Farms and Farming
1. John Ikerd
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/
From; The Economics of Sustainable Farming,
by John Ikerd, 2011,
Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics
University of Missouri Columbia
College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
'...A sustainable farm must maintain the productivity of the land. It must be ecologically sound. A sustainable farm must also meet the needs of society, not just consumers but also farmers, rural residents, and citizens of civil society. It must be socially responsible. Finally, a sustainable farm must meet the individual economic needs of farmers, farm families, and farm workers. It must be economically viable. All economic value ultimately is derived from nature and society – from land and people. A farm that depletes the productive capacity of its natural and human resources is not economically viable. A farm that is not economically viable cannot maintain the productivity of its natural and human resources. Ecological, social, and economic integrity; each of the three is necessary but only all three together, in harmony and balance, are sustainable.
'...Rather than focusing on the economic bottom line, sustainable farmers will have to focus on the triple bottom line – the ecological, social, and economic bottom line. Society is a part of nature and the economy is a part of society. Economies that fail to invest in continual regeneration and renewal of the productivity of nature and society are not sustainable. Farms that fail to regenerate and renew the long run productivity of the natural and human resources that must support them are not economically viable and thus are not sustainable.'
A note on this; I just ran into another web site using the motto, 'People, Planet, and Profit' It's the same thing.
More from John Ikerd;
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/
http://www.johnikerd.com/johnikerd.com/Home.html
http://www.johnikerd.com/johnikerd.com/Making_Sense.html
2.Wendell Berry
From an article on Wendell Berry posted at poetryfoundation.org;
( http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/wendell-berry )
'...Critics and scholars have acknowledged Wendell Berry as a master of many literary genres, but whether he is writing poetry, fiction, or essays, his message is essentially the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish.'
'...Today, local economies are being destroyed by the 'pluralistic,' displaced, global economy, which has no respect for what works in a locality. The global economy is built on the principle that one place can be exploited, even destroyed, for the sake of another place.' (Wendell Berry in an interview with New Perspectives Quarterly)
From 'Orion Magazine'; ( http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/115/ )
'The Unsettling of America' was written by Wendell Berry in 1977. In the summer of 2002, Orion Magazine published an article entitled 'The Agrarian Standard', in which Mr. Berry reprised the concepts of his book and what had happened in the intervening 25 years. Orion Magazine abridged this article and posted it on the web (see the link above) Read the article (buy the book...); I excerpt 5 vignettes here.
'...In 2002 we have less than half the number of farmers in the United States that we had in 1977. Our farm communities are far worse off now than they were then. Our soil erosion rates continue to be unsustainably high. We continue to pollute our soils and streams with agricultural poisons. We continue to lose farmland to urban development of the most wasteful sort. The large agribusiness corporations that were mainly national in 1977 are now global, and are replacing the world’s agricultural diversity, which was useful primarily to farmers and local consumers, with bioengineered and patented monocultures that are merely profitable to corporations. The purpose of this now global economy, as Vandana Shiva has rightly said, is to replace “food democracy” with a worldwide “food dictatorship.”
'...(by) “good farming.” I mean farming as defined by agrarianism as opposed to farming as defined by industrialism: farming as the proper use and care of an immeasurable gift.
'...THE WAY OF INDUSTRIALISM is the way of the machine. To the industrial mind, a machine is not merely an instrument for doing work or amusing ourselves or making war; it is an explanation of the world and of life. Because industrialism cannot understand living things except as machines, and can grant them no value that is not utilitarian, it conceives of farming and forestry as forms of mining; it cannot use the land without abusing it.
'...INDUSTRIALISM BEGINS WITH technological invention. But agrarianism begins with givens: land, plants, animals, weather, hunger, and the birthright knowledge of agriculture. Industrialists are always ready to ignore, sell, or destroy the past in order to gain the entirely unprecedented wealth, comfort, and happiness supposedly to be found in the future. Agrarian farmers know that their very identity depends on their willingness to receive gratefully, use responsibly, and hand down intact an inheritance, both natural and cultural, from the past.
'...If we believed that the existence of the world is rooted in mystery and in sanctity, then we would have a different economy. It would still be an economy of use, necessarily, but it would be an economy also of return. The economy would have to accommodate the need to be worthy of the gifts we receive and use, and this would involve a return of propitiation, praise, gratitude, responsibility, good use, good care, and a proper regard for the unborn. What is most conspicuously absent from the industrial economy and industrial culture is this idea of return. Industrial humans relate themselves to the world and its creatures by fairly direct acts of violence. Mostly we take without asking, use without respect or gratitude, and give nothing in return.'
