Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture[1]

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture[1]
  • Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:30:11 -0700


Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture[1]
John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics
University of Missouri Columbia
College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/SFT-Agroecology.htm
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/

Agroecology, as the name suggests, is an integration of agriculture and
ecology. Agroecosystems are farms, agricultural systems, viewed from an
ecological perspective. Agroecology is the science of design and management
of sustainable agroecosystems, or more simply, the science of sustainable
agriculture. The explicit purpose of integrating agriculture with ecology is
to enhance the sustainability of agriculture.

Agroecology is not a commonly used word, even among advocates of sustainable
agriculture. It has been around for more than twenty years, but somehow the
concept has just never caught on, even among agricultural scientists. I
suspect this is mostly because the advocates of agroecology have never
explained why it is necessary to integrate agriculture with ecology in order
to achieve agricultural sustainability. Maybe they thought it was obvious to
all that agriculture must be viewed from an ecological perspective, if it is
to be sustainable. But it’s not obvious to all, apparently even not to many
agricultural scientists.

To understand the importance of agroecology, we have to return to its roots –
to its first principles. As I explained in my June-July ‘06 article, first
principles are different from values. Different people may have different
values but first principles are true for everyone at all times. In earlier
times, first principles referred to natural law, the nature of being human,
as when our Founding Fathers declared, “We hold these truths to be self
evident.” First principles also refer to the laws of nature, meaning the
principles that govern all natural physical phenomena. First principles
cannot be proven, but they need no proof; they are “self evident.” In fact,
all scientific principles are rooted in first principles, which were not and
cannot be proven – they are accepted by science as self-evident.



The first principles of agroecology quite logically must be derived from the
first principles of agriculture and ecology. Agriculture, by its basic
nature, is a purposeful human activity. The basic purpose of agriculture is
to shift the ecological balance of nature in favor of humans relative to
other species. All species attempt to tip the balance in their favor; humans
are no different in this regard. But, humans alone are a willful species. The
rightness or legitimacy of agriculture is determined by its purpose, by why
humans attempt to tip the ecological balance in their favor, and
concurrently, how far they are willing to tip it.



The first principle of agriculture, and of agroecology, is life has purpose.
If there is not purpose for life, there is no purpose for human life, and
thus no purpose for agriculture – agriculture becomes a senseless activity.
Most people probably never question whether life has purpose, but scientists
do. Most scientists are philosophical materialists, at least in the practice
of their professions. In his classic 1919 book, Modern Science and
Materialism, Hugh Elliott, states, “The age of science is necessarily an age
of materialism; ours is a scientific age, and it may be said with truth that
we are all materialists now.”[i]



Elliott emphasized the primary assumptions of materialism. The first
assumption asserts that when the conditions at any moment in time are
precisely the same as those prevailing at some earlier moment, the results
also will be identical to the earlier results. True causes and effects are
always replicable. The second assumption of materialism is the denial of
purpose. Elliott writes, “Scientific materialism… asserts that all events are
due to the interaction of matter and motion, acting by blind necessity in
accordance with those invariable sequences to which we have given the name
laws.” Human life is nothing more than an interaction of motion and matter.
The third assumption of materialism denies the existence of spirituality –
anything that lacks tangible, material characteristics and qualities. Among
those things, he includes not only gods and souls, but also such entities as
intellect, will, and feelings, insofar as they are supposed to be different
from material processes.



Perhaps this is why agricultural scientists are so reluctant to address
issues of sustainable agriculture; agricultural sciences deal only with the
processes of agriculture, without questioning its purpose, or even admitting
that it has one. They don’t want to question the ethics of morality of
today’s industrial agriculture because the answers to such questions require
intellect, willfulness, feelings, and ultimately, spirituality.



Thankfully, most ordinary people reject the philosophy of scientific
materialists. Most people do not believe their choices and actions are
predetermined acts of blind necessity or the inevitable consequences of
ongoing interaction of matter and motion. They know they can’t control their
future but they believe they can affect their future, through their willful
choices. Ordinary people act as if their actions have meaning, believing
their choices can be right or wrong and good or bad. Lacking purpose, right
or wrong and good or bad are indistinguishable. Purpose in life may be
rejected by science, but it is expressed in the social norms and customs of
every civilized society and in the constitutions and laws of every credible
government in the world. If human life has purpose, then agriculture too has
purpose.



