Socially and Ecologically Responsible Agriculture Network

[Douglas Hinds <cedecor AT gmx.net>]

Karl North replied to Joel Gruver's observation:

   ... students can become well versed in the science and philosophy
   of sustainable agriculture (and the evils of industrial
   agriculture) without thinking deeply about the complex human
   dimensions of agriculture (that fundamentally create or constrain
   opportunities for change)."

and request for Farmer Profiles as a Course Material because:

> ... as a farmer with graduate level and 40 years of continuing
> self-education in the social sciences ... not only farmers
> (including 'organic' farmers) but most scientists and other
> stakeholders have not been able to 'think deeply' 'about the
> COMPLEX HUMAN DIMENSIONS OF AGRICULTURE THAT FUNDAMENTALLY CREATE
> OR CONSTRAIN OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHANGE'. [Emphasis added]

As you suggest, the existence and limitations of "opportunities for
change" whether principally agricultural or not, depend on
socioeconomic-political factors.

In the USA (and beyond, given it's influence), the cost of
maintaining the predominance of current conventions (agricultural
production systems included) forms an operating expense of those few
that benefit from that predominance.

This means that corporate control over the political process (thanks
to an electoral system funded by private donations) provides it with
a disproportionate influence over governments charged with policy
formation and application, as well as overseeing (but in fact, no
longer represent) the public interest.

Even so, using Farmer Profiles to inspire others to take a
sustainable direction can help strengthen the base required to
influence policy makers, including those charged with designing
academic course offerings and study plans, which could conceivably
lead them to intervene in favor of certain legislation.

However, under current conditions, the driving force for policy
makers today appears to be the money they need to fund their own
electoral campaigns and most of us don't conduct our lives and
businesses in a manner that includes this cost (as those that
benefit from unsustainable policies do).

This suggests two main choices:

Either contemplate contributing to the policy makers' campaigns or
stressing the need for electoral reform, using tax payer's dollars
not linked to corporate interests to fund electoral campaigns
(something that already occurs in Mexico and elsewhere).

Federal Elections are now less than a year away and the theme common
to most campaigns is "I offer the change America needs".

The question (of course) is, exactly which changes are being
offered, in practice? While most Democratic candidates (for
instance) say they aim to change the system, how many understand the
need to change the foundations of the decision making process
(including the need for electoral reform in relation to the source
of campaign funding) and more importantly, are their own campaigns
as open to external influence (outside their own group) as they
claim?

Lastly, voters themselves may be unlikely to support a candidate
that wants the political process to be paid for using public funds,
which are of course derived from taxes. Obviously, this would tend
to maintain the status quo (unless private citizens identify
themselves as stakeholders and accept the constant barrage of
solicitations for campaign funds as part of the cost of life in the
USA - something I myself find distasteful).

If this group of stakeholders (saneters & SERAneters) doesn't
respond to this issue, will anyone? If not, Shane and those that pay
him can continue looking silly here and still drive the
decision-making process by funding electoral campaigns - although
the change may come from elsewhere, not from the USA.

> ... very few people involved in agricultural science can provide
> that lens, mainly because their focus of interest is
> biological/ecological, not sociological. ..

> I think a critical reading of profiles requires a deeper
> understanding of the concept of sustainability than I find in most
> practitioners of farming or of its science. My sources of this
> understanding include people who have learned to use the tools of
> systems thinking to study agricultural dynamics, to ask why these
> systems are changing the way they have over time.

As you suggest, measures founded on both sustainable and "change
specific" principles are required. Will money or principle drive
legislation?

> They include studies of pre-industrial agricultural systems that
> already have endured millenia longer than ours will. I look to
> agricultural models in places like Cuba, Sweden and Switzerland
> where a vastly different policy framework lifts constraints and
> generates opportunities unimagined here in the US.

> Lastly I look for educational resources among ecologists ... and
> economists ...

Systems biology is the only bridge capable of resolving the
discrepancies that currently exist between the economic and social
goals of the nation.

But when all is said and done, who deserves our trust, those who
would maintain things as they are, or those who would sail off into
uncharted waters, as Columbus did (waters that weren't uncharted to
those already there)?

As things stand, the principle force driving change is the internet,
thanks to Tim Berners-Lee's insistence on maintaining the html
technology (that drove investment in infrastructure) in the public
domain rather than privatize (and collect royalties on) it.

It's all about money vs the quality of life and the kind of world we
want to live in, although both are facts of life.  It's a matter of
priorities.

Douglas