The Future of Agrarianism: Where Are We Now?

When Wendell Berry was writing his singular work, The Unsettling of America , from 1974 to 1977, the industrialization of agriculture was already well underway. The transformation of agriculture into an “industry” was enthusiastically endorsed by many agricultural pundits and “experts.” In fact, as Wendell tells us in the preface to the first edition of Unsettling , he was “incited” to begin taking the first notes for his book in 1967 when President Lyndon Johnson’s “special commission on federal food and fiber policies” made its report. In the view of the commission, a major problem with U.S. agriculture was that we still had too many farmers on the land. The “technological advances” had so reduced the need for farm “manpower” that national farm income simply could no longer support as many farmers

The Pleasure of Good Eating

For most of us the pleasure of good eating probably consists of chowing down a gusty steak, a delicious pork chop, fresh vegetables with tastebud-exploding flavors, or a savory tree-ripened peach that melts in your mouth. In truth, the pleasure of good eating consists of much more than tasty treats

Spirituality in Agriculture

The United Nations “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report” published in March of 2005 detailed some disturbing conclusions. Produced by 1,360 of our leading scientists from 95 countries the report’s core findings can’t help but alarm us. The report found that over the last half century, humans have polluted or over-exploited two-thirds of the earth’s ecological systems on which life depends, dramatically increasing the potential for unprecedented and abrupt ecological collapses. And the report determined that most of these ecosystem damages were the direct or indirect result of changes made to meet growing demands for ecosystem services---in particular the growing demands for food, water, timber, fiber and fuel

Designing a Resilient Agriculture for a Changing World: How Land Grant Universities Can Help

Land grant universities can help agriculture face major challenges in the future by focusing research on biodiversity, ecological and soil health, and providing resources for a knowledge-intensive production system that encourages private entrepreneurs

Meeting the Agricultural Challenges of the 21st Century with a Little Help from Liberty Hyde Bailey

Basking in the apparent glow of the industria l revolution it is easy for us to assume that the way we live our lives, entertain ourselve s, provide for our shelter, and produce and distribute our food, is sustainable. We have, after all, been incredibly successful in overcoming most of the challenges that hum ans have faced in their long history of acquiring enough food on a sustainable basi s to feed a rapidly growing human population. There are no longer any doubts that we are now producing enough food to feed the entire human population of over 6 bi llion people currently living on the planet. While more than 800 million continue to be severely malnourished, it is clear that this deficiency in food availability is not due to any lack of production

Potential for a New Generation of Biodiversity in Agro-ecosystems of the Future

The roots of industrial agricu lture are embedded in the hist oric publication of Justus von Liebig\u27s Chemistry in the Application to Agriculture and Physiology (1840). Von Liebig argued that we could sustain the productivity of agriculture without continuing mixed farming practices and the laborious task of manuring soils. Substituting synthetic fertilizers for such nutrient cycling practices substantially simplified farming practices, and the ability to substitute synthetic fer tilizers for nutrient cycling led farmers to specialize in the production of a few high-value crops and abandon the mixed farming practices which incorporated green manures and livestock into farming systems

A Revolution in Agriculture

A revolution in agriculture has been quietly taking place, and neither rural nor urban citizens may like the changes it will bring to our food and farming system, or to our landscapes

It Starts with the Soil and Organic Agriculture Can Help

The foundation of modern science has deep root s in Western culture, reaching back to the 16th and 17th centuries. The central dogma underlying this science is rooted in the mathematics-based science of Rene Descartes. In his Meditations published in 1641, Descartes asserted that one could and must separate the thinking mi nd (or subject) from the material world (or object). By doing s o, he believed one could establish objective certainty, wholly determinable, and free of any subjective bias. It was on this basis that Descartes reduced material reality to mechani cal functions. This perspective formed the basis of the “disinterested” sciences and eventually yiel ded the knowledge, technologies and culture that made industrial science and ultimately industrial agriculture possible. This philosophy of science also sh aped our perceptions of soil within modern agriculture