Enlightened Agriculture

"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to maintain their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform.  Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation."
Susan B. Anthony   

'Crisis and opportunity in North American agriculture' John Ikerd
Emeritus professor of
agricultural economics at the University of Missouri  

[extracts only, as selected by nlpwessex - original article presented at a farm conference, "Recapturing Wealth on the Canadian Prairies," Brandon, Manitoba, October 26-27, 2000 - full copy available at http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=376 ]

  ......In essence, as agriculture moves from competitive capitalism to corporatism, it changes from a market economy to "central planned" economy.  Central planning didn't work for the Communists, and it won't work for the corporations.  The problem wasn't that the Communists weren't smart enough or that their computers weren't large enough.  Central planning is a fundamentally wrong-headed approach to managing an economy - for corporations as well as governments. The corporate system of food production will prove to be fundamentally incapable of meeting the needs of the people.  Its emergence as the dominant system, therefore, represents a prime opportunity for an alternative to corporate central planning, to create an agriculture that will truly meet the needs of the people of an enlightened society.  

As society becomes more enlightened, we are beginning to realize that we are destroying our natural environment in the process of trying to produce cheap food.  We are mining the soil through erosion and depletion of its natural product in the process of maximizing production and minimizing dollar and cent costs of production.  We are polluting our streams and groundwater with residues from the pesticides and commercial fertilizers necessary for large-scale, specialized industrial crop production and with wastes from giant confinement animal feeding factories.  We are destroying the genetic diversity, both below and above the soil that is necessary to support nature's means of capturing and transforming solar energy into energy for human bodies.

As society becomes more enlightened, we are beginning to realize that we are destroying the social fabric of society in the process of trying to make agriculture more efficient.  We are destroying opportunities for people to lead productive, successful lives.  We are turning thinking, innovative, creative farmers into tractor drivers and hog house janitors.  There is dignity in all types of work, but all people should have opportunities to express their full human potential. Consolidation of decision making concentrates the opportunities among the privileged few while leaving the many without hope for a rewarding future.  Industrial specialization also tends to separate people within families, within communities, and within nations.  We are just beginning to realize that industrialization destroys the human relationships needed to support a civilized society.   The outdated economics that supports agricultural industrialization is fundamentally incapable of dealing effectively with either the environmental or social challenges of today.  In economics, the environment and society are external or outside of the decision making process - something that may impact or be impacted by decisions but not part of the process.  In reality, the economy, environment, and society all are parts of the same inseparable whole.  Society needs a more enlightened system of decision-making - one capable of integrating economic, ecological, and social decisions.  We need a "new" approach to farming in North America.....  

Pursuit of self-interests is an inherent aspect of being human.  But, people, by nature, do not pursue only their narrow, individual or personal self-interest.  It's also within the inherent nature of people to care about other people and to care of the earth.  People are perfectly capable of rising above selfishness and greed to pursue a higher concept of self-interest - a self-interest that values relationships with other people and stewardship of the earth as important dimensions of one's self-interests.

This higher self-interest includes our narrow self-interest (personal, individual concerns), but it also includes interests that we share with others (relationship, community, and social concerns) and interests that are purely altruistic (ethics and moral concerns).  All three contribute to our well being or quality of life.  Each contributes to a higher sense of quality of life - explicitly recognizing that each of us individually is but a part of the whole of society, which in turn must conform to some higher order or code of natural law....  

....Admittedly, the new American farm will require a lot more knowledge, understanding, and thinking than does farming by industrial methods.  However, any future occupation offering an opportunity for a decent living will require people to use their minds.  The days when someone could earn a good living by the sweat of their brow are in the past.  There will be plenty of innovative, creative, hard working people to operate the new American farms, once the real possibility for a more desirable quality of life in farming - economically, socially, and ethically - becomes widely known....  

....We, the people, currently control everything that needs to be changed in order to build a more sustainable, higher quality of life, as individuals as well as for society as a whole.  The economy is a creation of people - it is not some sacred, unchangeable set of natural laws.  People created the current economic system and people can change it.  The corporation does not exist by some right or some decree from God.  People created corporations and they exist at the discretion of people.  Each corporation has a charter, which once obligated it to operate for the good of the public.  We the people can revoke those charters, even if we have to amend the constitution to do it.  We can control or abolish corporatism and we can shape our economy to meet the needs of people....  

One by one, as we find the courage to demand something better, we will change the world for the better.  Susan B. Anthony, the champion of voting rights for women in the US once said, "Cautious, careful people, always casting about to maintain their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform.  Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation."  It takes courage to bring about change.  But Margaret Mead, an award winning cultural anthropologist, once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it's the only thing that ever has."  As each of us finds the courage to change our selves and to influence our little piece of the world, we can change the world.  Indeed, this is the only thing that ever can.

John Ikerd can be reached at jeikerd@aol.com
Full article at: http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=376  

1999 University of Missouri Report to the US National Farmers Union, 'CONSOLIDATION IN THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE SYSTEM' - pdf format
[extract below]

".....to understand the global food system, one must understand the operations of the major global firms such as Cargill, ADM, and ConAgra .....Today the system is becoming much more complex starting with involvement in biotechnology, extending through production, and ending with highly processed food. Increasingly, these firms are developing a variety of different alliances with other players in the system..... We will use the concept 'cluster of firms' to represent these new economic arrangements.

.....In a food chain cluster, the food product is passed along from stage to stage, but ownership never changes and neither does the location of the decision-making. Starting with the intellectual property rights that governments give to the biotechnology firms, the food product always remains the property of a firm or cluster of firms. The farmer becomes a grower, providing the labor and often some of the capital, but never owning the product as it moves through the food system and never making the major management decisions."

  'CONSOLIDATION IN FOOD RETAILING AND DAIRY: Implications for Farmers and Consumers in a Global Food System',
Report to National Farmers Union, Jan 2001, University of Missouri
UK farmers being led to US-style GM slavery

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Friedrich Vogel, head of BASF's crop protection business
(Farmers Weekly 6 November 1998)

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