Wendell Berry has said, “If sustainability is truly our goal, we must put the “culture” back into agriculture.” What does this mean? In what ways might this be a useful and justifiable idea?
Culture is a word that has many meanings. The definition for “culture” is complex and is usually defined by the context of the sentence. If taken from the dictionary, culture would be defined as the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group; or, development or improvement of the mind by education or training. When I read this quote, I think of culture as being defined as:
A way that a specific group of people think or act; being influenced largely by their environment.
My experience from working in Uganda and Nicaragua has shown me two very distinct cultures, and their agricultural systems. Agriculture is not separate from their daily lives there, and looks very different from what is seen in the United States or Europe. Uganda and Nicaragua are two worlds apart, however their agricultural systems are strikingly similar.
When looking, with an untrained eye, at a typical plot of land in rural communities of Uganda or Nicaragua one can identify a banana plant and possibly a tomato or pepper depending on the season, apart from the dense vegetation surrounding the home. However, on this plot of land, frequently smaller than an acre, there can be hundreds of different plant species serving multiple functions (i.e., a tree provides food, fuel, animal fodder, mulch, building materials, and shade for those whom live there). Their environments have influenced how they farm, and these agricultural systems reflect and integrate the highly complex natural world that surrounds them. With a multi-faceted approach in planning agricultural systems, these systems are able to regenerate what they need to survive and are adding to the overall health of the ecosystem.
This multi-faceted approach to agricultural design is starting to get noticed by farmers in developed countries as an alternate way of farming, putting the “culture” back in agriculture. Principles for these systems have been derived from the knowledge/practices of aboriginal peoples and also the environment from which one lives. These principles create sustainable systems, which can be applied anywhere in the world. They include: creatively use and respond to change, value edges (biodiversity at edges), use and value diversity (leads to greater resilience), use small, slow solutions, integrate (capitalize on how things work together), design from pattern to detail (use patterns found in nature), produce no waste, use and value renewables (reduce dependency on scarce resources), self regulate and accept feedback, obtain a yield, catch and store energy and materials, and observe and interact.
Obstacles faced by this type of system are “standards” we ourselves have constructed for any type of production. For example, efficiency has been linked with large-scale farms and advances in technology. Henry Ford, an American industrialist, once said: “Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs”. He knew what it meant to be efficient, and the importance of this came with increased competition.
Nowadays, farming is a highly competitive business, and farmers are no longer neighbors. The culture that once was integrated into our farming systems is gone, and has been replaced with an industrialist motive being “giant farm factories are efficient” with the aim of increasing one thing: “yield”.
Does this then mean that in order to pull “culture” back into agriculture the size of the farm must be small, and consequently not efficient?
“Culture” goes into the design of the farm, and the designer’s creativity is the limiting factor. Mark Sheppard of Voila, WI started a farm 15 years ago using principles derived from studies of aboriginal peoples and his own environment. Mark has created a 105 acre ecosystem, which is thriving today, and Wild Thyme has an acreage of 150 near Olympia, Washington derived from the same principles. These farms may seem small to the giant monoculture producers of today, however, a study by the World Bank in 1998 indicated that, the productivity of small farms often exceeded that of larger ones. Placing “culture” back into agriculture does not require shrinking farms. This form of agriculture can be applied to one’s backyard or across hundreds of acres depending on the creative limits of the designer.
In conclusion, to put “culture” back into agriculture is to create a sustainable farming system. This system can be scaled to fit any size of land since “culture” is based on design derived from people who are influenced by their environments and act and think accordingly. We need to begin to “think” and “act” with our environment as the driving force in agriculture instead of being technologically driven. In this way we can devise a sustainable farming system.
Sources:
Hemenway, Toby. Gaia's Garden: a Guide to Home-scale Permaculture. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub., 2009. Print.
Lutz, Ernst. Agriculture and the Environment: Perspectives on Sustainable Rural Development. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998. Print.
Mollison, B. C. Permaculture: a Designer's Manual. Tyalgum, Australia: Tagari Publications, 1988. Print.
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." - Henry Ford
