Daniel Morales Draft (April 1, 2014) Agrarianism as a Sustainable Response To Industrial Agriculture Visions of sustainability now have an ever-increasing

importance and value. While some, if not most, are merely Sustainable (Jensen, What We Leave Behind), there are others that have true long-term potential and environmental benefits. Many approaches toward "living a sustainable life" include small and personal changes such as changing your light bulb to energyefficient lighting, taking shorter showers, or switching to a "green" vehicle. While these types of personal changes may reflect an attitude of sustainability and environmental concern, they do not have the ability to produce resistance to industrial society. Rather, they are inherently in support of maintaining a destructive culture. This is where the line must be drawn between the honest, informed and real visions, and the ones that won't benefit the planet. One of the more sensible, practical and ecological visions is that of agrarianism. The agrarian vision is one that stands in stark contrast with modern industrial agriculture; respect for and connection to the land is the bottom line. This is a viable approach towards sustainability because at its core is the value and potential of small-scale communities, rural or urban, to build a relationship with their land. Agrarianism can provide us with the ability to transform our culture and rid ourselves of dependence on large-scale corporations and industrial agriculture to feed us. Wendell Berry, perhaps the strongest voice of the agrarian vision, stated the importance of this movement in The Art of Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry: "The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope." Environmental, ecological, social, ethical, and even economic concerns are addressed within the vision of agrarianism. Industrial Agriculture & Its Impacts "And so it appears that most and perhaps all of industrial agriculture's manifest failures are the result of an attempt to make the land produce without husbandry." - Wendell Berry At the root of the causes of climate change are the problems that industrial agriculture produces. In his essay "New Roots for Agriculture", author, leader in sustainable agriculture, and founder of The Land Institute, Wes Jackson, tells us that the agricultural revolution, "geologically speaking, surely stands as the most significant and explosive event to appear on the face of the earth, changing the earth even faster than did the origin of life." The consequences of industrial agriculture can be examined ecologically, socially, economically, environmentally, spiritually, and so on. The problems of today's agriculture are very well interconnected. In 1977, Wendell Berry wrote The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. At the time, he saw the problems as they were developing: the growth of agribusiness and disconnection with the land, the destruction of land, and the fading of the cultural values that come with good farming. Berry provides a picture of the ideal community-oriented nature of good farming, where "the consumers of food were also producers or processors of food, or both." Essentially, the consumers and producers (local family farmers) were honest with and relied on each other. Economic reasons took this relationship in the opposite direction, Berry explains: "The consumer wants food to be as cheap as possible. The producer wants it to be as expensive as possible. Both want it to involve as little labor as possible." This created standards of

"cheapness and convenience" and the negative effects on the health of the land and the people. It is easy to see how this simple change in farming became attractive: More food was being produced, cost of production lowered, and more money was made. It was with great approval that "96 percent of America's manpower [was] freed from food production" and that this new way of farming not only produced immense yields, but did so with minimal energy and labor. This, as we can now see, has manifested into a handful of huge corporations, such as Monsanto and Tyson Foods, which are responsible for our food. The handful of big corporations, a couple of which were mentioned above, has cemented agribusiness and corporate factory farming as the dominant means of food production. The notion of "feeding the world", as author and farmer Gene Logsdon remarks in his essay All Flesh is Grass, is the "forked-tongue hypocrisy that mega-companies utter while they try to monopolize the food business." Evidence of this can be seen not only in the sheer sizes of these companies, but also in their methods of gene-modification of crops such as soy and corn, of which 90% and 80%, respectively, that are grown in the U.S. contain seeds patented by Monsanto (Source from Counterpunch). Monsanto also is responsible for about 40% of U.S. crop acreage. The power of these genetically modified seeds is evident in the fact that Monsanto's patent allows it to sue any farm that, accidental or not, has Monsanto seeds on their land. There are several problems here. First, of course, is that small-scale farmers cannot prevent the dispersal of Monsanto seeds. Second, with that in mind, Monsanto has established and advanced its power in food production. In January 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision, in Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al v. Monsanto, that denied farmers protection from being sued if their land contained Monsanto GMO's. The third problem relates to the redundancy of GMO's. The main purpose of the GMO strategy is to be able to grow more by increasing the fitness of the crops. Genetically modifying the food we've been eating for years puts our health at risk: "the substance is biochemically unfamiliar", Dan Kittredge, executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association, argues. Additionally, GMO's do not offer the same nutritional value as non-GMO's (Source from MAM). Aside from creating "superbugs and superweeds" that build resistance to GMO's, soil minerals and beneficial bacteria are also destroyed (Natural News). The big point that this leads to is that because of the poor and corporate management of farmland, the low-quality soil has created a dependence on artificial products and GMO's to enhance production. A simple approach, one offered in an agrarian attitude, would look to remedy the situation by justly tending to the soil. Like humans, plants have immune systems, and their health and fitness relies on the health of the soil. Rather than taking a reactionary approach, agrarianism would look for a preventative approach, where the foundation for the land is a major consideration. Many of the problems connected with industrial agriculture are related to the soil, as Wendell Berry writes in The Gift of Good Land: "1) soil erosion, 2) soil compaction, 3) soil and water pollution, [and] 4) pests and diseases resulting from monoculture and ecological deterioration." (His list of problems of industrial agriculture extends to "5) depopulation of rural communities and 6) decivilization of the cities.") The sustainable characteristic of agrarianism, through respect for and connection with the land, looks to preserve and work with the available resources, while protecting the health and quality of the land, and in extension, the food. A step in the right direction and towards sustainability is available in agrarianism.

