The Agricultural Crisis as a Crisis of Culture

Summary of Selection 27

The old way of life has all but disappeared. There once was many small family farms throughout the countryside. They grew their own gardens, produced meat, milk and eggs, and grew a variety of grain crops. "Minor surpluses" were sold locally to neighbors, such as extra eggs or cream. Workmanship and thrift were ideals to be proud of. This was not a perfect society, but had many good qualities and values. Sadly, this way of life has been scorned and abandoned by "modern" society and its people. It has been labelled as an outdated, outmoded, and unscientific way of life.

There have been many changes in the farm system. They are much larger and more mechanized, with fewer owners total. More land is owned by city-dwellers. Many of the better farms are deteriorating for lack of manpower, time, and money. Mainly the elderly are left farming, and their children will typically not want to stay on the farm. Who can blame them? The lifestyle is too costly, too much work, stressful and perhaps "unfashionable." Most people's goals in life are now leisure/comfort and entertainment. There is no market for minor produce anymore , all in the name of "sanitation." There is a connection between the "modernization" of agricultural techniques and the disintegration of the culture/communities of farming. Millions of people who used to live in the country were/are displaced to cities. The saying "get big or get out" has been forced onto them, and many have indeed gotten out. Even those who "got big" are driven out by those who got bigger. These ideas did not come from farmers, they came from institutions, university experts, bureaucrats, and "agribusinessmen." Ultimately this has led to the state we are now in, where we have "efficiency" at the expense of community, and quantity at the expense of quality.

Food is a cultural product. It cannot be produced by technology alone. To believe this greatly oversimplifies the nature of agriculture. A healthy farm culture has many aspects of knowledge. It must grow among people established on the land. The movement from farm to city has caused a simplification of the human mind and character. A competant farmer is his own boss. He has personal discipline, experiences, judgement and a vast knowledge base. He works according to necessity, interest and obligation. For a man to move from this lifestyle to a "simple" job in an industry in a city is very easy, but he will lose his knowledge and values. Going back from a "city/simplified" lifestyle to a "farm" lifestyle is very difficult. If we are to transition back to a farm based society it could take generations because of this. Farmers have extremely complex knowledge and it would take a long time to build up that knowledge base again.

In a natural system, whatever affects one thing ultimately affects everything. In a good agricultural system, this should be recognized. This should also be recognized in our cultural system. Our concerns and enterprises must not be fragmented or exploitive. We need cooperation in our relationships, with competition reduced. We need to recognize that there is no such thing as an entirely limitable or controllable effect. Recognition of this makes us responsible for our judgements as well as facts. The fragmentary culture/mindset is destructive because the true/total effects of an action are not considered. We cannot continue to have this "moral ignorance" driving our agricultural progress.