Through these practices, she explained, “we are fighting natural systems instead of observing and working within them.” E.F. Schumacher, esteemed economist and visionary, reiterates Julie's point by saying, “Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it.”115 John Locke, one of the leading voices at the turn of the

19th century for this anthropocentric worldview, reiterates this point by saying, “Land that is left

114 Howard, Albert. The Soil and Health: a Study of Organic Agriculture. 2006. Pg. 56. 115 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 47. 55 wholly to nature... is called, as indeed it is, waste.”116 Maybe the next agricultural revolution will be a shift in this mindset, where we can let go of our hubris and begin to learn from the natural systems we are a part of while embracing our niche in the biosphere as responsible and careful participants.

There is no simple solution and we have gone far enough down this industrialized road where, to some extent, there is no going back. These challenges are vast and complex, with massive amounts of money and lives at stake. We need to critically analyze our food production methods and use a holistic definition of sustainability as a road map. Justin hopefully remarked,

“Maybe the system will eventually turn back and people will wake up and see what’s happening.” It needs to happen now, for the more soil that gets blown away or washed to sea, the more dependent we become on fossil fuels, the more difficult it will be for our species to sustain.

After ingesting all this information I will share a quote that truly stirs me, that inspires me to ask again the arduous question of how we can make our food, our bodies, and this earth healthy. It is from one of the pioneers of a wiser agriculture, Sir Albert Howard, whose work laid the foundation for what we know as organic farming and whose influence reaches around the globe:

Is profit to be the master? Is it to direct and tyrannize over the aims of the farmer? Is it to distort those aims and make them injure the farmers' way of living? Is it to be pushed even further and to make him forgetful of the conditions laid down for the cultivation of the earth's surface, so that he actually comes to defy those great natural laws which are the very foundation and origin of all that he attempts?”117

If agriculture represents our relationship to sustenance, our current paradigm is patristic and unhealthy.

116 Rifkin, Jeremy. Entropy: a New World View. 1981. Pg. 83. 117 Howard, 2006. Pg. 60. 56

Chapter 4

Alternative Agriculture: “Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.” - E. O. Wilson118 “One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.” - Chinese proverb

“We could sure use some rain, huh? Everywhere I go, people are hurtin',” Steve said in a thick Minnesotan accent as we chatted on a road at Pine Cliff Ranch. Steve works for Douglas

County in Colorado and is in charge of measuring water use and flow for all agricultural operations in the area. He would come by on a weekly basis to check on the water at the ranch.

I was weeding on the side of a road one day when he came rolling by in his truck. He stopped and we discussed the weather and how everywhere he went, people were talking about rain.

I heard the same thing from Justin and Sheryl all summer. Throughout my time on the ranch the one thing that remained consistent was the need for more rain. It seemed like almost daily we would gather and discuss what the weather was going to do and if some rain was on the horizon. We were in a drought and rain had been scarce throughout the whole spring and early summer months. Rainfall was well below the average for that area and it caused huge challenges for the whole operation. For the ranch this affected a variety of things, from contributing to the degradation of the land to inhibiting the possibilities for profit.

Droughts are extended periods of time, from months to years, when a location has a

118Wilson, E.O. Naturalist. 1994. Pg. 218. 57 deficiency in its water supply.119 The lack of water leads to drastic changes in an ecosystem and has dramatic effects on agriculture and economies. For example, the aforementioned Dust Bowl was partly caused by drought.120 This prolonged dryness contributes to a number of issues, from dwindling water tables to soil erosion. It becomes very clear how this affects food and farming as water and soil make up much of what is needed for growth. As temperatures get warmer due to climate change, we will see an increase in the duration and intensity of drought around the world.121

In the U.S., the summer of 2011 raised concerns over this inevitability when parts of the country were hit hard by the heat. It is estimated that crop losses just in Kansas caused by drought reached roughly 1.7 billion dollars.122 In Texas the effects rippled throughout the news as the National Climatic Data Center labeled the state to be in “extreme drought” from April until

August.123 Time Magazine reported that the crop losses in Texas will amount to around five billion dollars.124 Globally the effects of drought are an on-going crisis of famine, habitat damage for terrestrial and aquatic life, wildfires, and wars fought over a scarcity of resources.125

At the ranch the effects were less ominous, but it was still a major issue that seriously challenged the ecology and economics of the operation. The land became more fragile and disturbed soil would take longer periods of time to recover, the carrying capacity for livestock was significantly lessened, and the growing season was shortened. Moreover, the intensity of the workday increased with the heat, leading to the possibility of dehydration, sun burn, and even sun stroke.

119 Dracup, John A. et al.,"On the Definition of Droughts." Water Resources Research, 1980. Pgs 297-302. 120 Thurow, Thomas L., and Charles A. Taylor. "Viewpoint: The Role of Drought in Range Management." Journal of Range Management, 1999. Pgs 415-416. 121 “Precipitation Extremes and Drought” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. NP. 122 "Kansas Crop Losses from Drought Reach $1.7 Billion" Associated Press. 14 Sept. 2011. NP. 123 "State of the Climate: Drought" National Climatic Data Center. 2011. 124 Hylton, Hilary. "Why Texas' Drought May Have Global Effects.” Time Magazine, 31 Aug. 2011. NP. 125 "Millions of people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa." FAO. 2006. NP. 58

This experience with drought shed light on a number of fundamental issues within agriculture. Most notably was my realization of the preciousness of our natural capital, and our dependence upon them. I could physically see the effect of water, or the lack thereof, on a landscape. I felt bare-boned soil in my hands. Furthermore, it astounded me to learn of the negligence industrial agriculture has exhibited for these essential resources. It became clear to me that to respond to the myriad needs of agriculture sustainably, we must value the soil and water, work with other species, and prioritize conservation. Our agriculture must work within the limits of natural systems. In my opinion, by following these guidelines we can have a food production system that is based on health and we can work to lessen the damage already done by industrial agriculture.

Valuing Soil and Water:

Agriculture must value soil and water because they are essential elements for life on earth. Without soil and water there is no food. Our management and utilization of these resources are a crucial aspect for the sustainability of our species. Witnessing the drought at

Pine Cliff Ranch instilled a deep appreciation for water’s and soil’s role in agricultural ecosystems. The effects of a shrinking water table and the ensuing degradation of the soil were right in front of my face. Through that experience I got a taste of serious problems that are facing our species on a global level. As mentioned in the previous chapter, topsoil losses and water usage in the current agricultural paradigm are contributing to increased dependence on inputs as well as depleting our natural capital. On top of that, industrialization’s role in climate change perpetuates these problems. Justin and Sheryl’s response to drought that summer shed 59 light on conservation practices that demonstrate an understanding of the value soil and water carry.

If drought takes water from the land, then we are compelled to counteract that by creating and supporting systems that replenish the soil and retain the water. One of the ranch’s most successful techniques in mitigating damage caused by the drought relied on another animal that many in the past have deemed a pest: the beaver. For many, including previous managers of Pine

Cliff, beavers have been impositions on agricultural endeavors as they flood waterways and harvest trees, often leading to an unwanted disruption of the land’s intended use. When Justin and Sheryl came to the ranch they brought a fresh perspective, suggesting that these ecosystem engineers (beavers) can revitalize the water-table and replenish the grasslands. Now, if one walks along the streams that run through the ranch, one would see as many as 30 beaver dams.

These dams mitigate erosion by increasing root growth (which holds the soil in place) and water retention, increasing biodiversity of flora and fauna, recharging the groundwater, and elevating the water table, all of which contributes to a healthier and more fertile landscape.126 This is more than just conservation; it is an active regeneration of the soil and water. In 2011 Pine Cliff Ranch won the Douglas Country Conservation Award and Justin points to these beaver dams as a leading contributor to the recognition.

Elsewhere, the treasuring of natural resources and understanding of the relationship between soil, water, and food are recognized and faithfully observed. Wes Jackson at the Land

Institute in Salina, Kansas has worked for decades to promote the planting and growing of perennials as an alternative to the widespread use of annuals in conventional agriculture. It has

126 Collen, P., and R.J. Gibson. "The General Ecology of Beavers (Castor Spp.), as Related to Their Influence on Stream Ecosystems and Riparian Habitats, and the Subsequent Effects on Fish - a Review." Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 2001. Pgs. 439-61.

60 already been explained how annual crops contribute to soil erosion and the wasting of water through their short lifespan and shallow root system. Perennial plants, on the other hand, remain rooted in the soil year after year, even after their fruits have been harvested. This allows for less tillage and disturbing of the soil as well as increased water retention. Their long roots hold on to soil, water, and fertilizer, which also mean less pollution from runoff.127 An example of perennial plants being used in agricultural are fruit and nut trees. Researchers at the Land

Institute are working on the development of perennial versions of important grain crops that would replace the annuals that shroud the agricultural landscape. This is being done by crossing modern grains with their wild perennial relatives, thus combining the high yield of modern grains with the perennial root structure of their wild counterparts. Perennial species mixtures could improve soil fertility and pest resistance, leading to less reliance on fossil fuels and a host of chemical inputs.128

Beaver dams and perennials are two techniques that support the conservation of vital water resources and regeneration of the soil. What Justin and Sheryl are doing at Pine Cliff

Ranch and what Wes Jackson and others are doing at the Land Institute represent alternatives to the dominant ideologies and trends of conventional agriculture. I view these as responses or adjustments to the ongoing problems of food production and land management. These agriculturists realize the value of soil and water and take seriously the challenge of maintaining a healthy landscape.

E.F. Schumacher illustrates how our current economic paradigm and industrial agriculture are neglecting the value of our natural resources. He claims that many of the

127 Jackson, Wes. “Soil Loss and the Search for a Permanent Agriculture.” The Land Report 4, 1978. NP 128 Glover, Jerry D., et al. "Increased Food and Ecosystem Security via Perennial Grains." Science, 2010. Pgs. 1638- 1639. 61 problems today result from “the failure to distinguish between income and capital.”129 He explains how our natural capital is being used up as if it is something we do not have to pay for.

It is, in a sense, expendable. If we return to the given definition of natural capital, that is “the irreplaceable capital which man has not made, but simply found, and without which he (or she) can do nothing,” we can begin to see why treating these resources as income is a problem.

Schumacher points to example of fossil fuels, saying, “If we treated them as capital items, we should be concerned with conservation; we should do everything in our power to try and minimize their current rate of use...” But instead, we are doing the exact opposite. “We are not in the least concerned with conservation; we are maximizing, instead of minimizing, the current rates of use.”130 This was written in 1973 and while some things have changed since then,

Schumacher’s critique of our economic orientation still holds significance.

This problem is especially evident in our use of fossil fuels. One of the single biggest challenges facing agriculture today is switching our source of power from fossil fuels, to something renewable. At Pine Cliff Ranch I saw a glimpse of this possibility through their use of a solar well. This well pumped water from 700 feet below up to the surface using solar power.

Solar energy has enormous potential to replace fossil fuels as our main source of power and other alternative technologies are emerging that will ease the transition. Such things as wind, tidal, and geothermal energy are also possibilities that can help us shift towards a renewable energy source. Another alternative to fossil fuels is a return to animal and human power to drive agricultural production. While this would require more labor, maybe that is what is necessary for food production to sustain.

129 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 13. 130 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 14. 62

Conservation as Priority:

If we truly value our most precious resources, then conserving them must be a high priority. More than that, we must actively look to regenerate these resources where we have the chance. Contrary to this necessity, our current agricultural system is contributing to the degradation of our resources. Often the symptoms of this exhaustion are masked by powerful inputs, but if one looks beneath the surface it is clear that the health of the biosphere is being compromised. With dwindling fecundity of soil and contamination of water sources, we must go beyond conservation and actively work to replenish our stock of natural capital.

Joe Czajkowski demonstrated a commitment to conservation and regeneration through what he calls “sustainability plus.” This refers to the 160 acres of his farm dedicated to organic vegetables. On these fields we can see a number of farming techniques that serve as alternatives to the dominant industrial paradigm. ‘Organic’ refers to farming methods that do not involve synthetic inputs such as chemical pesticides and fertilizer.131 According to a 21-year study that compared organically and conventionally farmed soil, organic methods enhanced soil fertility and increased biodiversity.132 In addition to organic growing methods, Joe uses legumes as cover crops in the winter. These cover crops are planted to prevent wind and water erosion by keeping an intact root system alive year round. Also, leguminous cover crops naturally fix atmospheric nitrogen in to the soil, thus decreasing needs for inputs to boost soil fertility. Lastly, these cover crops act as ‘green manure.’ They are left in place after they die and are recycled back into the soil aggregate through decomposition.133

131 "Organic Production and Organic Food: Information Access Tools." National Agricultural Library. USDA, 2011. 132 Maeder, Paul, and Andreas Fliessbach. "Soil Fertility and Biodiversity in Organic Farming." Science 2002. Pgs. 1694-697. 133 Blanco, Humberto, and R. Lal. Principles of Soil Conservation and Management., 2008. Pg. 460. 63

At Simple Gifts Farm they are training a team of oxen to help with working the land.

These would essentially serve as draft animals that could in some ways replace the need for a tractor. Their incorporation of livestock in their farming serves as an alternative to industrial agriculture in a variety of ways. First, these animals can decrease the need for a tractor in some cases. Also, these animals are fueled by grass instead of gas. They contribute to soil regeneration by recycling the nutrients through their manure and tilling the soil through hoof traction. This not only cuts down on the farm’s carbon footprint, but it saves the farm money. It also moves them closer to ‘closed loops' on the farm. A closed loop means there are no inputs or outputs for a process and that all ingredients are recycled on the land. In this instance, inputs and outputs are minimized by the oxen's recycling of the nutrients from the soil and grass back to the earth through their manure. The manure fertilizes the soil and becomes part of the new growth of grass that continues to fuel and feed the working animal. This cuts back on the need to import fertilizer from an outside source. An open loop, in comparison, would be using a tractor to do these same things, where the input of oil comes from elsewhere and the resulting waste drifts in to the atmosphere.

