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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] "The Transition Document: Toward a Biologically Resilient Agriculture"
  • Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:42:58 -0700


A book review of Harry MacCormack's "The Transition Document: Toward a
Biologically Resilient Agriculture"
by Dan Armstrong
Published Dec 9 2009 by Mud City Press, Archived Dec 9 2009
http://www.mudcitypress.com/transitiondocument.html

"One of these fine days the public is going to wakeup and will pay for eggs,
meat, vegetables, etc., according to how they were produced." J.I. Rodale.,
1942.

The recently published and expanded fourth edition of The Transition
Document: Toward a Biological Resilient Agriculture by Harry MacCormack is
arguably his most important work in a long and winding career of poetry,
politics, farming, writing, and spiritual discovery. Originally published in
1988, this edition of the book is the result of a major rewriting by
MacCormack and includes a considerable amount of new material and insights
gathered in the 15 years since the third edition. Along with fundamental
discussions of soil biology, farming practices, nutrition, and much of what
he teaches in his workshops at Sunbow Farm, MacCormack narrates The
Transition Document like a progressive journal, commenting as he goes along
about how various ideas expressed in earlier editions of the book have
changed, developed, or proven out–making this work absolutely critical to
understanding the steady evolution of organic practices. Sixty-seven years
after J.I. Rodale wrote the quote above, it is safe to say the awakening is
upon us.

Harry MacCormack came to Oregon in the late 1960s. In 1972, he bought Sunbow
Farm outside Corvallis and entered into the adventure of raising a family on
a homestead farm. As a back-to-the-land farmer and natural-born activist, he
immediately focused his efforts on getting the chemicals out of farming, and
in 1984 became a central player in the creation of Oregon Tilth, one of the
nation's first organic farming advocacy organizations. MacCormack became
Tilth's executive director in 1989 and later was the director of research
during a time when the Willamette Valley was the proving ground for leading
edge organic practices. And this, in a sense, is the tale within the tale
that is new to the fourth edition of The Transition Document. While primarily
a handbook on organic farming, MacCormack's narrative provides an intimate
view of the organic movement at ground level–in the soil labs, brewing
compost tea, helping put together the guidelines for the Federal Organic
Foods Production Act of 1990, and doing the fundamental work of transitioning
farming practices from conventional to organic.

This is where book's title The Transition Document comes from. As MacCormack
writes in the introduction, "When we first conceived of transition the
direction was clear. We were speaking of a move from conventional or
chemically-based agriculture to organic or biologically-based agriculture. We
were challenging the slogan that guided post WWII society throughout the 50s
and 60s: Better living through chemistry. What was termed conventional
agriculture was understood to be an aberration, a deviation from customary,
prescribed, or natural condition." This book is about the long and difficult
process of reversing sixty years of chemical farming and transitioning not
only tainted land, but also long imbued ideas and practices as basic to
farming as the moldboard plow.

The Transition Document begins by detailing the motivation for the
transition. What does it really mean to have a chemically-based agricultural
system? What is the long-term impact of two generations of Americans being
raised on products tainted with DDT or chlordane? Chapter two describes the
process of transitioning the land. This includes chemistry lessons and
anecdotal stories about how long the chemical residues are in the soil and
how they can be absorbed and concentrated into the things grown in it.
Chapter three talks about the agricultural practices that can facilitate the
transition. Chapter by chapter, piece by piece, MacCormack thoroughly
discusses tilling techniques, crop rotations, green manures, weed management,
and the soil itself–focusing on the biology of the soil, the "herd," as he
refers to it, of microscopic living things–microorganisms, bacteria, fungi,
protozoa, and nematodes–that form the soil foodweb and are so critical to
mineral absorption by the plant, the health of the plant, and nutritional
value of what it produces.

This last piece is an important new theme in the book. Increased awareness
for microbial populations and the soil foodweb represents a key advance in
the philosophy of organic farming during the last fifteen years and is
emphasized by MacCormack, not only throughout the book, but also by his
change in the book's subtitle. In the three previous editions of The
Transition Document, the subtitle was "toward an environmentally sound
agriculture." The new subtitle, "toward a biologically resilient
agriculture," reflects this elemental philosophy change, and as MacCormack
puts it, encapsulates "where we were" twenty years ago, and "where we are"
now.

The book includes a chapter on genetics, genetic engineering, and what it
means to be patenting living systems. There is a view of organic farming
through the lens of modern physics, quantum mechanics, quantum waves, the
biodynamic resonance of all living things, and the deeper meaning of life
itself. No clump of clay is left unturned. This is as much a spiritual
discourse as it is a handbook of practical applications. One chapter is
devoted to the value of using compost and compost tea. Another delves our
diet, the minerals and amino acids that are critical to optimizing nutrition
and our health.

The book's final chapter, "Toward a Local Agricultural at the End of the
Petroleum Age," appraises the impact of peaking oil production on agriculture
and outlines a vision for our future–what will the rebuilt food system look
like once the transition has been completed and how it will contribute to
food security and healthier living in an age beyond cheap petroleum fuels and
inputs.

In many ways, the expanded fourth edition of The Transition Document is a
compendium of modern organic practices. With an assortment of tables and
charts, articles and drawings compiled over twenty years, MacCormack
describes the work of soil scientists like Alan Kapuler, Elaine Ingam, Diana
Tracy, Arden Anderson and many others who have influenced his ideas and
fueled the evolution of organic agricultural science through the last
twenty-one years.

No matter what one's level of understanding, MacCormack's The Transition
Document is a must read for anyone involved in or interested in organic
farming or anyone who simply wants to know what they are eating. This is an
important book by a long-time contributor to what might be the most crucial
work of our time–the transition from better living through chemistry to
better living through natural processes.

The Transition Document: Toward a Biologically Resilient Agriculture is
available in digitial format ($19.95) or hardcopy ($29.95) at the Sunbow Farm
website.
http://www.sunbowfarm.org/transition-document.php






  • [Livingontheland] "The Transition Document: Toward a Biologically Resilient Agriculture", Tradingpost, 12/09/2009

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