Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

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paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------

excerpt from:   "Hope for the Future of Farming",  John Ikerd, University
of Missouri
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/SFT1-hope.htm

Things are not going well in agriculture. In fact, farming is in crisis.
People will continue to eat, and someone will continue to produce their
food. But farming, as we have known it, almost certainly is coming to an
end. Agriculture is becoming increasingly industrialized – specialized
and standardized with decision-making centralized among a hand-full of
large agribusiness corporations. As farms continue to become larger in
size, fewer in number, and increasingly under corporate control, at some
point farming is no longer farming but becomes agribusiness.

So what’s the difference between a farm and an agribusiness? First,
farmers work with nature. They attempt to tip the ecological balance to
favor humans over other species, but still work with nature. Farmers
recognize that the laws of nature must prevail over the laws of “man.”
Farmers depend on unpredictable weather and work with living systems that
they can never expect to completely control. Farming is as much a way of
life as a way to make a living. A farm is a good place to raise a family
and farming is a good way to be a part of a community. The benefits of
farming are not solely, or even predominantly, economic in nature. Farming
carries with it a set of beliefs, behaviors, and customs that distinguishes
it from any other occupation. It’s the “culture” part of agriculture
that makes a farm a farm and not an agribusiness. The culture part of
agriculture is being systematically removed through the process of
industrialization.

The agricultural establishment tries to deny the existence of a crisis.
They say the demise of independent family farms is a sign of technological
and economic progress. The experts enjoin family farmers to prepare for a
place in the corporate contract labor pool as if this were their only
option. The census definition of a farm has even been changed so as to hide
the precipitous decline in numbers of true farmers. In spite of the
tinkering, the 1997 Census of Agriculture showed a 9 percent drop in those
who consider farming their primary occupation between 1992 and 1997.The
true American farm continues to disappear at an alarming rate.

Crisis is chronic in agriculture, but the current crisis is different. This
crisis is not just a matter of farms continuing to become larger and fewer,
instead it is a matter of completing the transformation of agriculture into
an industry.

With corporations firmly in control of the economic system, and seemingly
in control of the political system as well, where is the hope for farming
in the future? How can farming families hope to compete with the giant
agribusiness firms? How can people who are committed to stewardship compete
with corporations that have no choice but to exploit nature? How can people
who are committed to being good neighbors and responsible members of
society compete with corporations that have no choice but to exploit other
people? Where is the hope for the future of farming?

The hope for the future of farming is found in those farmers who are
committed to rediscovering ways to farm that make sense, regardless of how
it all turns out. Hope arises from their conviction that real farming is
the only right thing to do and from their commitment to finding ways to
continue doing it.

Hope for the future is in farming, not in agribusiness. This does not mean
that farmers should go back to technologies and methods of the past,
although some may have merit for the future. Instead hope is in using
technologies and methods that respect the fundamental nature of farming and
that keep the culture in agriculture, regardless of whether they are old or
new. Certainly, farming in the future must yield an acceptable economic
return to farmers. But an acceptable economic return is not the same thing
as maximum profits and growth. Farmers of the future must regain the
realization of value that results from relationships among people –
within families, communities, and nations. Farmers of the future must
regain the realization of value that results from living an ethical and
moral life – from being good stewards or caretakers of nature and of
human culture. These are things that make sense regardless of how they turn
out – they are the right things to do. In these things there is hope.

In reality, there is more reason to believe in the future of farming than
in agribusiness. Agriculture has been around for centuries, while
agribusiness is less than sixty years old. It’s only in the past half
century or so that we have allowed the economics of individual self
interest to dominate, degrade, and ultimate destroy the ethical and social
values arising from farming. Farmers have been coerced, bribed, and
brainwashed into believing that the only thing that really matters, or at
least the thing that matters more than anything else, is the economic
bottom line. The hope for the future is that farmers are beginning to
realize that their blind pursuit of profits is in fact the root cause of
their financial failure. "Things are not going well in agriculture. In
fact, farming is in crisis. People will continue to eat, and someone will
continue to produce their food. But farming, as we have known it, almost
certainly is coming to an end. Agriculture is becoming increasingly
industrialized – specialized and standardized with decision-making
centralized among a hand-full of large agribusiness corporations. As farms
continue to become larger in size, fewer in number, and increasingly under
corporate control, at some point farming is no longer farming but becomes
agribusiness.