These types of open loops are prevalent in industrial agriculture. By importing such things as fertilizer and pesticides, farms are constantly dependent upon outside sources for fertility. Additionally, run off caused by impermeable soils and excessive use of inputs, carries the imported additives off of the land. This is why moving closer to closed loops is an alternative to the widespread open loops created by industrialization.

Sir Albert Howard emphasized the importance of these closed loops by proclaiming that the most important law of agriculture is what he called, “the law of return.” This means that for soil fecundity to remain intact, what is taken from the land must be returned to it. An example is 64 how trees extract nutrients from the soil through their roots, turn them into leaves, which eventually fall back to the ground and decompose into the soil. This is a natural and ancient process of nutrient and mineral recycling that is invaluable to the health of our soils.134 By committing to the law of return we can actively restore ecological health around the word.

Working with other species:

A crucial aspect of conservation is working with other species, as opposed to against them. Justin and Sheryl demonstrated this through their relationship to local beavers. Joe supports communities of soil biota and other wildlife through his organic farming. Dave at

Simple Gifts is working directly with oxen to regenerate soil fertility. All of these are admirable attempts of coexistence with the larger community of life we are a part of. We need to work with other species because we are dependent on them.

Industrial agriculture seems to take the opposite approach. Our modern farming and ranching practices do not fully realize this inter-dependence. Through mono-cropping and the increasingly specialization of the gene pool, we are decreasing biodiversity. Pesticides, as mentioned before, often kill a variety of species beyond the intended pest. They deeply disturb ecosystem function by introducing toxins to an eco-systems food-web.

An alternative to the use of pesticides is crop rotation. Joe labeled this practice as, “the best tool us farmers have.” For annual plants crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of

134 Howard, Albert. The Soil and Health: a Study of Organic Agriculture. 2006. Pgs. 3-6. 65 unrelated types of crops in the same area in successive seasons.135 This has a number of benefits for the farmer and other species in the ecosystem as it is an excellent method of reducing pest damage and boosting soil fertility. Plants in the same taxonomic family tend to attract similar pests, so by regularly changing the planting location, the pest cycles can be broken or limited.

Crop rotation also utilizes the method of green-manure, which I described earlier.

Frederick Kirschenmann explains that sustainable agriculture must be based on species interaction and interdependence because, “Without the activity of organisms within the environment, many of which have no immediate economic value, there would be no environment. And there would be no agriculture!”136 Aldo Leopold reiterates the necessity of interdependence by reflecting that, “Humans are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow- creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise.”137

Community Supported Agriculture:

A sustainable agriculture must also work with the members of our own species. There is a fundamental lack of relationship between farmer and eater in the modern food paradigm. It is estimated that food on average travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate.138 An alternative to the

135 Gliessman, Stephen R., and Martha Rosemeyer. The Conversion to Sustainable Agriculture: Principles, Processes, and Practices. 2010. Pg. 17. 136 Kirschenmann,2010. Pg. 185. 137 Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac with Essay on Conservation. 2001. Pg 13. 138 “Is Local Food Better?" Worldwatch Institute, 2011. NP. 66 industrial approach is the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) method. CSA aims to decrease the distance and strengthen the relationship between a farmer and his or her customers.

CSA is something that each of the farmers I interviewed highlighted as an extremely valuable practice. This meeting of farmer and eater through CSAs was a source of excitement and for some, like Many Hands and Simple Gifts, it represents a source of income that is imperative to the operation. Leslie at Hampshire gushed that “the best thing that has come along since I’ve been in agriculture is the CSA method.” Typically CSA ‘shares’ are paid for upfront by the customer, who is taking a chance with the farmer by investing in the product beforehand.

Then there is a routine, often weekly, pick-up or delivery of fresh farm produce. These ‘shares’ can be comprised of fresh fruit, vegetables and even meat. At Hampshire, by signing up for a share in the CSA, we receive a weekly batch of fresh vegetables from September until mid-

November. This process creates a whole new modality for the farmer and transforms the relationship between producer and consumer. “By getting the money ahead of time,” Leslie shared, “all you need to do is concentrate on doing a good job, and because you got money in your pocket you don’t want to disappoint people and there is a certain pride in your work.”

While farmers are already deeply immersed in the processes of their work, a CSA creates a bridge to the outside world of consumers, strengthening the link between the farm and fork. It is a meeting of farmer and community that creates an opportunity for people to cultivate deeper relationships to their sustenance. CSAs are not only the product of a desire by consumers for local and healthy food, it is an invitation for both parties, consumers and producers, to interact and support each other. It represents a pursuit of the adage “know-thy-farmer” by a consumer base that is hungry to engage with the farmer in the delicate dance of food production. It shows that farmers are not the only ones looking for alternatives. Nancy talked about this when she 67 said, “it’s about more than price and quality. People are attached and drawn to a philosophical and communal aspect.” Also, selling produce directly to consumers cuts down on the resources used for transportation and packaging. Some farms even will take the compost from the CSA, encouraging closed loops for the veggies that can make it back to the specific land from which they came.

Many of the farmers acknowledged their location being a crucial aspect in their ability to sell direct and be supported in organic endeavors. Western Massachusetts is full of consumers willing to pay the money, willing to wash their own lettuce and take the risks of farming with the farmer. This is not the case everywhere. Even though CSAs are expanding around the country

(the USDA estimates roughly 12,500 CSAs in the U.S.),139 there are still many places where the connection between the producers and consumers of food has become more distant.

Most often the word 'community', as used in community supported agriculture, refers to a group of people that are working and living together.140 Others have dared to venture outside of this limited definition and have chosen to look at community as something more. Aldo Leopold, one of the earliest voices of the conservation movement, in his Sand County Almanac, called for a land ethic that “...enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.”141 This brings an expanded meaning to a CSA, implying that agriculture is supported by more than just a community of people, but by a community of biota that extends into the soil below and skies above. Often these other members of our community are violently marginalized by the use of pesticides and almost always overlooked.

At Pine Cliff Ranch, Justin actively works to support this larger community through a

139"Selected Practices: 2007" Agriculture Census. USDA. 2007. Pg. 2. 140 Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community. 2000. Pg. 7. 141 Leopold, 2001. Pg. 171. 68

“bottom-up” ideology that guides the whole agricultural operation. He works to improve the fertility and biodiversity for the first few centimeters of soil, believing that, “by managing the smallest guy on the totem pole, everyone else above it does well.” One specific voice within this larger community of biota that Justin has paid specific attention to is the dung beetle. The dung beetle, through burying and consuming manure, improves nutrient recycling and soil structure.142

Through rampant use of chemical pesticides dung beetles have been eliminated on farm and range land everywhere. For example, cattle are often given “wormers,” which work through the digestive system of a cow and kill off undesired worms and other bacteria. An unintended consequence of this input is the residue of these chemicals that stays in the manure long after it passes through the cow. These cow pies become uninhabitable for dung beetles and other organisms, thus disrupting the nutrient cycles upon which the land depends.

Justin talked about how if one looks through agricultural magazines, one will see pages and pages of advertisements for these worm-killing pesticides, but that, “...no one is speaking for the dung beetle.” While pesticides are backed by millions of dollars from corporations, hope for the dung beetle lies in an agriculture that supports the larger community of life that Aldo Leopold calls for in his 'land ethic.'

Natural Systems Agriculture:

In response to large-scale, chemically laden, mono crops that are dependent on oil, people have looked to nature as an agricultural guide. Their aim is to imitate natural ecosystems in order to utilize most effectively and sustainably the available energy of a resource base. Sir

Albert Howard suggests that farmers should pattern the maintenance of their fields after the

142 Hutton, Stephen A., and Paul S. Giller. "The Effects of the Intensification of Agriculture on Northern Temperate Dung Beetle Communities." Journal of Applied Ecology. 2003. Pg. 995. 69 forest floor, “for the forces of growth and the forces of decay are in balance there.”143

Agroforestry is an emerging trend within agriculture that works to integrate woody perennials with crops and/or livestock to more closely resemble an ecosystem devoid of human interference.144 For the Land Institute this approach is called Natural Systems Agriculture

(NSA), and is centered on perennial poly-cultures and synthesizing the growing of food with the function of a healthy ecosystem.145

A crucial aspect of this type of agriculture is the understanding of and workings within local ecosystems. Different habitats are going to work differently, and the most effective use of the land stems from an understanding of the local system with which one wishes to work.

Wendell Berry explains that, “The land is too various in its kinds, climates, conditions, declivities, aspects, and histories to conform to any generalized understanding or to prosper under generalized treatment.”146 While there are some fundamental functions of the biosphere that can guide us everywhere (such as the law of return and the importance of recycling), NSA calls for practices that are specialized for the habitats on which they depend. For the Land

Institute in Salina, Kansas this means looking to the prairie as a model, but for each agricultural locale the model would be different. We can use the beaver as an example of this local adaptability. In places of drought, such as the ranch in Colorado, the beaver can be used to improve soil quality and retain water more effectively, but in a place where rain and water are abundant, such as New England, the beaver may be viewed as pest when it floods agricultural land and washes out roads.

In our pursuit of sustainability our responses must adapt to our locale. Each continent,

143 Howard, Albert. An Agricultural Testament. 1949. Pg. 4 144 Blanco and Lal, 2008. Pg. 259; Young, Anthony. Agroforestry for Soil Management. 1997. Pgs. 2-4. 145 Jackson, Wes. “Natural Systems Agriculture: A radical alternative” 2002. Pgs. 111-117. 146 Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. 1996. Pg. 31. 70 country, region, city, town, and person must look for what is needed locally in order to make strides globally. NSA and other alternatives to conventional agriculture look to work within the carrying capacity of a system. Questions such as how much can be taken from it without diminishing it and what can it produce dependably for an indefinite amount of time, can be guideposts for our relationship with the land.147

Standards for Sustainability:

Frederick Kirschenmann, self-proclaim Philosopher/Farmer and distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, explains that, “a pervasive criticism of sustainable agriculture is that without a commonly accepted definition of sustainable agriculture, there is no basis for an intelligent discussion of the issue. There is no universally accepted standard set of practices.”148 I propose that the principles outlined above can contribute to the conversation about what that standard could be. We must design systems that inherently value our resources, treating them as capital instead of profit. We must hold conservation as a priority and work towards regeneration wherever possible. And, we must work with other species in order to promote health throughout the food-chain. Current and feasible outlets for these values are the CSA and NSA methods.

Another guiding criterion for sustainability is proposed by Paul Hawken in his book The

Ecology of Commerce. He proposes that three indicators for a sustainable system are that waste equals food, it uses current instead of borrowed energy, and it contributes to ecological

147 Berry, 1996. Pg. 23. 148 Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce. 2010. Pg. 15. 71 restoration.149 “Waste equals food” implies that waste from one part of a system is used as food for another. This is the epitome of recycling and Hawken goes on to explain “the return of wastes to the soil creates humus, which encourages healthy crops whose remains, properly composted, return to enrich the soil’s humus content.”150 Current energy suggests that we transition from a fossil fuel, or what he calls ‘borrowed energy’, to an economy based on hydrogen and sunshine. And lastly, ecological restoration is what Joe calls ‘sustainability plus.’

A sustainable system is a regenerative one, as Frederick Kirschenmann illuminates by saying

“restorative behavior is integral to long-term sustainability.”151

There are many more voices contributing to this discussion and it is important to solidify our understanding of what sustainable practices are. It is important to consider that there is more to sustainability than general solutions; it requires the locally responsive ingenuity of those in relationship to their surroundings. It is an adaptive and ‘on-the-fly’ process. I feel that one general standard that must be addressed globally and locally is incorporating the rest of the biotic enterprise in any definition of sustainability. As Frederick Kirschenmann eloquently puts it

“Any definition that limits itself to the welfare of the human community is deeply flawed. The human community cannot sustain itself apart from the health of the rest of the biotic community.”152

149 Hawken, 2010. Pg. 79. 150 Hawken. 2010. Pg. 36. 151 Kirschenmann, 2010. Pg. 179. 152 Kirschenmann. 2010. Pg. 179.

72

Chapter 5

Tradeoffs in Pursuit of Balance: “The greatest challenge to sustainable farming is in finding ways to make ecologically and socially responsible systems economically viable as well.” -John Ikerd153

“There are two conditions in nature: Either you’re growing or you’re dying Whether a plant, an animal, or a business…you want to grow!.” -Joe Czajkowski

I remember driving to Joe Czajkowski’s farm early one spring morning. I was eager to get another interview going and excited to see what Joe and his farm had to offer. One thing that stuck out immediately was that we met in his office. All my other interviews had taken place within a different context of farming: walking through fields, planting lettuce, or boiling maple sap, but this was a very different environment. A computer, filing cabinet, and books comprised our immediate surroundings. While sitting there watching Joe on his computer, I had a realization: Agriculture, aside from being our source of sustenance, is a business. It is a multi- faceted occupation that exists within the framework of our economy. Somehow, it never occurred to me that sitting in an office, ‘working the books’, as Justin calls it, was such a vital part of the job.

I thought of the contrast between my meeting place with Joe and the other farms I visited.