The first principle of ecology, and the second principle of agroecology, is
that all of all life is interconnected. Deep ecologists go even farther in
proclaiming the interconnectedness of not only biological communities, but
also all local and global communities, biological, human, non-human – in the
past as well as in the present. While some ecologists might disagree about
the relevance of connections among living things over time, ecologists agree
that all of life is interconnected. While ordinary people may disagree about
the relative importance of specific connections, their general consensus
seems to be in agreement with this second principle of agroecology.



The third principle of agroecology comes from both agriculture and ecology:
all life is good. If all life is bad or evil, neither agriculture nor ecology
makes sense. It would make no sense to be concerned with the health,
vitality, or survival of living communities, species, or ecosystems if
continuation of life on earth were not inherently good. Obviously, the death
of individuals is an inevitable and natural aspect of life, but communities,
species, and ecosystems are capable of renewal and regeneration, and thus are
capable of sustaining and renewing themselves. While individuals,
communities, and species may appear to pursue their self-interests, within
their larger ecosystems, most individuals function naturally in ways that
enhance the long run sustainability of life. Nature, including both laws of
nature and natural law, is biased in favor of life. This natural bias is
enough to convince many people that life is good.



Many other logical, reasonable, thoughtful people simply reject the
assumptions of scientific materialism. They believe that people have free
will, that life has purpose, and life is spiritual – that intellect, will,
and feelings are more than material processes. They believe in an intangible,
unknowable higher order of things, within which all aspects of reality,
including all life, have purpose and meaning. And, they believe that life was
meant to be good. Very few people believe that reality and life are
inherently evil, and those who do are generally labeled as sociopaths. It
doesn’t matter whether the principle of goodness arises from the natural bias
or nature of the goodness of some higher order; both arise as matters of
faith. Such is the nature of first principles; they cannot be proven, but
require no proof. They exist because people know they exist. Without first
principles, life simply makes no sense.



The question of the rightness or goodness of any particular kind of
agriculture then can be derived from the first principles of agroecology.
Since human life is interconnected with all other life, an agriculture that
is good for all life, including life across all generations, is good. An
agriculture that diminishes life, including the quality of human life, is
bad. An agriculture that enhances life is right and an agriculture that
diminishes life is wrong. Aldo Leopold expressed much the same conclusion in
his classic essay, The Land Ethic, when he wrote, “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.” [ii] His land ethic asked us
to “examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically
right, as well as what is economically expedient.” Any science of sustainable
agriculture must be rooted in such an ethic – in the first principles of
agroecology.



I have been criticized by my academic colleagues over the years because I am
obviously an advocate for sustainable agriculture and an opponent of
industrial agriculture. They argue that science must be objective, meaning
scientists should make no judgment regarding what kind of agriculture is good
or bad or right or wrong. But all science is rooted in such judgments,
regardless of whether they are admitted or even recognized by scientists. The
current science supporting large-scale, industrial agriculture is rooted in
the assumption that productivity and profits will serve the long run needs of
humanity, regardless of the short run ecological and social consequences. I
fail to find any logical or reasonable set of first principles that will
support such an assumption.



My opposition to industrial agriculture is rooted in the fact that it
diminishes life – life in the soil, life in fields and feedlots, life in
rural communities, and life of consumers who eat industrial foods. My
advocacy of sustainable, small farm agriculture is based on the first
principles of agroecology, the science of sustainability: life has purpose,
all life is connected, and life is good.



[1] Sustaining People through Agriculture series,” Small Farm Today Magazine,
Missouri Farm Publications, Clark, MO. January-February 2007.

[i] Hugh Elliott, “Materialism,” in Readings in Philosophy, eds. John Herman
Randall, Jr., Jestus Buchler, and Evelyn Shirk (New York Harper and Row,
Publishers, Inc., 1972), 307.

[ii] Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Ballantine Books, Random
House Inc. 1966, first copyrighted in 1949), 262.






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page