( http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/wendell-berry )
'...Critics and scholars have acknowledged Wendell Berry as a master of many literary genres, but whether he is writing poetry, fiction, or essays, his message is essentially the same: humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish.'
'...Today, local economies are being destroyed by the 'pluralistic,' displaced, global economy, which has no respect for what works in a locality. The global economy is built on the principle that one place can be exploited, even destroyed, for the sake of another place.' (Wendell Berry in an interview with New Perspectives Quarterly)
From 'Orion Magazine'; ( http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/115/ )
'The Unsettling of America' was written by Wendell Berry in 1977. In the summer of 2002, Orion Magazine published an article entitled 'The Agrarian Standard', in which Mr. Berry reprised the concepts of his book and what had happened in the intervening 25 years. Orion Magazine abridged this article and posted it on the web (see the link above) Read the article (buy the book...); I excerpt 5 vignettes here.
'...In 2002 we have less than half the number of farmers in the United States that we had in 1977. Our farm communities are far worse off now than they were then. Our soil erosion rates continue to be unsustainably high. We continue to pollute our soils and streams with agricultural poisons. We continue to lose farmland to urban development of the most wasteful sort. The large agribusiness corporations that were mainly national in 1977 are now global, and are replacing the world’s agricultural diversity, which was useful primarily to farmers and local consumers, with bioengineered and patented monocultures that are merely profitable to corporations. The purpose of this now global economy, as Vandana Shiva has rightly said, is to replace “food democracy” with a worldwide “food dictatorship.”
'...(by) “good farming.” I mean farming as defined by agrarianism as opposed to farming as defined by industrialism: farming as the proper use and care of an immeasurable gift.
'...THE WAY OF INDUSTRIALISM is the way of the machine. To the industrial mind, a machine is not merely an instrument for doing work or amusing ourselves or making war; it is an explanation of the world and of life. Because industrialism cannot understand living things except as machines, and can grant them no value that is not utilitarian, it conceives of farming and forestry as forms of mining; it cannot use the land without abusing it.
'...INDUSTRIALISM BEGINS WITH technological invention. But agrarianism begins with givens: land, plants, animals, weather, hunger, and the birthright knowledge of agriculture. Industrialists are always ready to ignore, sell, or destroy the past in order to gain the entirely unprecedented wealth, comfort, and happiness supposedly to be found in the future. Agrarian farmers know that their very identity depends on their willingness to receive gratefully, use responsibly, and hand down intact an inheritance, both natural and cultural, from the past.
'...If we believed that the existence of the world is rooted in mystery and in sanctity, then we would have a different economy. It would still be an economy of use, necessarily, but it would be an economy also of return. The economy would have to accommodate the need to be worthy of the gifts we receive and use, and this would involve a return of propitiation, praise, gratitude, responsibility, good use, good care, and a proper regard for the unborn. What is most conspicuously absent from the industrial economy and industrial culture is this idea of return. Industrial humans relate themselves to the world and its creatures by fairly direct acts of violence. Mostly we take without asking, use without respect or gratitude, and give nothing in return.'
3. Other Writings; The Evolution of farming; Perspectives.
'...Agrarianism Reborn: On the Curious Return of the Small Family Farm' by Allan C. Carlson (from Intercollegiate Review, 43:1, Spring 2008) This is an article, reproduced in the archives of 'The Intercollegiate Studies Institute', to be found on the website 'First Principles, ISI Web Journal'.
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1131
This is a very interesting article, well worth reading, following changes in farming from 1941 to 2008, and incorporating many present day trends as people attempt to return to the land to solve what they perceive as problems of today and problems yet to come.
The author of 'Agrarianism Reborn', Allan C. Carlson is '...president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society and international secretary of the World Congress of Families'.
He has also written such articles as ' The Curious Case of Gender Equality', and 'Not Safe, Nor Private, Nor Free: Wendell Berry on Sexual Love and Procreation'.
The following link; http://www.profam.org/people/xthc_acc.htm , gives you access to some of Carlson's other writings and speeches, including 'gender equality' and 'not safe'. I will be reading these carefully- right after feeding the animals(who are standing at the fence looking this way).
You will notice the general socio-religious-political overtone of the Howard Foundation. Freedom is a complex issue. Rights and responsibilities go together. People can 'tell you' what to do; you, yourself, will determine (by trial and error) what you are able to do, and then choose what you will do.