The office and the field represent the two dominating forces within agriculture today: that of the economy and that of ecology. For an agricultural business to sustain, it must effectively balance those two forces. It became apparent to me that everyday farmers are faced with decisions that

153 Ikerd, John E. Crisis & Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture. 2008. Pg. 77. 73 affect their economic productivity and ecological function. These decisions determine their personal livelihood as well as seriously affect local ecosystems. Shockingly, what seems to be prevalent throughout the industry today is a discord between the two. What contributes to economic productivity often damages ecological function and inversely, what supports ecological health is often unprofitable.

This is a monumental challenge for agriculture today. It is clear to me that an agriculture that is not economically productive and does not protect ecological health is fundamentally unsustainable. The agriculturalists I interviewed are faced with the task of balancing economic and ecological needs on a day-to-day basis. The trade-offs and sacrifices they make in order to stay afloat and be ecologically responsible are truly inspiring. Agriculture represents an interesting and important cross-section between economic needs and ecological parameters. In our pursuit of a resilient agriculture, we must take both into account and work at finding a balance that is sustainable.

Economy and Ecology:

The word economy comes from the Greek word oikonomos which translates to "one who manages a household.”154 A definition given by The Economist magazine describes it as “how society uses its scarce resources.”155 The magazine article explains how resources are limited, and every society wants to figure out how to allocate its resources for maximum benefit.

Ecology stems from the Greek word okologie, meaning “the study of a household.”156 This

“house” refers to the natural environment and the web of life into which we have been born.

154 Moore, Bob, and Maxine Moore. NTC's Dictionary of Latin and Greek Origins., 1997. Pg.118. 155 “Economic Terms.” The Economist Magazine. 2011. 156 Moore, 1997. Pg. 117. 74

Essentially, our economy is how we are using our resources and ecology refers to our understanding of the source of those resources. Their shared root of ‘eco’, meaning ‘house’, is indicative of their inherent relationship.

These systems, economic and ecological, interact through the physical flow of matter and energy from nature’s sources through the human economy and back to nature’s sinks.157 It is important to understand that our economy, just like our individual selves, is an open system. It is constantly interacting with the environment and requires a flow of matter and energy to sustain.

Nature represents both the source of that vital flow and the sink in which, after our use, the energy returns. As Herman Daly explained, “Everything has to come from somewhere and go somewhere. Somewhere is in both cases the natural environment.”158 A healthy relationship between our use of resources and the understanding of their origin is paramount for the sustainability of our species.

A farmer’s immersion into ecological and economic systems is part of what gives him or her a unique position in society and an invaluable perspective to share. Their work is balancing awareness of the environment and natural systems with economic needs. This is no easy task.

Often, these do not go hand-in-hand but, in fact, contradict each other. The decision of whether to pump a field full of fertilizer and reap the benefits of high yield or generate a lower yield with less inputs and more ecological restoration is an example of how these forces compete.

Agriculturalists are representatives of our species who engage with the natural world in order to supply the rest of us with food. Their ability to balance the needs of the economy with their understanding of the functions and limits of ecology is crucial to our ability to sustain. An

157 Daly, Herman E. Steady State Economics. 1977. Pgs. 3-5; Goodland, Robert. "The Case That the World Has Reached Limits: More Precisely That Current Throughput Growth in the Global Economy Cannot Be Sustained." Population and Environment. 1992. Pgs. 167-82. 158 Daly, 1977.Pg. 15. 75 unbalanced agriculture, one that focuses too heavily on either economy or ecology, will result in long-term degradation of the quality and/or quantity of capital goods produced for our use.

What is balanced farming?

We can learn about balanced farming by identifying what unbalanced farming looks like.

Our current agricultural orientation has fed billions of people and provided an abundance of capital goods (food for people, feed for livestock, fiber for clothes, and fuel for machines), yet it is heavily focused on economic productivity and throughput growth. Throughput growth is the rate of the physical flow of energy-matter from source to sink. For our current economic paradigm, the more that flows, the better.159 This commitment to economic gain has been the cause of often-ignored ecological damage. Through this trade-off we are sacrificing long-term food security for short-term high yield.160 The consequences of such are just beginning to be widely recognized. We are enacting what Sir Albert Howard called, “unbalanced farming.”161

While he was directly referring to the act of taking from the soil more than you put back, I suggest that it can similarly be viewed as an agriculture that is too heavily driven by either economic or ecological incentives. This is where we are right now, unbalanced and leaning mightily toward economic gain as the driving factor of agriculture.

It is important not to rush too quickly to the other side, though, by totally discounting economic needs in the name of the ecological. Some in the field declare the need for drastic

159 Schumacher, E. F. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered. 1973. Pg. 23. 160 Lal, R. "Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security." Science. 2004. Pgs. 1623-1627. 161 Howard, Albert. The Soil and Health: a Study of Organic Agriculture. 2006. Pg. 12. 76 reform by making ecological health the guiding principle of agriculture.162 While moving toward ecological priorities is a clear next step, there still needs to be a balanced approach to farming because, as of now, agriculture is deeply embedded within the context of a global economy. The importance of staying economically viable was talked about in every one of my interviews. Dave plainly stated, “None of the other sustainability stuff will happen if you go out of business and disappear.” This sentiment resounded throughout my field study. Nancy reiterated, “If you can’t make a living doing this you won’t be doing it much longer. You could have the best environmental intentions in the world but you need to make a living.”

It is clear that balance is necessary, but in which direction is the agricultural paradigm moving? Are we continuing down the path of growth and technology in the name of economic prowess? Or is there a shift toward ecological limits being the deciding factor? Through my interviews and research I witnessed a small window into the state of agriculture today. I was struck by the similarities between the farmer’s responses to this balancing act. Every one of them held the belief that ecological health and function should be the bottom line for agriculture.

Nancy talked about an ethical line she is not willing to cross: she will not apply chemical pesticides to the food she grows. For Julie at Many Hands Farm this means she “always go for the environmental standard as the high priority then (raises) the price accordingly.”

Dave elaborated on this by stating that while in some ways economics come first, ultimately their focus is on the ecology, “because we believe the economic part will work out if we manage the land right.” Joe reiterated this sentiment by proclaiming, “If ya get good healthy crops, you'll do well. But take care of your crops first.” This represents an understanding by these producers that regardless of our ability to cut corners in the name profit, without good

162 Jackson, Wes. “Natural Systems Agriculture: A radical alternative” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment , 2002. Pgs, 112-114; Blay-Palmer, Alison. Imagining Sustainable Food Systems: Theory and Practice. 2010; Berry, Wendell. Bringing It to the Table: on Farming and Food. 2009. Pgs 56-64. 77 stewardship of the environment we will all be shorted in the end. These beliefs of the farmers connect to the larger conversation about sustainability: Even though we need to balance the economic with the ecological, it needs to be understood that environmental health and function are a prerequisite for economic utility.163 For the farmer to stay in business while working the land with an eye towards the future, balancing both economic and ecological needs is crucial.

But a shift must be made in our economic orientation as a whole.

Steady State and Buddhist Economics:

The emerging field of Ecological Economics looks to implement ways to do just that through what it calls a steady state economy. This is a system that remains balanced within the finite resource base of the biosphere by having the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy from the first stage of production to the last, or, in other words, minimizing throughput growth.164 A key term in this explanation is ‘feasible.’ This implies that a certain amount of throughput growth is necessary for a desirable standard of living, but at some point excessive growth is frivolous. This concept in contrast to what Herman Daly calls ‘growthmania,’ or our current economic paradigm, which operates under the notion that ‘more is better.’ A steady state economy holds strongly to the belief that ‘enough is best.’ This approach also emphasizes the importance of preserving the diversity of life that makes a human economy possible.165

Fundamentally this is an alternative to classical economics that looks at industrialization and growth as necessary functions within a society. Such adjustments Ecological Economics

163 Goodland, Robert. "The Concept of Environmental Sustainability." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1995. Pgs. 1-24. Brundtland, Gro Harlem. “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development:Our Common Future.” United Nations, 1987. NP. 164 Daly, Herman E., and Joshua C. Farley. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications. 2004. Pg. 17. 165 Daly, 1977. Pgs. 11-16; Costanza, Robert. Ecological Economics: the Science and Management of Sustainability., 1991. 78 proposes are a massive decrease in scale and decentralization of economies, which would make production and distribution more locally adapted and suitable to unique location-specific needs.166 It is rooted in the understanding that ecological functions are a prerequisite for any kind of human activity. The importance of this distinction is demonstrated poignantly by Daly when he asks, “What use is a saw mill without a forest?”167 E.F. Schumacher reiterates this point in his book, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered, by saying that humans are not producers, we are only converters, and, “for every job of conversion one needs primary products.”168

Another proposed alternative to our current economic paradigm is what E.F. Schumacher calls ‘Buddhist Economics’. In his essay, Schumacher points to a fundamental flaw in our current economic system by claiming that the modern economist “does not seem to realize at all that human life is a dependent part of an ecosystem of many different forms of life.” Buddhist

Economics, on the other hand , would be reverential towards our ecosystem and non-violent towards all facets of life.169 Non-violent is a tricky and seemingly idealistic term that negates daily and necessary acts of violence. Its use brings to mind fundamental questions about violence. For example, is removing wheat from its chafe a violent act? Is weeding violent?

Schumacher elaborates on this term non-violence by saying “complete non-violence may not be attainable on this earth, (but) there is nonetheless an ineluctable duty on man to aim at the ideal of non-violence in all he does.”170

The juxtapositions do no stop there: “Modern economics does not distinguish between renewable and non-renewable materials, as its very method is to equalize and quantify

166 Daly, 1977. Pg.18. 167 Daly, 1977. Pg. 39. 168 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 35. 169 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 57. 170 Schumacher, 1973. Pg. 58. 79 everything by means of a money price.” Thus, he continues, “the only difference between them is relative cost per equivalent unit.” Buddhist economics would not overlook the crucial difference between renewable and non-renewable resources. “To use (non-renewable resources) heedlessly or extravagantly is an act of violence… A population basing its economic life on non- renewable fuels is living parasitically, on capital instead of income.”171

These philosophies are connected in their dissatisfaction, and in some cases utter disgust, for our current economic paradigm. Daly and Schumacher wrote about these concepts in the

1970s, so I am curious about how their thinking has developed in the ensuing decades. What is clear is that our economic system is continuing to expand across the globe and is still rooted in the fundamental errors illuminated by these great thinkers. Their call for a shift in economics is a call for a shift in our philosophical understanding of the world. It is a call for a change in our patterns of consumption, from the dominating and seductive modality of ‘more is better,’ to a frame-of-mind based on sufficiency and cooperation grounded by the notion ‘enough is best.’

Trade-offs:

As I talked with Nancy about the challenge and complexity of this balancing act, she shared that her work “is all about trade-offs.” She explained how her decision making is rooted in trying to balance both the economic and the ecological. A decision such as does she let a pasture rest for a season (which would help rebuild soil aggregates, result in less inputs, and less pollution) or plant seeds in it for harvest (which would bring in more money from selling the crop) has consequential implications for the health of the environment and success of the business. When talking about these decisions being made at the scale of conventional

171 Schumacher, 1973 Pgs.57-59. 80 agriculture, we can imagine the magnitude of their effects. Clearly, a farmer must make sacrifices, and unfortunately for agriculture and the world today, this has often meant sacrificing the integrity of ecological structures in order to make the money needed to stay afloat.172

Nancy shared an example of this happening now at Hampshire. Just recently the college began selling its compost off the land because processing it on campus was not cost-effective.

This open loop is problematic for Nancy as she is losing valuable minerals and nutrients when the compost does not return to the land. Then, in order to boost the fertility of the depleted soil, she needs to buy fertilizer that comes from somewhere else. The cost-effectiveness of sending compost elsewhere perpetuates a cycle of dependence on fertilizer as well as contributes to further soil depletion.173

Elsewhere, the inverse is demonstrated, where economic productivity is sacrificed in the name of ecological health. Joe Czajkowski shared how if he were to convert more of his farm to certified organic, he would face a three-year transitional period that would detract from economic returns. Organic certification requires that the piece of land in question be chemical- input free for three years. This means that for three years the piece of land is neither certified organic nor aided by chemical inputs. This transition period makes it difficult for farmers to switch to organic, because it means sacrificing the input-induced high yields without the benefit of being organic for three years. While switching to organic may ultimately prove to be profitable, the certification process makes the transition difficult.

A farmer, and agriculture as a whole, cannot continue to be oriented solely by economic motives. These food systems cannot sustainably supply us with sustenance if farmers need to cut corners to stay in business. The necessary sacrifices can be, and in fact need to be, more

172 Ikerd, John. Economics of Sustainable Farming. 2001. NP. 173 Mancus, Philip. "Nitrogen Fertilizer Dependency and Its Contradictions: A Theoretical Exploration of Social- Ecological Metabolism." Rural Sociology 2007.Pgs. 269-88. 81 balanced. The tradeoffs must happen with an understanding of the ecological and economic systems in which the farmer is imbedded. And, as I witnessed in my field study, they can be.

Nancy shed light on this need for balance, and the challenge of finding it, by offering this question: “Where can I do the greatest good for the least negative impact?”

Joe creatively put this question in to practice with his pursuit of organic pasture in which to raise his crops. Land used for organic crops, as mentioned, needs to be three years removed from any chemical inputs. So what Joe does is work with other farmers in the area and rents land that already is chemical free. He explained that “What I typically do is find fields that are in estate fights or haven’t been farmed for a few years and then I go in and rent that land. This way

I am already two thirds of the way to being certified.” Also, he works in crop rotations with other farmers, specifically those who grow alfalfa. “I swap an acre and a half of non-organic land for an acre of organic.” He works with alfalfa farmers because alfalfa is a legume that fixes its own nitrogen, so it does not need the same type of chemical inputs as other crops do.