The Benefits of Building a Relationship With Your Land "It is, in every way, in the best interest of urban consumers to be surrounded by productive land, well farmed and well maintained by thriving farm families in thriving farm communities." As we search for a less extractive and polluting economic order, so that we may fit agriculture into the economy of a sustainable culture, community becomes the locus and metaphor for both agriculture and culture. - Wendell Berry It is without question that industrial culture is unsustainable and environmentally destructive: desertification of once-fertile lands, pollution of air and water, unethical farming methods, etc. are essential for the growth of agriculture. What follows is the need for a solution to distance ourselves from this destructive culture and to remedy the situation as best we can. In agrarianism, the most obvious path to restoration of the land is offered. This does not entail a global revolution to dismantle industrial agriculture and a "back-to-the-land" movement. The 10th Commandment of Agrarianism, set forth in The Mind-Set of Agrarianism by Maurice Telleen, former editor of the Draft Horse Journal, urges us to "distrust the 'big picture.' Where you live is where you matter most." This puts agrarianism on a more practical scale. Of course, the endgame of any environmental movement should be to ultimately take back control of the land and prevent destructive practices. But, small-steps are necessary. Agrarianism allows people to slowly distance themselves from depending on industrial agriculture to feed. Not only that, this is achieved in a sustainable manner, as agrarians "see, accept, and live within their limits." (The Agrarian Standard, Berry) Put simply, agrarianism calls for a community of people practicing sustainable and respectful small-scale agriculture. The obvious benefit is building a community that values the land and the food. Corporate interests are nowhere in play. It is a small enough effort that the agrarian members of that particular community all have a role. Editor of Essential Agrarian Essays, Norman Wirzba, writes in the introduction to the book that agrarianism is not limited to farmland. It "must include the care of all living spaces--residential neighborhoods, schools and playgrounds, parks, and landfills," etc. Agrarian values teach us to learn and care for the environment, and not exploit it. This touches on a spiritual and ethical void that industrial agriculture holds. Socially, community bonds and values are strengthened, as, like in Wendell Berry's ideal example of good farming, the people rely on each other to thrive. With the increasing influence of unhealthy and toxic agribusiness, we should all be wary and conscious of what we eat. Agrarianism offers us the chance to get close to our food, be included in the process of it, and ensure that we are not being ecologically inconsiderate. There is a pride and integrity involved in growing your own food. Long-term, agrarianism forces us to learn about our particular area and understand the limits and capabilities of the land. This allows us to know what we can do with the land and do so sustainably and wisely. As mentioned in the section on the problems of industrial agriculture, corporate farming relies on ecologically harmful methods to maximize growth and externalize costs. Going about setting up an agrarian culture and healthy land to work with requires hard work. Realizing the importance of the land, soil takes on a big role. Soil Restoration and Benefits There can be no life without soil and no soil without life: they have evolved together." - Charles. E. Kellogg

Sustainability requires the ability to work with what you have while ensuring that future generations have access to the same resources. (Source?) Nearly all of the land that any potential agrarians will have to work with has been negatively impacted by industrial society. Reversing this requires ecological knowledge, husbandry and respect for the land. An array of smart and sustainable strategies for restoring and maintaining soil exists. Agrarianism, for obvious reasons, cannot depend on artificial fertilizers or other unsustainable methods. Simple methods such as composting any foods can be a solution. Where appropriate, grazing animals can act as great tools to help build soil. In her book, Cows Save the Planet, Judith D. Schwartz demonstrates the potential for cows, and other grazing animals, to effectively restore the land. This is valuable because of the importance of soil and the role it plays in promoting healthy and fit organisms. Looking at sustainable cultures and their similarities to agrarianism Exploring agrarianism as the actual movement; Its past, present and future (including the shortcomings and problems with the idea agrarianism Realistic Potential for sustainability? -------I apologize for not having a complete draft. I do not want to bullshit the draft much more. I want to finish the books (Nature as Measure, The Unsettling of America, The Gift of Good Land, Cows Save the Planet, The Vegeteratian Myth, and The Essential Agrarian Reader) in order to get my thoughts on agrarianism fully articulated. this will only work fully when addressing overpopulation