the new agriculture

In this third set of extracts from John Michael Greer blog posts on organic agriculture, he elaborates on the inherent superiority of this new paradigm approach over the established industrial methods of feeding ourselves.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2007/12/agriculture-closing-circle.html

It’s extremely common for people to assume that today’s industrial agriculture is by definition more advanced, and thus better, than any of the alternatives.

(But) in a crucial sense – the ecological sense – modern industrial agriculture is radically less advanced than most of the viable alternatives.

In any field you care to name, sustainability is about closing the circle, replacing wasteful extractive models of resource use with recycling models that enable resource use to continue without depletion over the long term.

The first known systems of grain agriculture emerged in the Middle East sometime before 8000 BCE, in the aftermath of the drastic global warming that followed the end of the last ice age and caused massive ecological disruption throughout the temperate zone. These first farming systems were anything but sustainable, and early agricultural societies followed a steady rhythm of expansion and collapse most likely caused by bad farming practices that failed to return nutrients to the soil. It took millennia and plenty of hard experience to evolve the first farming systems that worked well over the long term, and millennia more to craft truly sustainable methods such as Asian wetland rice culture, which cycles nutrients back into the soil in the form of human and animal manure, and has proved itself over some 4000 years.

(In) industrial farming… the nutrients needed by crops come from fertilizers manufactured from natural gas, rock phosphate, and other non-renewable resources, and the crops themselves are shipped off to distant markets, taking the nutrients with them. This one-way process maximizes profits in the short term, but it damages the soil, pollutes local ecosystems, and poisons water resources. In a world of accelerating resource depletion, such extravagant use of irreplaceable fossil fuels is also a recipe for failure.

Fortunately… the replacement for this hopelessly unsustainable system
is already in place and beginning to expand rapidly into the territory of conventional farming. Modeled closely on the sustainable farming practices of Asia… organic farming moves decisively toward the recycling model by using organic matter and other renewable resources to replace chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and the like. In terms of the modern mythology of progress, this is a step backward, since it abandons chemicals and machines for compost, green manures, and biological pest controls; in terms of succession, it is a step forward, and the beginning of recovery from the great leap backward of industrial agriculture.

So there we have it: Greer promotes organic agriculture on the grounds of sustainability. But it also works on a spiritual level, as a holistic approach to feeding ourselves and nurturing the planet.

The old paradigm industrial agriculture tries to control and regiment and exploit nature, and in doing so it destroys the land. The new paradigm organic agriculture co-operates with nature, gives back what it takes, and promotes diversity and a vibrant living earth.

We should celebrate the timely emergence of this wonderful technology for the future - and we should embrace it joyfully and immediately - for, without it we will soon be starving.