Through this he can “get the rotation done and it benefits the other farmer, too.”

At Simple Gifts Farm they put this question into action through their approach to importing soil fertility to the farm. Dave explained how the farm “could have much higher production of vegetables by importing a lot more nutrients or (they) could import even less fertility and produce a lot less vegetables than they already do.” He paused for a moment after saying that and quickly tacked on, “but, economically that wouldn’t work at all.” For them the most balanced and effective answer to the need for fertility is through crop rotation and importing grain from New York State as their main input for the farm. Each year a quarter of the land is fallowed (untouched) and, in addition to planting nitrogen-fixing cover crops, animals are used as the main source of fertilization. The imported grain is fed to the animals who transform 82 the grain into manure which is left on the soil to be recycled as compost. Essentially this process is turning the imported grain into vegetables. For Dave and Simple Gifts farm this choice represents doing the most good with the least negative impact. “Not only do we get to support our organic grain-growing friends in Western New York, but it is much closer and cheaper to transport than if we needed to import vegetables from California.”

Hampshire College demonstrates a commitment to more than economics by designating the Farm Center as an educational farm. Leslie and Nancy sacrifice economic efficiency for the sake of working with youth, some of whom have no experience working in agriculture. Leslie talked about how this affects his farming in the summer: “I hire students for the summer and the most important month of the year for hay is when they are learning how to drive a tractor.” He shared stories of numerous occasions of students plowing through fences with tractors and other problems caused by inexperience.

Not only do these sacrifices affect the fiscal and ecological aspects of one’s work, but they can deeply intervene with the personal life of a farmer. Dave shed light on this by sharing that Simple Gifts Farm “has been a huge sacrifice for my family.” Understandably, working long days in the field while also managing economic responsibilities for a start-up farm would present challenges for the whole family unit. Trade-offs come in the name of familial responsibilities as well, as Dave takes time off of work to pick his kids up from school at 3:00 o’clock.

To work in agriculture successfully, one must be able to practice the question Nancy proposed. “Where can I do the most good with the least negative impact” is not only indicative of the trade-offs and sacrifices these agriculturalists have to make on a regular basis, it can be a valuable question for our species as a whole as we transition towards sustainability. It clearly won’t be a quick and simple fix, and we as a species will continue having to make sacrifices until 83 we are more in balance.

Sustainability Paradox:

It seems that now, in agriculture and outside of it, economic and ecological functions are combative and often work against each other. Farmers see it when they have to choose between pumping their fields with fertilizer and pesticides or cultivating the soil organically and naturally, between accepting a government subsidy to grow lots of corn or growing a diverse set of crops.

What increases profitability more often than not decreases ecological capability and vice versa.174

In the larger conversation about sustainability these competitive aims shed light on an impeding paradox. What is sustainable for a business may be directly contributing to the collapse of ecosystems and, inversely, what is sustainable for an ecosystem may put many out of business and stifle the economy. This is the sustainability paradox, where our human-imposed economy competes with the natural systems of which we are a part.. The term loses its poignancy and becomes counterproductive when we understand that it can hold simultaneously the parasitic growth of an economy and the supposed health of the biosphere. Either a new word must be sought to represent a cultural movement towards balance and good stewardship or we must gain a clearer understanding of the term. When we talk about sustainability we must pause to ask: What are we trying to sustain?

The company Monsanto is a beautiful illustration of the sustainability paradox. From a business perspective, Monsanto is very successful. It has experienced continuous growth as company from its origin in 1901. It has been very successful from an economic sense with a net

174 Cox et al., "Research Priorities in Natural Systems Agriculture." Journal of Crop Improvement. 2004. Pgs. 511- 520; Ikerd, 2001. NP. 84 income attributed to the company of $2,109,000,000 dollars in 2009.175 At the same time,

Monsanto has been as the forefront of ongoing criticism over its contribution to ecological destruction and the decimation of rural communities around the world.176 Some of its business methods, namely the patenting of certain varieties of seeds, can be seen as business savvy and contributes to the sustainability of the company. Simultaneously, these methods may be contributing to the decline of ecological capabilities. Patenting seeds is noted as being especially dangerous as it further depletes genetic diversity, requires intensive inputs for high yields, and has many controversial social implications.177

In order for the paradox to be dispelled and agricultural production to sustain, we must take a holistic approach to land stewardship, where ecological and economic incentives are working together to promote food security and health for an increasing world population. A crime of sustainability is pitting these two against each other. John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri, believes that agricultural sustainability is dependent on these functions working together and that as long as they are segregated and combative we will continue to erode the foundations of our society.178

A shift needs to be made in economic orientation. Namely, it must be understood that we are a part of, not separate from, a larger system of life. Robert Costanza, an ecological economist and professor of Sustainability at Portland State University, simply puts it: “Human systems are subsystems within the larger ecological system.”179 Our economics, and any discussion about sustainability, must reflect that understanding. By continuing down the road of

175"Fourth-Quarter 2010 Financial Results" Monsanto. 2010. NP. 176 Banerjee, S. B. "Corporate Social Responsibility: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Critical Sociology. 2008. Pgs. 51-79. 177 For more information on this subject read Vandana Shiva's Seeds of Suicide: The Ecological and Human Costs of Globalisation of Agriculture. 178 Ikerd, 2008. Pgs. 73-80. 179 Costanza, 1991. Pg. 6. 85 throughput growth and industrialization we are separating ourselves from our source. We are casting ourselves off as something removed, something maybe even superior, and this hubris is leading us to disaster. For us to make a graceful transition from a fossil-fuel-dependent and growth-based economy towards something sustainable, we must have ecological limits to economic growth.

Holistic Agriculture:

Economic needs and ecological limits are part of a holistic agricultural orientation. They represent two facets of a whole system. A third facet, according to the Brundtland Commission, is social well-being.180 The commission contends that sustainable development for the human enterprise involves those three systems. Holistic agriculture is the pursuit of sustainability in the economic, ecological, and social systems that make up our reality. The trade-offs that are rampant throughout agriculture demonstrate an understanding that sustainability is dependent upon the health of the whole system. One must sacrifice aspects of one facet in order to bring the whole system in to balance.

Currently, much of this country’s agriculture is fragmented and unbalanced. Economic power is the dominating force in our methods of subsistence and we are left with unstable natural and social systems as a result. Sustainability at this point in time is about balancing the value given to economic productivity with ecological and social health. We must deeply investigate what health in these respective systems looks like in order to more clearly work towards that goal.

180 Brundtland, 1987. NP. 86

Chapter 6

Personal Sustainability:

“Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality.” – Wendell Berry181

“How could anyone justify (sustainability) not being important? It’s an ethical choice about how you want to live your life…It’s about how you get up every day and think about yourself.” -Dave Tepfer

Brendon, the other ranch hand, and I were gearing up for what we considered to be our cowboy auditions. The day was branding day and we had already separated the calves from their mothers in the corrals. Justin was on horseback with his lasso, singing old western songs as he prepared to catch the first victim and beneficiary of our day’s tasks.182

My job was to “mug,” or wrestle the frantic calf down and hold it there. Things started off smoothly, Brendon and I alternating and taking these stronger-than-they-look calves down and making sure they didn’t get back up. Justin had used his lasso to pick some of the smaller ones to warm us up, as this was both of our first time in the corral like this. Inevitably we had to move on to the older, bigger, and less willing to cooperate ones. This is when, as Sheryl called it, things got “a little western.”

There she was, number 40, with a lasso tightened around just one of her hind legs. She was kicking around and making it very clear that she did not want to be in this situation. She had witnessed her brothers and sisters succumb to their collective destiny and must have heard the

181 Berry, Wendell, and Norman Wirzba. The Art of the Commonplace: the Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. 2002. NP. 182 Branding is a way of claiming ownership of cattle. Each ranch has its own brand, and that brand gets seared on to the flesh of the cow. This is done mainly for identification purposes and to prevent theft. 87 wallowing yelps as we burned the Pine Cliff Ranch brand into their flesh. Brendon had just taken down a big one with precision and 'cowboy-like’ grace and I knew it was my turn. I was eager, I was excited, and I was determined to mug this one with similar gusto. We let her wear herself out a bit as Justin held on tight to his end of the rope as she continued to run around, but at some point I had to take action and realize my cowboy potential. I felt like a football player lining up to tackle the quarterback, just waiting for the snap to let me loose.

Eventually, I made my move. I got in close and wrapped my arms around her. I tried to pick her up, once, and then a second time before I began to think that maybe I was in over my head. The next thing I knew I heard a loud, “THUNK” and was able to roll away from the still bucking calf. I touched my forehead and felt blood running down my face. The calf continued to rebel wildly as Justin, Sheryl, and Brendon came to check on me. I could tell by their reaction that, whatever happened, it wasn’t pretty. And then, almost as quickly as I went down, I was being taken to the hospital where I received seven stitches above my right eye.

I ended up being just fine and was back in the corral the next day. Justin and Sheryl named the calf Samantha and, at the least, the whole experience made me relish the next hamburger I ate. But more importantly I learned a crucial lesson about agriculture and about life:

I must take care of myself. Throwing one's self onto a bucking calf without caution is not sustainable. I got lucky with my encounter with Samantha because it could have been a lot worse. She knocked some sense into me, and as I rested up that afternoon, it became resoundingly clear that my physical health is the bedrock for my ability to function as an agriculturalist and a person. More than that, I realized that as much as we can talk about the need for drastic economic reform and our concern for the environment, the health and sustainability of the Person remains paramount. Those I interviewed talked about the importance 88 of physical health, of family and friends, and of a commitment to the work as more than just an occupation. This is precisely what Wendell Berry meant when he proclaimed that, “a sustainable agriculture is an agriculture that depletes neither soil nor people.”183

After getting kicked around in the corrals I found myself asking how Justin and Sheryl sustain themselves through this type of work. Not only is it physically challenging, but it’s also incredibly risky and there is always more work to do. When thinking about this in relation to the question of sustainability, it becomes even more valuable to ask: How do these people maintain?

What is sustainable for them on a personal level?

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Bruntland Commission’s triple bottom line of sustainability, consisting of environment, economics, and social elements, sheds light on the importance of the 'social.’184 This idea of ‘social’ sustainability refers to notions of justice and social-equity as an important part of our species moving forth. But I advocate taking the social a step further than Brundtland does, by claiming that the ‘social’ revolves around the ‘personal.’

Thus, what often gets ignored in the discussion about sustainability is the importance of the individuals and their personal lives. Based on my research, this personal aspect of sustainability revolves around the health of one’s body, the connection to a larger community of people (family and beyond), and sense of fulfillment in their work. Centered on my interviews and time spent in the field, I will demonstrate how these agriculturalists incorporate this aspect of sustainability in to their work and lives.

183 Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. 1996. Pg. 79. 184 Brundtland, Gro Harlem. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: "Our Common Future." United Nations. 1987. NP. 89

Self, Family, and Community:

Agriculture is about more than just growing food; it's about growing food for people. A farmer’s health and relationship to others are the cornerstone for his or her ability to do so. In this section I will look at how physical health, the family unit, and community all contribute to personal sustainability and agriculture.

So often the conversation around sustainability is centered on the environment and the economy. Of course, these two aspects of the sustainability question are vital and cannot be overlooked. But the value of the social aspect and the sustainability of the person are the foundation for a healthy economic system and a healthy relationship to our environment. One's lifestyle and mindset dictate one’s relationship to the environment, and for us to learn what is sustainable and what is not, we must look at the person, the individual for answers. Agricultural sustainability rests on the health of the self, the cohesion of the family, and the participation and support of the community.

Self

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that

1,783,000 full-time workers were employed in production agriculture in the U.S. in 2009. In that same year, 440 farmers and farm workers died from a work-related injury leading to a fatality rate of 24.7 deaths per 100,000 workers.185 In comparison, the fatality rate for mining in 2007 was 19.8186 and for firefighters in that same year it was 3.5187 deaths per 100,000 workers. Every day, about 243 agricultural workers suffer injuries that take them out of work.188 Five percent of

185 "Agricultural Safety." National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. 2011. NP. 186 “Fatality Rate for the Mining Industry and Private Industry.” NIOSH. 2007. NP. 187 "Firefighter Fatalities." U.S. Fire administration. 2011. NP. 188 “Agricultural Safety.” NIOSH. 2011. NP 90 these injuries result in permanent impairment. These statistics illuminate the inherent risks of agriculture as it is one of the most dangerous industries in which to work.

The health and function of one’s body and mind are vital assets for working in the field and any discussion about sustainability and a sustainable agriculture is incomplete without it.

Working 15-hour days in the heat of summer is sure to take a toll on one's physical and mental health. Being in “the trenches,” as Justin called it, I gained an appreciation and profound respect for the agriculturalists who choose to work and live in this way, because it can be intense.

It becomes easier to understand why so many have leaned on mechanized support to get the job done. All of the aspects discussed in the conventional agriculture section, in some ways, enable the farmer to impose his or her will on the fields with greater ease. For much of our agricultural history all tilling, seeding, and harvesting had been done by hand. It is easy to imagine why machinery has been an astounding improvement for those working the land. At the same time, the use of machines has increased the risk of bodily harm throughout the industry.

NIOSH reported that the leading cause of death for farm workers from 1992 to 2009 was tractor overturns, accounting for over 90 deaths annually.189

Regardless of this mechanized assistance, the work remains tough and the hours long.