So what’s the difference between a farm and an agribusiness? First,
farmers work with nature. They attempt to tip the ecological balance to
favor humans over other species, but still work with nature. Farmers
recognize that the laws of nature must prevail over the laws of “man.”
Farmers depend on unpredictable weather and work with living systems that
they can never expect to completely control. Farming is as much a way of
life as a way to make a living. A farm is a good place to raise a family
and farming is a good way to be a part of a community. The benefits of
farming are not solely, or even predominantly, economic in nature. Farming
carries with it a set of beliefs, behaviors, and customs that distinguishes
it from any other occupation. It’s the “culture” part of agriculture
that makes a farm a farm and not an agribusiness. The culture part of
agriculture is being systematically removed through the process of
industrialization.

The agricultural establishment tries to deny the existence of a crisis.
They say the demise of independent family farms is a sign of technological
and economic progress. The experts enjoin family farmers to prepare for a
place in the corporate contract labor pool as if this were their only
option. The census definition of a farm has even been changed so as to hide
the precipitous decline in numbers of true farmers. In spite of the
tinkering, the 1997 Census of Agriculture showed a 9 percent drop in those
who consider farming their primary occupation between 1992 and 1997.The
true American farm continues to disappear at an alarming rate.

Crisis is chronic in agriculture, but the current crisis is different. This
crisis is not just a matter of farms continuing to become larger and fewer,
instead it is a matter of completing the transformation of agriculture into
an industry.

With corporations firmly in control of the economic system, and seemingly
in control of the political system as well, where is the hope for farming
in the future? How can farming families hope to compete with the giant
agribusiness firms? How can people who are committed to stewardship compete
with corporations that have no choice but to exploit nature? How can people
who are committed to being good neighbors and responsible members of
society compete with corporations that have no choice but to exploit other
people? Where is the hope for the future of farming?

The hope for the future of farming is found in those farmers who are
committed to rediscovering ways to farm that make sense, regardless of how
it all turns out. Hope arises from their conviction that real farming is
the only right thing to do and from their commitment to finding ways to
continue doing it.

Hope for the future is in farming, not in agribusiness. This does not mean
that farmers should go back to technologies and methods of the past,
although some may have merit for the future. Instead hope is in using
technologies and methods that respect the fundamental nature of farming and
that keep the culture in agriculture, regardless of whether they are old or
new. Certainly, farming in the future must yield an acceptable economic
return to farmers. But an acceptable economic return is not the same thing
as maximum profits and growth. Farmers of the future must regain the
realization of value that results from relationships among people –
within families, communities, and nations. Farmers of the future must
regain the realization of value that results from living an ethical and
moral life – from being good stewards or caretakers of nature and of
human culture. These are things that make sense regardless of how they turn
out – they are the right things to do. In these things there is hope.

In reality, there is more reason to believe in the future of farming than
in agribusiness. Agriculture has been around for centuries, while
agribusiness is less than sixty years old. It’s only in the past half
century or so that we have allowed the economics of individual self
interest to dominate, degrade, and ultimate destroy the ethical and social
values arising from farming. Farmers have been coerced, bribed, and
brainwashed into believing that the only thing that really matters, or at
least the thing that matters more than anything else, is the economic
bottom line. The hope for the future is that farmers are beginning to
realize that their blind pursuit of profits is in fact the root cause of
their financial failure.

... The greatest source of hope for the future is among farmers who are
seeking and finding new ways to farm. They may claim the label of organic,
low-input, alternative, biodynamic, holistic, permaculture, practical
farmers, or just plain farmer. But they are all trying to build farming
systems that are ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially
responsible.

These new American farmers focus on working with nature rather than against
it .

They market in the niches and increase value by more nearly meeting the
individual needs of their customers. They market through farmers markets,
roadside stands, subscription farming or CSAs, home delivery, or by
customer pick-up at the farm. They market to people who care where their
food comes from and how it is produced – locally grown, organic, humanely
raised, or hormone and antibiotic free.

They may produce grass finished beef, pastured pork, free range or pastured
poultry, heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables, dairy or milk goats,
edible flowers, decorative gourds, or dozens of other products that many
label as agricultural “alternatives.” In general, new American farmers
focus on creating value through uniqueness-- among consumers, among
producers, and within nature. They link people with purpose and place, and
by so doing, they create unique systems of meeting human needs that cannot
be industrialized.

Human life depends of farming, and life is simply too precious to live
without hope.

( Published in Sustaining People through Agriculture column, Small Farm
Today, May/June, 2001 issue. )
See More John Ikerd papers on small farms
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/
-------------------------