Our most precious tool remains our bodies and the maintenance of that tool keeps the agriculturalist going. When I asked Nancy about sustainability and what the word means for her and her work, she quickly brought this question to the table: “Where is the sustainability of the ability to do the job?” We talked about the emergence of young farmers in the field and the wear-and-tear it leaves on the body. She smiled when she said, “come talk to me in 20 years and we will see how you feel.” I've gotten a taste of this over the last couple years. Examples of what the job has required for me are: wrestling down calves in order to brand them; planting

189 "Agricultural Safety." NIOSH. 2011. NP. 91 hundreds of seeds; tilling the soil by hand and machine; picking and washing vegetables; weeding for hours; milking cows; building an 800-foot fence; painting a 30 foot- high barn; as well as climbing under a trailer to fix a swamp cooler. The intensity of the work involved in agriculture is often unrealized. Justin at Pine Cliff Ranch talked about the fantasy that is often associated with being a cowboy, but that the reality is often very different. One doesn’t imagine getting bucked off a horse, a tractor getting stuck in the mud, or applying for grants and subsidies as being a part of the job. As Justin said, “John Wayne never showed that part of it.”

How do these people sustain? One step at a time, with an eye toward the next day and anticipation of the changing seasons. Justin talked about the importance of a healthy body and mind for his work and life outside of work. For he and his wife Sheryl, part of their approach to this personal sustainability is taking Sundays off. They try to take a step away from the land and not even think about it although often, especially during the summer months, this becomes difficult. Julie actively works to stay in shape by exercising every day for 20 minutes. For Nancy and Leslie, the availability of eager and young students alleviates some of the pressure for them to do the “heavy lifting.” This lesson hit home again for me while working at the Hampshire

College Farm. I was pushing a moveable hen house on the pasture and tweaked my back. Not only did I have to take some time off of work, but sitting in a chair to write this paper became more difficult.

The National Agriculture Safety Database (NASD) recommends that a worker in agriculture take periodic breaks throughout the day to reduce fatigue and monotony. They say to eat properly, get sufficient rest and to work within your limitations.190 These are kind reminders that in order for work to continue, there must be healthy and functioning bodies to implement it.

Julie added that, in addition to rest, she and her crew at Many Hands Farm must “have fun in the

190 Johnson, Steven. "General Health for Farmers." National Agriculture Safety Database. 2006. NP. 92 field!” While volunteering with her, the work was full of laughter and chatter. Justin reiterated that sentiment when he told me that “if it’s going to be sustainable, it has to be fun.” Part of what made the summers at the ranch possible for myself were the games the other ranch hand and I would play. Whether it was practicing diving over a barbed wire fence, talking with the cows, or joking while digging post holes, having fun, smiling and laughing made the summer seem gentler and, yes, more sustainable.

Family

In addition to the health of the self, the family unit is a key factor in sustainability and agriculture. Traditionally “family farms” are what have fed the country and their inter- generational teamwork is what kept the operation going.191 In these circumstances, family members were a source of physical support, as the kids, parents and sometimes grandparents would work together on the land.192 An estimated one million children and adolescents under 20 years of age resided on farms in 2009, with about 519,000 of these youth performing work on the farms.193 Leslie talked about how when he was a kid after school he would come home and load hundreds of bales of hay into a truck with his dad. He joked that he would play sports after school to postpone these inevitable family chores. In an older paradigm the farm would need to sustain through generational changes, where a child would be in line to take over the operation.

For the farmers I interviewed, the family served as a team of support while working on the land. Justin and Sheryl work together to run Pine Cliff Ranch, and their ability to sustain as a family is imperative to their work. Julie works with her husband in the field of Many Hands as well as in their work with the Northeastern Organic Farming Association. Dave at Simple Gifts

191 "Family Farms Overview." USDA. 2011. NP. 192 Meyer, Carrie A. Days on the Family Farm: from the Golden Age through the Great Depression. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2007. Pgs. 34-37. 193 "Agricultural Safety." NIOSH. 2011. NP. 93 talked about how anything he does with the farm has to work for his family. This was part of his own definition for sustainability and represents the importance of a family life in a farmer’s life.

Joe Czaijkowki shared excitement that his kids “seemed interested in farming.”

The family’s role in farming and personal sustainability is based upon physical and emotional support, as well as feedback and a sense of fulfillment. From kids helping their parents and grandparents, to Justin and Sheryl bouncing ideas back and forth, there are many ways in which a family can serve a farm and a farmer. When Joe sees that his son shares his interest in farming, it clearly has an effect on him, inspiring him even more to “leave the land better than (he) found it.” John Ikerd sums up the importance of families on farms in his essay

“Farming with Values that Last: Family, Community, Land, and Faith” by saying: “If American agriculture is to be sustainable, if it is to contribute to our happiness, our farms and food system must be controlled by real people – by families.”194

For me, this implies that industrialization takes the real people out of farming. As machines continue to replace the human touch, the farm will continue to move away from being a place of hearth. What we will have instead is a farm that is caught in the modality of a factory.

Community

Moving from the self, through the family and out towards the broader community, sustainability rests on intra-personal and inter-personal health. A sustainable agriculture is one that is known and supported by those it affects: from the smallest biota of the fields to the vegetable-loving family down the street. Why? Because the farmers cannot exist on their own.

While we have gotten further and further away from a direct relationship to our farmers and the land they work, the relationship between producer and consumer is what agriculture is about.

194 Ickerd, John. “Farming with Values That Last: Family, Community, Land, and Faith.” University of Missouri. 2004. NP. 94

Agriculture is the practice and process of feeding people and in order for it to sustain the producers and consumers must actively participate.

Community is an elusive term that carries many different meanings. My understanding is that community represents a unified body of individuals195 whether that is unified by a specific cause, by location, or by being part of the same species. For the people on this planet there is no more unifying substance than food. As long as people have lived together, food has always been a source of communion. Coming together to “break bread” is an age-old ritual that is at the heart of coexistence. Throughout the fall season, festivals take place at farms around the country celebrating the harvest and the community it feeds. This is an exciting opportunity to see how a farm and community can interact beyond the exchange of money and food. At Hampshire

College’s farm festival, toddlers were able to learn where honey came from and could take home bits of honey-comb as souvenirs. At Simple Gift’s farm festival, I watched an old man try to hoola-hoop with what appeared to be his grandson. It was amazing to see the inter-generational audience and the interest they had in the farm.

For the farmers I interviewed, the CSA represented a connection to their community. It was a chance to be acknowledged for their work while being supported in their endeavors to grow healthy food. Leslie gushed when sharing his images of a CSA, talking about “kids coming to play on your farm and developing all these amazing relationships.” He went on to say through these relationships, one can have “a vegetable operation that is built on trust and values.”

CSAs are an illuminating expression of the value of connecting farm to fork.

Farmers also rely on community support for help in their agricultural operations. For big cattle moves at Pine Cliff Ranch, Justin would call people he knew for support; Ryan and his father would show up with their horses at 5:00 AM ready to help us move the cattle to the

195 "Community." Merriem-Webster. 2011. NP. 95 appropriate pasture. Some CSAs have members come help with planting, harvesting, and distribution.196 Joe leases land from farmers he knows and by doing so is taking care of his needs while also supporting their businesses. He even lent a truck to a fellow farmer while I was interviewing him.

Frederick Kirshenmann poetically articulated the value of community in the beginning of his own agricultural pursuits:

Slowly, out of night's loneliness, boredom, and fear, a small light began to shine. We discovered other farmers in the state with a similar passion for caring for the earth....We started a group – sharing our successes and our failures. We shared our pain and our joy. We shielded each other from the ridicule of those who didn’t understand what we were doing. We celebrated together and our bond grew.197

This quote brings to light the value of community beyond just physical support.

Kirshenmann shares how the strength of community came through emotional support. For many pioneering agriculturalists that are breaking new ground, the outside community may not understand or approve of their alternative path. Leslie shared a story that shows how unconventional practices are sometimes looked at unfavorably. He told me about a farming trend that became well known in the 1980s called Low Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA).

While it was an early attempt of the USDA to promote sustainable agriculture, Leslie shared how it often got made fun of by conventional farmers. They would call it “low input and low output” and ridicule those that were attempting this alternative approach.

Fulfillment:

In almost all of my interviews, a sense of fulfillment in their work came up as an

196 Cone, Cynthia Abbot and Andrea Myhre. “Community-Supported Agriculture: A Sustainable Alternative to Industrial Agriculture?” Human Organization. 2000 Pg. 190.

197 Kirschenmann, Frederick. Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Philosopher Farmer. 2011. Pg. 28. 96 important aspect for personal sustainability. The question of fulfillment is essentially a question of why these people continue working an agricultural lifestyle. With an abundance of economic challenges and the risks involved, it seems appropriate to ask: What drives these individuals to keep going?

Fulfillment is a sense of satisfaction from the work they are doing, often involving the achievement of a desired goal.198 Additionally, fulfillment can come from a commitment to the work as more than just an occupation. For each of these agriculturalists they view what they do as something more than just a job or a way to get a pay check. They have said yes to an agricultural lifestyle and have stuck with it. They each have their reasons and they each find this fulfillment through a variety of sources, from inter-generational collaboration to environmental conservation. When asked about what personal sustainability was for him, Justin succinctly shared, “It has to be more than a job, you have to believe in what you’re doing.”

Believing in their work- farming as activism, farming as fun:

For Justin, his work is his way of making the world a better place. He shared with me about how he chooses to put his energy towards improving and learning from the environment.

The roughly 4,000 acres of land at Pine Cliff Ranch serve as his outlet for making a difference.

Through conservation and a commitment to the health of the land, Pine Cliff has become somewhat of an animal sanctuary. Hunting is prohibited on the property, so elk and deer flock to these safer pastures. The beaver dams serve as a lush habitat for all sorts of birds and other animals as well. Justin and Sheryl's work is increasing the health and fecundity of the natural system in which they work and live.

198 "Fulfullment." Merriem-Webster. 2011. NP. 97

Justin's work with the land is his form of activism. This belief in, and commitment to, our “house,” or this greater ecological system of which we are a part, was truly inspiring for me to see. It struck me as the epitome of good stewardship, of responsibility and awareness. Julie drove the point home and exemplified this commitment to the greater web of life when she proclaimed “I believe in natural systems!” It seems that so much of agriculture and society in general is operating through a purely anthropocentric lens. Julie’s statement is a refreshing perspective that looks beyond our all-to-common anthropocentric view of life. We tend to act as if we are separate from nature and nature’s value is in our use of it.199 This ecologically oriented approach to stewardship, as opposed to an anthropocentric one, serves as a model for a sustainable agriculture. For Justin, “making a difference and learning every day,” is what keeps him going.

In tandem with his ecological commitment, Justin realizes the importance of enjoying himself in his work. He reminisced over the “times when you wake up and there are elk in the back yard or a rainbow. Those are the things that make it worth it and sometimes you have to take a step back and remember where you are at.” He elaborated, sharing about a time when he and Sheryl stepped out on to their back porch and “the temperature was just right and the wind wasn't blowing and we were both like, ‘Wow! This is fulfilling.’” Dave shared that “there is nothing else I want to do.” For him, the work is interesting, challenging, rewarding and fun.

Believing in what they are doing and enjoying themselves while doing it are the source of fulfillment for these individuals and contribute to their personal ability to sustain in this work.

199 Wilson, E. O. Biophilia. 1984. Pgs. 1-3; Costanza, Robert. Ecological Economics: the Science and Management of Sustainability., 1991 Pgs. 16-20.

98

Teaching/Sharing:

For some, the opportunity and ability to teach and share information about their practices is a driving force for their work. Julie beautifully spoke about how she “(does) what (she) thinks is right and holds a high standard,” and through doing those things, she gets to “point things out to people.” Nancy and Leslie, both working at Hampshire College, view themselves as farmer/educators. Leslie shared of the exciting opportunity he has to “pass on the best of what I know.” Nancy says that part of her role at Hampshire is “creating a place and space for students to explore all these questions and connections, a place for people to try farming out.”

This impetus to share connects to another theme that emerged throughout my interviews:

The inter-generational transmission. At Hampshire especially, the emphasis put on educating the youth is dominant in their work. Often, as noted earlier, they sacrifice efficiency and productivity for the sake of education. For Leslie, the inter-generational aspect of his work is a big deal to him and one of the main reasons he continues to work at Hampshire. Joe sagely remarked “I’m just passing through, I need to leave things at least as nice as I found it,” expressing his awareness of the generations to come. When I asked Julie about her role in the inter-generational relationship, she smiled when she said, “you are the next generation. We've got to give you the right indoctrination.”

These statements represent a responsibility these individuals have taken on for sharing the knowledge they have gained as farmers. This is indicative of their feeling that an aspect of their role as farmers, more than just growing food, is to share what they learn. I view this as another form of activism and see it as a source of fulfillment in their work.

As a youngster in this world and in agriculture, the commitment of these individuals to sharing the best of what they know is deeply inspiring and I am grateful for this inter- 99 generational transmission. My life and perspectives are truly informed by their work. My fulfillment lies in walking the fields with Justin and having him break open a cow-pie with his hands to show me how it’s teeming with life or hearing Julie talk to her pigs as if they could understand what she is saying. Whether they realize it or not by simply being who they are and committing to this lifestyle they are inspiring and educating the next generation. I am more fully realizing the importance of inter-generational partnership for any kind of sustainable movement.

It is an invaluable part of our species' survival and evolution.

Health:

Julie says that part of her inspiration to farm is “for my own health. If I eat healthy food

I’ll be healthier. I believe that health comes from healthy systems.” So through her contribution to a healthier ecosystem, she is reaping the benefits and finds fulfillment in eating the food she grows. She is contributing to the health of her sustenance by being an organic farm and eating the fresh produce it provides. While there are some skeptics of organic food, many in the scientific and agricultural community agree that organic methods of food growing produces healthier food than conventional methods.200

Additionally, some studies have concluded that the time from harvest to consumption has a role in the nutritional content of a plant. According to Jeff Bect, who is in the Horticultural

Sciences Department at the University of Florida,

Following harvest, nutrient content begins to decline, particularly vitamin C. Factors such as physical injury, delayed cooling, exposure to high temperature or low relative humidity, extended storage durations, or storage at chilling temperatures can hasten the

200 Pimentel, David et al.“Environmental, Energetic, and Economic Comparisons of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems.” Bioscience. 2005. Pgs. 573- 582;. "REPORT: 30 Years of the Farming Systems Trial ." Rodale Institute. 2011. NP; Davis, R. Donald,et al.“Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 2004. Pgs 669-682. 100

decline in nutritional value during packing, storage, and marketing of the commodity.201

Often, food that gets transported long distances must be picked before it has ripened, and then is synthetically ripened during transportation to prolong the decay process. This demonstrates how the closer to the source the food remains, the healthier it is to consume and explains more of why

Julie farms in pursuit of healthy food.

Personal Health towards collective sustainability:

My experience with Samantha at Pine Cliff Ranch deeply informed me about the value of personal health in our pursuit of sustainability. After getting kicked in the face my own sustainability was in question. Could I keep working that day? What about that week? What if I got hurt badly enough that I was disabled the whole summer? Or for the rest of my life? All my aspirations of contributing to ecological and economic sustainability disappeared as soon as the stability of my body was shaken. I felt the value of community while Sheryl took me to the hospital and stayed in the room with me as I received seven stiches above my eye.

This was a humbling experience that physically demonstrated how sustainability must begin with individual health. Additionally, while driving with Sheryl to and from the hospital I felt that sustainability of the individual depends on support from community. These aspects of sustainability often get overshadowed by the economic and ecological challenges we face as a species. Sustainability for our species requires health to reverberate through the economic, ecological, social and personal systems that form the foundation of our relationship with the biosphere.

201 Brecht, Jeff and Mark Ritenour. "Maintaining Vegetable Nutritional Quality." American Vegetable Grower.. 2007. NP. 101

Chapter 7

An Agricultural Ethic:

“Humanity is part of nature, a species that evolved among other species. The more closely we identify ourselves with the rest of life, the more quickly we will be able to discover the sources of human sensibility and acquire the knowledge on which an enduring ethic, a sense of preferred direction, can be built.” -E.O. Wilson202

Ethics are set of guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community and shape what we value as right and wrong. They are the underlying sentiment that informs the customs and practices of our culture.203 According to Aldo Leopold, “ethics can help us decide how we ought to live.”204 While shifting towards sustainability, we are in need of new ethics that can help guide our actions and establish a standard for health into the future. In some ways, this connects to the dilemma Frederick Kirshenmann referred to earlier when he discussed how sustainable agriculture is lacking general standards from which actions can be based. We are in need of these standards to promote a more unified understanding and implementation of sustainable practices.

A new agricultural ethic must be founded on the understanding that we are part of and dependent on a bigger system of life. Because of this, and for the sake of the sustainability of our species, our methods of production must be aligned with health. The basis of agriculture must be embedded in this wisdom. By understanding this fully, one is compelled to be a good steward of the land. This type of stewardship entails using nature as a model for health and must be implemented with an inter-generational conscience.

202 Wilson, Edward O. The Diversity of Life. 1999. Pg. 348. 203 Dundon, Stanislaus J. "Agricultural Ethics and Multifunctionality are Unavoidable." Plant Physciology. 2003. Pgs. 427-437. 204 Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac with Essay on Conservation. 2001. Pg. 11 102

Inspiration for this agricultural ethic comes from Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic. Leopold called for a broadening of our understanding of community to include the vast web of life of which we are a part, or what he calls an ‘ecological conscience. Based on this he proposed a change of roles for Homo sapiens “from conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it.”205 I propose we need an agricultural ethos to guide our relationship with sustenance.

We are what we eat: An agricultural ethic becomes more relevant when we realize the impact food has on health. The adage, you are what you eat, sheds light on the fact that the food we eat, the source of our sustenance, has a causal relationship to our health.206 Not only that, but as Michael Pollan illuminated, “we are what what we eat eats too.”207 Nancy talked about the phenomenon of this cycle of nutrients and minerals saying, “There is a connection to the soil if you are being nurtured from it.” She remembered being at her family's farm in Connecticut and looking out at the pasture behind her house thinking, “that soil is a part of me!” She smiled while sharing that she knew where the calcium in her bones came from because she and her family ate the food from the fields behind her house.

With that in mind the question of what’s for dinner has greater meaning. Our meals make up who we are and this understanding is the inspiration for healthy food systems. One visit to a factory farm or an awareness of recent deadly outbreaks of E. coli208 and Listeria209 and other crop diseases should be motivation enough to care about where food comes from. An unhealthy

205 Leopold, 2001. Pg. 19. 206 Willet, Walter C. “Diet and Health: What should we eat?” Science. 1994. Pgs. 532-537; Meine, Curt. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. 2010. Pg. 395. 207 Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto. 2008. Pg. 167. 208“E.coli” Center for Disease Control. 2011. NP. 209 “Listeria” Center for Disease Control. 2011. NP. 103 food system spawns unhealthy people and a degrading cycle of soil-food-person is established.

As Julie explained “healthy systems make healthy food.” The cycling and recycling of nutrients illuminates the fact that we are part of a larger and interconnected system of life. An agricultural ethos should be based on this understanding. Julie proclaimed, “People need to learn how to be a part of the larger community of animals and plants.” Joe shared this sentiment by reflecting that “life isn’t mine only...” Justin talked about certain lines he is not willing to cross, for example, putting growth hormones in cows or dumping petroleum-based inputs into his field, because he “feels we are part of a much bigger picture.” This bigger system’s value rests in our absolute dependence on it. While some advocate that this larger system has inherent value, it is indisputable that we are simply a node in a grander web of life.210 A sustainable agriculture is one that operates within the limits of this larger system and with an understanding of the interconnectedness of life.211

Good Stewardship: By understanding we are dependent on a larger natural system our agriculture can be oriented in a way that respects that dependence. Good stewardship, or management, of the land is sustainability in action. It represents an understanding that the health of our environment is a prerequisite for the survival of our species (and all species).212 Stewardship can also refer to a responsibility to take care of something belonging to someone else. Good stewardship implies that the land we are taking care of does not belong to us. To repeat what Joe said, “life isn’t mine only.” Nor is it any of ours. We are truly just one of a vast number of species that interact and affect each other in this web of life. The way agriculture can implement this understanding is

210 Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. Deep Ecology. 1985. Pg. 23. 211 Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. 1996. Pg. 110. 212 Daly, Herman E. Steady State Economics. 1977. Pgs. 13-20. 104 through careful and holistic management. After acknowledging that he is a part of a larger community of life, Joe went on to say, “We do have to be good stewards of the land we are responsible for.”

For Leslie, good stewardship means not taking more from the land than you put back. He labeled this as an “ethos of good farming” and shared a story of this ethos in his own life. He explained how back when he first arrived at Hampshire the sugar bush (group of maple trees that are used for their sap to make maple syrup) was in real poor shape. Instead of continuing to deplete these trees of their ability to provide us with sap, he began to plant new maple trees so he could eventually phase-out the older ones.

Leslie's ethos resonates strongly with the “law of return” proposed by Sir Albert Howard.

The recycling and regeneration of both water and soil are vital for a sustainable agriculture. For some reason or another, most of the agriculturalists I interviewed focused on soil fertility, as opposed to water use, as the major component of good stewardship. While we focus on the soil it must be noted that the health of the whole system is supported by stewarding the land with integrity. As David Montgomery highlights in his book, Dirt, healthy soil is the foundation of societies and the rise and fall of civilizations are in part caused by soil fertility and availability.213

Julie at Many Hands orients her entire agricultural operation with a “real focus on fertility.” Soil conservation and regeneration are fundamental aspects of good stewardship, and thus of an agricultural ethos. But it must be understood that while soil health and regeneration are crucial, good stewardship implies supporting the health of the whole system.

213 Montgomery, David.. Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations. 2007. Pgs. 3-10. 105

Nature as Model:

Good stewardship and a sustainable agriculture mean working with natural systems. This was touched on previously with Natural Systems Agriculture. This section looks deeper into the concept of using nature as a model for sustainability. So much of our agriculture today imposes a human composed system on to the natural environment and we are learning more and more of consequences of this exploit. The interdependent system of life touched on earlier is a delicate web, and in order to operate within the bounds of that system we must use nature as a model.

In natural ecosystems we see many characteristics that are the exact opposite of our current methods of agriculture. Industrial farming utilizes single species through mono- cropping, while natural, or less influenced, systems are based on a diverse group of species.

Natural systems model recycling and regeneration; our current agricultural system is one of depletion and waste. Natural systems are dynamic, evolving and continuously adapting, while conventional agriculture is a rigid imposition of a static system designed for profit maximization and high yield.214 These discrepancies highlight the value of natural systems as a model for a sustainable agriculture.

As described in chapter four, there are many movements to implement this wisdom.

From permaculture to agroforesty, people are beginning to realize the effectiveness of nature as a model for providing healthy foods in a sustainable way. Researchers at the Land Institute in

Salina, Kansas, suggest that natural processes to recreate soil fertility, such as obeying the law of return, can replace chemical dependency.215 This is just one example of how natural systems can

214 Howard, Albert. The Soil and Health: a Study of Organic Agriculture. 2006. Pgs 3-6; Jackson, Wes. “Natural Systems Agriculture: A radical alternative” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 2002.Pg. 111-117; Ikerd, John. “Building the Bridges.” University of Missouri. 1999. NP; Mollison, B. C. Permaculture: a Designer's Manual.1988. Pg. 1-15. 215 Soule, Judith D., and Jon K. Piper. Farming in Nature's Image: an Ecological Approach to Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: Island, 1991. Pgs. 34-39. 106 be used in an alternative agriculture and demonstrates that we do not have to rely on chemical inputs to feed us. Another example is demonstrated by Justin and Sheryl at Pine Cliff Ranch. By raising grass-fed cattle, they are working with the cattle’s digestive system which has evolved over thousands of years to eat grass.216 Grain-fed cows in the feedlot represent working against natural systems by first, confining these range animals into small quarters and second, feeding them food that they do not naturally eat.217 In fact, research done by the USDA has suggested that feeding cow’s grain promotes the growth of E.coli, the deadly bacteria that are responsible for hundreds of human deaths every year.218 Raising cattle on pasture promotes a healthier cow, and their manure can serve as a fertility input for the soil.

Another interesting example of utilizing natural systems to support farming is contour plowing. This is a technique of plowing across a slope in curved bands while following the shape of the land, or its contour. In contour plowing, the furrows made by the plow run perpendicular rather than parallel to slopes. The rows formed slow water run-off during rainstorms to prevent soil erosion and allow the water time to settle into the soil. This technique was promoted by the newly formed USDA to help conserve soil in the wake of the devastating

Dust Bowl.219

Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese farmer and philosopher who spent his life advocating for ‘Natural Farming’ or his more popular name for it, ‘Do-nothing-farming.’ Do-nothing- farming still is work intensive, but implies that the farmer will be working with the forces of

216 Pollan, 2008. Pg. 167. 217 Heitschmidt, R.K., et al. “Ecosystems, sustainability, and animal agriculture.” Journal of Animal Science. 1996. Pgs. 1395 -1405. 218 Callaway, T.R. et al."Forage Feeding to Reduce Preharvest Escherichia coli Populations in Cattle, a Review."Agricultural Research Service, USDA. 2003Pgs. 852-860. 219 Gliessman, Stephen R., and Martha Rosemeyer. The Conversion to Sustainable Agriculture: Principles, Processes, and Practices. 2010. Pg. 198. 107 nature, not against it. He was inspired, not by the question of ‘what more can I do?’ but by,

‘what can I not to do?’220 His approach to farming was radical, as he worked to demonstrate that tillage, plowing, fertilizer, pesticides, and pruning are all unnecessary. In his seminal work,

“One Straw Revolution,” he highlights how similar yields to conventional growing can be obtained through harnessing the energy of natural systems. For example, instead of plowing the soil to get rid of weeds, he learned to mitigate them through an almost permanent ground cover of white clover (a leguminous plant) as well as by applying mulch of rice and barley straw.221

He was recognized for his work in sustainable development in 1997 at the Earth Summit forum in Rio de Janeiro by being awarded with the Earth Council Award.

Inter-generational:

By committing to good stewardship of the land, we can preserve our most precious life- giving resources for future generations. This is the foundation for the sustainability of our species. Sustainability in its essence emphasizes this inter-generational necessity and our guiding principles for cultivating sustenance must have an inter-generational conscience.

This conscience has an eye towards the future and works to dispel the cultural myopia that has threatened the stability of our species. The Brundtland Commission explains it succinctly when they declare that sustainability must “… meet the needs of the present while leaving equal or better opportunities for the future.” 222

Furthermore, inter-generational relationships become increasingly important when we have an aging farm population. For the year 2007 the average age of the chief operator of a farm

220 Fukuoka, Masanobu. The One-straw Revolution: an Introduction to Natural Farming. 1978. Pgs. 13-16. 221 Fukuoka, 1978. Pg. xxi. 222 Brundtland, Gro Harlem. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: "Our Common Future." United Nations, 1987. NP 108 in the United States was 57.223 This presents a problem because at a certain point, the aging farmer will need to be replaced. In order for any sort of agricultural operation to sustain, it must be passed on to the next generation. Many of the young people in the world are seeking work and home in urban settings, as opposed to the rural lifestyle of a typical farm.224 As the older generation of farmers continues to age, many of their positions will be left unfilled. This is part of what prompts Frederick Kirschenmann to suggest “we should begin now to involve all elementary school children in school gardens and agriculture in the classroom programs.”225

A revitalized agricultural ethic, from its philosophical underpinnings to the physical implementation, can inform our pursuit of sustainability. Within it, there is a pursuit of wholeness and health that must guide us towards a new understanding of sustainability. For the farmers I interviewed the aim was clear: leaving the land better than we found it. Whether they know of it or not, their good stewardship and inter-generational conscience are sustainability-in- action.

223 “Census of Agriculture.” USDA. 2011. NP. 224 The exodus of youth from rural settings is a fascinating and complex subject that is beyond the scope of this study. For further information, I suggest Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas’s Hallowing Out the Middle: The rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America. 225 Kirschenmann, 2011. Pg 223. 109

Chapter 8

Emergence of a new understanding:

“A farm is a living organism – soils, plants, animals, people, all are living, growing, evolving living entities, and the farm exists in a living economic, ecological, and social environment. The ecological, economic, and social organs must all remain healthy and strong, if the farming organism is to be regenerative, and thus, sustainable”. -John Ikerd226

The day started at 6:30 AM. I somehow mustered up the strength to get out of bed, through the door and on my way to the Hampshire Farm. Meeting in the still foggy morning,

Nancy and her dog max orchestrated about 15 other students and me through the morning's chores. That morning we picked, washed, and organized vegetables for that afternoon's CSA pick up. I remember Nancy going around and asking the students whom she didn’t know what their names were. The vibrant orange of the wet carrots tumbling through the root washer and the bitter taste of dicon, which another student and I tried because we had never heard of it before, remain vibrant in my memory. Feelings of, “Ahh yes, this is worth it. This is why I come here,” as I looked across the rows of beans and into the autumn trees. The morning’s chores continued with cracking open garlic in a circle with five other students. We went around and shared where we were from and what we were going to be for Halloween. I left that morning feeling especially nourished and awake.

My involvement in this community supported agriculture continued into the afternoon. I showed up to the barn to pick up my CSA share and was greeted by a smiling student. I recognized her from the morning chores and smiled back in anticipation of filling my re-usable

226 Ikerd, John. “The Ecology of Sustainability.” University of Missouri. 2009. NP. 110 bags from home with fresh and colorful vegetables. As I walked through the barn, mulling over my choice of beets, kohlrabi, and turnips, I noticed Max, Nancy's dog, following closely behind, announcing his presence with puggish grunts. Toward the section of leafy greens I saw a sign explaining the disappointing season for spinach saying, “Sorry, spinach doesn’t swim!” with a picture of a drowning green leaf. The Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts had an unusually wet fall season.

While making my way through the assortment of produce, I noticed an unfamiliar veggie under the name Broccoli Raab. I was intrigued and decided to ask Nancy about it. After helping out another curious customer, she shared with me all I needed to know about this exotic relative of broccoli. I was truly thrilled by the opportunity to say thank you to Nancy, my local farmer, as I walked out the barn door.

That night was a CSA feast. My friends and I embraced the abundance of fresh vegetables by cooking a wholly local meal. While chopping the thick and tender garlic, I reflected on these vegetables' journey from the farm to my kitchen. I smiled knowing that the source of this nourishment was only several hundred feet away. I felt proud that I picked the vegetables that morning and thanked the farmer in the afternoon. As I prepared the food for my friends, I more fully understood what Wendell Berry meant when he proclaimed, “eating is an agricultural act.”227

That day I was immersed in agriculture. It was an intimacy with my food that I am privileged to have experienced. I found the beauty of agriculture, and the importance of it, to be in its whole cycle: from farm to fork. It became clear to me that the relationship between farmer and eater, between farm and fork is the question of agriculture itself: Where does our food come from? Even though this question and these relationships have been muddled by layers of

227. Berry, Wendell. What are People For? Essyas by Wendell Berry. 1990. Pg. 99. 111 marketing and industrialization, we must continue to ask, and continue to care. The sustainability of our species depends on it.

What was so special about that day was the strength of my relationships with the soil in the morning, the farmer in the afternoon, and my community in the evening. I took a step back and knew that I was truly engrossed in an agricultural operation that was built on the trust and values Leslie referred to earlier. I genuinely trust Nancy, have heard her story and share her values of the need to build health from the ground up. From the scale of the operation to the inter-generational collaboration, this day, this community supported agriculture, resembled so much of what I had been learning about.

I reflect on this knowing that it isn’t perfect; her farming and my lifestyle are still fully embedded in the paradigm of profit and petroleum. I know, and it must be known, that we still have far to go and much to learn. But this living of the question, 'Where does my food come from,' is an opportunity in my own life and in the life of a community and a farmer to experiment with something that is new and at the same time very old. A tradition of nourishment that is deep in our cultural bones, yet somehow has been buried by notions of convenience and scarcity, is being awakened and revitalized in communities just like this. What is sustainable for our species and what is not is still to be determined, and I don't expect to be around to find out the answer.

What is clear to me is that we as a species must live this question; we must immerse ourselves in the asking, in the experimentation, of how we can grow a healthy relationship with our environment. This must start with agriculture. In this next section I will explain my own findings of an emerging understanding and implementation of sustainability in the communities of which I am a part.

112

Changing trends in agriculture:

Wendell Berry’s proclamation that eating is an agricultural act sheds light on the importance of the eater in a sustainable agriculture. The responsibility does not and should not rest in the hands of farmers alone. A whole agricultural evolution must occur from farm to fork and farmer to eater. It must be a joint effort, and a communal one, to regain control of our food and to actively support the health of the planet. With the knowledge of the connection between food and health, many feel (and rightly so) a responsibility to strengthen that bond. Numerous trends are emerging today that seek to support the relationship between eater and farmer and between food and health. From CSAs and rising demands for organic food to an increasing involvement in agriculture from youth, a change is being made. The farmers I interviewed see it and are undoubtedly influenced by it.

Consumer Demands

Leslie talked about how the willingness and commitment of the population in Western

Massachusetts to pay for a higher quality and higher priced product makes “this is special place.”

Undoubtedly, most of my interviewees are located in an agriculturally interested part of the country and this informs their farming. Dave explained that what makes his farm economically sustainable, and thus allows him to focus on ecological sustainability, is the “huge demand in the area.” According to Local Harvest, an organization dedicated to cataloging CSA operations as well as promoting local food initiatives across the country, there are over 50 working CSAs in

Western Massachusetts.228 While the huge demands demonstrate a consumer base's exploration for local and organic food, Dave went on to explain that even with the huge demand, the last

228 “Community Supported Agriculture.” Local Harvest. 2011. NP. 113 couple years’ sales have been slow because there are so many CSAs in the area. “The more farms there are the more people there are buying from these local farms and this is raising the local consciousness,” but he pointed out that the rising demand brings more competition for business. Nonetheless, Dave has witnessed shifts in agriculture, stating how “it’s changed dramatically in the few decades I’ve been involved in it, and it continues to change.”

Joe has noticed how “20 years ago people said they wanted organic, but didn’t want it any more when they got to the cash register. Now I think they really want it.” It is clear that people are explicitly seeking out relationships with producers who farm with values. Joe talked about how through his CSAs he gets excellent feedback from the consumer and that this feedback informs his farming. His transition of a third of his farm to certified organic is indicative of the emergent trend. Simple Gifts Farm is the direct result of a consumer base hungry for healthier food and a stronger relationship to its source. As mentioned earlier, the

North Amherst Community Farm (NACF) was created when roughly 40 acres of land was purchased and saved from development in 2006. Simple Gifts Farm has worked out a lease with the NACF “to run a community supported agricultural operation on the land.”229 Dave is part of a team of stewards of this community-owned and supported farm.

Outside of the community of Western Massachusetts, demand for organic food has greatly increased over the last decade. The USDA reports that organic products are now available in nearly 20,000 natural food stores and nearly three of four conventional grocery stores.230 This is indicative of a cultural trend, at least within the United States, of prioritizing organic food over conventional. In fact, in 2008, the USDA reported that the demand for organic

229 “North Amherst Community Farm.” NACF., 2011. NP. 230 "Organic Agriculture: Organic Market Overview." Economic Research Service, USDA. 2011. NP 114 food actually outpaced supply.231

As well as an increased interest by consumers, government and other institutions have recently contributed to this trend. In the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, also known as the 'Farm Act', conservation practices related to organic production and the transition to organic production became eligible for $20,000 annually in grants.232 An example of this is

USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program. This is a voluntary program providing financial and technical assistance to eligible operations to conserve and enhance soil, water, air, and related natural resources on their land.233 We can see an emergence of something new all the way up to the White House. First Lady Michelle Obama's White House garden has so far yielded more than 225 pounds of organic produce.234 This garden, and her initiatives to support public health, demonstrates how the value of healthy food and healthy living is understood by some of our country’s most powerful voices.

One aspect of these emerging trends that needs to be addressed is the question of cost. If organic food is more expensive than conventional food, what about those who cannot afford to change their shopping habits? An interesting attempt to answering that question can be seen at a number of farmers’ markets across the nation where food stamps are accepted in exchange for the offered goods and services.235 While this certainly does not alleviate the problem as a whole, it is a step towards reconciling the gap between those who can afford healthier food and those who cannot.

231 Greene, Catherine. “Emerging Issues in the U.S. Organic Industry.” ERS, USDA. 2009. NP. 232 "Conservation Policy: Working-Land Conservation Programs." ERS, USDA. 2008. NP. 233 "Farm Bill Programs and Grants." National Sustainability Agriculture Coalition. 2011. NP. 234 Walsh, Brian. "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food." Time Magazine. 2009. NP. 235 Zezima, Katie. "Food Stamps, Now Paperless, Are Getting Easier to Use at Farmers’ Markets.” The New York Times. 2009. NP. 115

Sustainability Plus

But is this enough? Is “going green” by buying organic or local foods going to move us to where we need to be? We see people reaching for organic produce at the store and applaud them for their efforts, but will these actions lead us to sustainability? I think not. Not only is the labeling of organic products not consistent, but these are topical solutions to systemic problems.

Frederick Kirchenmann agrees and elaborates by proposing that we must shift our emphasis from

“going green” to enhancing our agricultural system's capacity for self-regeneration.236 Aldo

Leopold connects that need to the concept of 'health' by stating that “health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal.”237 This means that along with greater efficiency resulting from innovative technology and quantitatively decreasing our carbon footprint, we must actively restore and conserve the natural capital upon which we are dependent. Nancy quickly clarified in our interview that “organic does not necessarily mean sustainable.” And, as Wes Jackson has proposed, Julie brought up the point that agriculture in and of itself may not be sustainable.

David Montgomery explains that “the problem with agriculture is that it accelerated soil erosion well beyond that of soil production. Thus depleting our stock of natural capital.”238 Our understanding of sustainability must be oriented in such a way that our agricultural activities adhere to what Joe called “sustainability plus,” or an active and persistent regeneration of our soils. It is crucial that we must not become complacent with simply “going green.” This is an important step, but sustainability requires more.

236 Kirschenmann, Frederick L. Cultivating an Ecological Conscience Essays from a Philosopher Farmer. 2011. Pg. 238. 237 Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac with Essay on Conservation. Pg. 186. 238 Montgomery, David. Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations. 2007. Pg. 173. 116

Youth Involvement

Another emerging trend in agriculture is an increased involvement of youth in the field.

Nancy has taken serious interest in this influx of youth in her work and in the Pioneer Valley.

There is a tremendous buzz in this area around agriculture and sustainability and students from the different colleges are increasingly involved. I asked Nancy what she thought has caused this growing interest and she theorized how “every generation has these ideals when they're younger.

Some of it stays even though a lot of it dissipates over time.” She went on to explain that the generation of my parents, those who were around in the 1960s and 1970s, were exposed to an environmental consciousness. From Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to developments of nuclear technology, this environmental consciousness stuck with that generation, and they have passed it on to their children.

In addition to that, she expressed how “there is a lack of satisfaction in the conventional office job and people are looking around for something else that is fulfilling.” In Nancy's eyes, my agriculturally interested peers and I are looking to fulfill “an almost religious and spiritual longing that (we) don't find in electronics and computers.” She shared how there is a searching for meaning and “if you peel the layers away you are left with food.”

A poignant example of this trend happening in the Pioneer Valley is the Many Hands

Farm Corps (different from Many Hands Organic Farm). This is an organization and group of people dedicated to the art of not only growing food, but growing farmers. Part of their mission statement is “to help develop ethical leadership and a competent labor force that will enable these values to proliferate throughout the greater community.” They advertise for 17 to 20 year olds to come for a summer and work on a variety of different farms as well as live together in a 117 close-knit community structure.239

Elsewhere, there is the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). One thing this organization does is provide online social networking opportunities for young farmers, enabling them to garner support and guidance for their initiatives. They form state chapters of NYFC to generate local discussion and collaboration in young people’s involvement in agriculture. Their website catalogues many different workshops and educational opportunities that are happening across the country, as well as offering “Young farmer profiles,” which tell the stories of young farmers across the country.240

Similarly, the Quivira Coalition in New Mexico, founded in 1997, looks to enable aspiring agriculturalists by “Building bridges among ranchers, conservationists, scientists and public land managers...” in part to combat what they call the “spread of nature deficit disorder.”

This is a term coined by author Richard Louv to describe the dissolving bond between people and nature, especially among members of the younger generations.241 Every year they host the

New Agrarians Conference, which is a gathering of agriculturalists young and old who seek inter-generational partnerships. It is a chance for youth to be out, “in direct contact with prospective employers and mentors from farms, ranches, conservation groups, food advocacy organizations, government agencies, land use service consultants, and related private sector businesses.”242

Additionally, many young people have turned to WWOOFing to explore their agricultural callings. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and is a work exchange program through which volunteers help on farms around the world in exchange for

239 “Many Hands Farm Corps.” MHFC. 2011. NP 240 “National Young Farmers' Coalition.” NYFC. 2011. NP. 241 Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder. 2005. Pgs. 1-3. 242 About Us.” The Quivira Coalition. 2011. NP. 118 room and board. While this program is open for volunteers of all ages, many of the volunteers turn out to be younger people.243

Nancy elaborated on this emergence of young people in the field by saying, “This new way is not just about farming, it is about food. It is more than people choosing a different career; it is people choosing a different life.” I can speak directly to this, being a recently inspired agrarian. I was raised in a city and the only connection I had to growing food was in my mom's backyard. As a youngster I was rather reluctant to help my mom out in the garden, but I see those experiences, picking tomatoes and digging up potatoes with her, as the planting of the seed that is beginning to flower in my most recent explorations. I come to farming seeking a new connection to the biosphere and a deeper, more tangible relationship to my food. While my pursuit for fulfillment is life-long and I expect it to make many turns as I continue, I am drawn to agriculture as more than just a job, but as a lifestyle. I am choosing to wake up with the sun and work all day long. I find fulfillment in physically connecting to the land and participating, with all the heart and intention I have, in the greater community of life. I continue to meet more and more people my age who are interested, excited, and passionate about agriculture.

Perhaps this is indicative of what Leslie meant when he said, “if you know the science, you have a responsibility.” More and more information, from stories to statistics, is available about food and health. More people are becoming aware of the consequences and problems of our conventional agricultural systems. Young people, those who can hardly remember a time without the internet, are consistently exposed to the truth of our planetary situation. It is my experience, and my hope, that the knowledge we have of the problems of agriculture is what will continue to feed our feelings of responsibility to work towards sustainability.

243 "WWOOF" World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. 2011. NP. 119

A New Understanding of Sustainability:

The question ultimately comes back to sustainability. The understanding of agriculture, from conventional to alternative, can guide our efforts towards sustainability. From balancing ecological and economic needs to taking care of the self and the community, we have explored agriculture deeply and have gained insight into what sustainability means for us at this time.

Certainly the study is limited in scope, so these insights cannot possibly address the global situation of famine and malnutrition. I do not know, nor do most experts, how we are going to feed seven billion people, but my experience in agriculture has greatly informed my understanding of sustainability. These emergent trends touched on in this study represent only a small amount of what is being done in the United States and around the world, but they represent a taste of our active experimentation with how we can live sustainably on this earth.

Food as relationship

Sustainability rests in relationships. From the symbiotic communities of biota that make up the web of life we can learn that life is interdependent. Our relationship to our environment is the crux of the sustainability of our species. Its health is a prerequisite for our survival. As of now, our relationship is parasitic. We violently extract, relentlessly produce, and ignorantly dispose of our resources. We tirelessly work to counteract what has been called “the niggardliness of nature.”244 Our agricultural systems are as guilty as the rest, as we have imposed our human-conspired notions of industrialization and efficiency on the earth. We disturb the soil annually with no regard for the future generations, we poison the waters that get

244 George, Henry. "The Science of Political Economy, Part III, Chapter 3." Economic Science Course by the Henry Institute. 2011. NP. 120 swept seaward, and we produce food that is laden with chemicals. We must shift toward an agriculture that understands our interdependency with the community of life. It must be oriented so that the relationship between the land and the farmer, the farmer and the eater, and the eater and the food is promoting health throughout the agricultural cycle.

“What would happen, for example, if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?”245 In his essay titled “Unhappy meals”, Michael Pollan explains how in natural systems, relationships are what eating has always been about. These relationships among species are what we call food chains, or webs “that reach all the way down to the soil.” He continues to explain how “Health is, among other things, the byproduct of being involved in these sorts of relationships.” We as omnivorous creatures are involved with a great many number of these relationships and an understanding of the food chain sheds light on our interdependence with other species.246 When the health of one link in the chain is upset, it has an effect on all the nodes in the web. Sir Albert Howard summed up this interdependency and the value of these relationships by suggesting we view “the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal and man as one great subject.”247

Our individual and collective health is intertwined with the health of the entire food web.

Frederick Kirchenmann offers a more in-depth explanation of the exchange of energy that takes place in these food-web relationships: “Bison on the prairie obtained their energy from the grass, which absorbed energy from the soil. The bison deposited their excrement back onto the grass, which provided energy for insects and other organisms, which, in turn, converted it to energy that enriched the soil to produce more grass.”248 And, it must be noted, that the source of energy for

245.Pollan, Michael. "Unhappy Meals” New York Times Magazine,. 2007. NP. 246 Pollan. 2007. NP. 247.Howard, Albert. The Soil and Health: a Study of Organic Agriculture, 2006. Pg.. 39 248.Kirschenmann, 2011. Pg. 221. 121 the biosphere is the sun. By deepening our understanding of this interconnectedness, we can begin to see how valuable our relationships are with the rest of the biotic community.

It becomes clear that, as Wendell Berry said, “what we do to the land, we do to ourselves.”249 From this perspective, our current predicaments of species extinction, soil erosion, air pollution, and water contamination seem much more dire. Our understanding of the interdependence of life needs to be the baseline for a sustainable anything. How we produce food especially needs to be aligned with this knowing. With this as our baseline, and the importance of relationships valued throughout, I will outline some key features of sustainable systems and our sustainable interaction with these systems.

Finding our niche:

Based on previously described definitions, we know that sustainability needs to be holistic. The Bruntland Commision set precedent for this with its triple bottom line of sustainability claiming that sustainability must incorporate the ecological, economical, and social. While this is certainly true, as the balancing of these influences is the challenge at hand, it needs to be understood in the context of our dependence on the environment. Sustainable development must value the health of the biosphere as a prerequisite for any economic or social system. Undoubtedly, the problem needs to be addressed as a whole. If there is to be a shift in our relationship to this earth it must ripple through our social and economic institutions. A new definition of sustainability must acknowledge our inclusion in, not separation from, a larger community of life that is wholly interdependent. Thus, our interaction with the environment becomes paramount. The question of how to most harmlessly exchange energy with our

249 Montgomery, 2007. Pg. 1. 122 environment is the question of sustainability itself.

By using natural systems as a model, we can learn how to most efficiently and sustainably exchange energy with all the other members of the biotic community. This understanding needs to inform our agricultural practices if we are to shift towards sustainability.

We can see that natural systems are complex, diverse, and regenerative.250 They utilize the abundance of free energy given by the sun251 and they are based on a web of relationships that creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.252 These are the workings of a natural system and our human systems should seek to utilize this wisdom. But the question of sustainability and agriculture is about how we can interact with and relate to these natural systems. This implies an understanding of our role, or niche, in the larger ecosystem to which we belong. Sustainability refers to the quality of our relationship to the environment.

While there is certainly much to learn about our role, as we are still searching for it, some basic human characteristics need to be applied to this relationship. For example, I propose that we must be responsive to natural systems as opposed to being assertive. The industrialization of agriculture represents our imposing a human-designed system into an already existing natural system. We see this in the large-scale, input-dependent, chemically infused mono-crops that are draped across our country. In order to be responsive we must understand local ecosystems and act appropriately toward the uniqueness of each ecological neighborhood’s needs. We will not always be able to tell what that is going to look like and responsive implies a commitment to meeting the needs of the environment as they arise. Dave explains this responsiveness by saying that sustainability is “not a mathematical equation, it’s too complicated for that. It is making

250 Mollison, B. C. Permaculture: a Designer's Manual., 1988. Pg. 298. 251 Ewel. J. J. "Natural systems as models for the design of sustainable systems of land use." Agroforestry Systems 1999. Pgs.13-15. 252 Costanza, Robert et al. "The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital." Nature. 1987. Pgs. 253-260. 123 moment to moment, week to week, year to year decisions on the fly.”

Wendell Berry, in The Unsettling of America, makes the distinction between being an exploiter and being a nurturer in regards to our relationships with each other and the environment. He explains that “the standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is money, profit; the nurturer’s goal is health—his land’s health, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s...The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, and place.”253

Similar to this juxtaposition, Kenneth Boulding proposes that we must shift from the cowboy economy, a picturesque character associated with illimitable plains and reckless, exploitative, romantic, and violent behavior, and a spaceman economy, for which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything. In this spaceman's economy, “man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system.” 254 The current agricultural paradigm plays the role of the exploiter and of the cowboy. All those characteristics that Berry listed, or the cowboy represents, are prevalent throughout our food industry. It is clear that a shift toward sustainability must encompass a shift in agricultural roles, from exploiter to nurturer, from cowboy to spaceman.

So, once again, what does this mean for agriculture? It is strongly suggested that the most efficient exchange of energy (i.e., the extraction, use and disposal for our human economy) is by modeling natural systems.255 This must be the foundation of agriculture for the future. People around the world, from NSA in Salina, Kansas,256 to permaculture workshops in Pondicherry,

253 Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture.1996. Pg. 6. 254 Boulding, Kenneth E. "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth." Radical Political Economy: Explorations in Alternative Economic Analysis. 1996. Pg. 364-365 255 Jackson, Wes and Jon Piper. “The Necessary Marriage between Ecology and Agriculture” Ecology. 1989. Pgs. 1591 – 1593. 256 “About Us.” The Land Institute. 2011. NP. 124

India,257 and agroforestry conferences in Kigali, Rwanda,258 are looking towards nature for guidance. Being modeled after a natural system means that agriculture would have the inherent qualities of such. Poly-culture perennials are an example of such, proposed by the Land

Institute. Integrating crops and livestock on the farm or ranch imitate the diversity of species seen in a natural system. We see this at Simple Gifts Farm with their intended use of oxen.

These are just some examples of how agriculture can use nature as a model and seek to strengthen our understanding and bond with our environment.

Most importantly, we must approach our agricultural endeavors with respect for the natural environment and its life-supporting resources. We must be nurturers, caretakers, good stewards, or to sum those up, in relationship with our environment. Our agricultural endeavors for the future must be reverential. In this reverence we must act carefully, and look to implement this intention in all that we do. For me, a holistic sustainability refers to enacting our understanding of the term fully in our lives. Julie, with her husband in 1980, built their own house. They designed it so the heating and water all come off of their land. This is how Julie expresses sustainability. For Leslie, “Sustainability is everyday thinking about what you are doing. In every type of moment thinking of its impact.” This wonderfully encapsulates the orientation of the nurturer, the spaceman, and a sustainable human presence on earth.

257 “Ecological Agriculture.” Auroville. 2011. NP. 258 “World Agroforestry Centre.” World Agroforestry Centre. 2011. NP. 125

Chapter 9

Conclusion:

Agriculture can be the testing ground for a sustainable relationship with our biosphere.

Even right now, with a system laden with problems we cannot stop learning. We cannot stop searching for a healthy way to grow the sustenance we need. Just as E.F. Schumacher has said,

“It must be done, therefore it shall be done.”259 My experience with agriculture serves as just one young man’s experience in the pan-cultural tradition of subsistence.

My critique of industrial agriculture is founded in the awareness that its practices are diverse. It is not all bad, just as ‘organic’ is not all good. My critique is in direct response to the dwindling natural capital caused by an industrialized and profit-oriented agriculture. My critique is fueled by the lack of relationship I feel is prevalent throughout the modern food paradigm. My critique is advocating for an agriculture that is based on a holistic understanding of health, from source to sink. The search for balance and pursuit of personal sustainability are paramount to this understanding.

My critique is not advocating for a return to a pre-machine type of life. But I cannot help but think that maybe, through the powers of fossil fuels, we are exceeding the capabilities of the planet to host us. Perhaps, a sustainable population, which is not dependent on non-renewable resources, would have to be significantly less than it is now.

And perhaps not. More likely is that our consumption patterns, specifically in the industrialized world, are simply not sustainable. What is certain to me is that we need to switch from adhering to “more is better” towards a rate of consumption that behaves as if “enough is

259 Schumacher, E.F. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. 1973. Pg. 3. 126 best.” We must shift towards alternative sources of energy to power our world. Conservation and regeneration must be the foundation of agriculture. I advocate for a definition of sustainability that is focused on resilience, for farming techniques that cherish our resources, and for a philosophical underpinning of reverence, not commodification. These are all connected to acting like we belong in the family of life.

Our movement towards sustainability, which I not only view as possible but entirely necessary, must be a holistic transition. Technology, economic incentives, our social understanding and relationship to others, our own personal beliefs, and our relationship to the environment must make a monumental shift towards participating in the family of life of which we are a part. The fact that we are all inter-connected is hard to grasp, but through the study of ecology we can tangibly begin to see that ‘you cannot do only one thing.'260

I conclude by offering a quote from John Ikerd that speaks to the global phenomenon that is growing slowly and from the ground up, like a seed:

The new paradigm of agricultural sustainability is being developed by thousands of farmers all across the American continent and around the globe… These farmers and ranchers may label themselves as organic, biodynamic, holistic, biological, ecological, practical, innovative, or accept no label other than family farmer. However, they share a common philosophy of farming that fits under the conceptual umbrella of agricultural sustainability.261

260 Hardin, Garret."The Tragedy of the Commons." Science. 1968 Pg. 1246. 261 Ikerd, 2009. NP. 127

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