Monday, September 17, 2007
Environmentalism
One of the motivating factors for my wife and I to move to the country from the big city was to start a business. Once it became clear to me that corporate America was a round-peg square-hole situation for me, we started research into what sort of business we’d like to run. We hit on farming, something that greatly appealed to both of us as unabashed food snobs, and we developed a plan to make it happen. That plan necessarily involved going against the grain of conventional agriculture, as we were proposing to make a living on 30 acres.
We moved to where I could get a conveniently located job, bought some land, and got to work.
The local farmers rolled their eyes at us. As completely inexperienced city folk, seemingly wealthy, headstrong, and foolish, attempting to learn as much as we could from books while trying everything and learning a ton through trial and error… They’d never seen anything like us before. They had heard of something similar to what we were doing, called sustainable agriculture, but that’s just something that those hippies and city-based idealists get in their head. Ignore it, eventually they’ll tire of it and go away.
Then, because we were going against the grain of conventional agriculture, the hippies descended. The back-to-the-earth, global warming, peak oil, organic, no chemical fertilizers, no GMOs* types. LOTS of them. Their assumption seemed to be that since we had a, b, and c in common, we also had d, e, f, g and h in common. Have we tried biodiesel yet? Do we use all organic grain (which costs twice as much as the regular stuff) to feed our livestock? Well why not? The conventional stuff is going to kill you! Did you know that instead of using round-up on your burdock, you can dig up the roots and eat them? That’s not a weed, that’s medicine! Make a compress and you won’t have to go to the pharmacy!
There is no faster way to irritate me than to start a conversation assuming that I’m part of the Greenpeace crowd.
We eventually gained the respect of the farmers, after they recognized that we wanted badly to listen to them and to learn as much as we could, that we were willing to work just as hard as they do, and that no, we weren’t going away. We’re still the weird people on the block, but we’re all right.
The hippies… well, they still haven’t gone away completely.
What I found really interesting in all of this was the differing views on land stewardship.
The farmers’ attitudes seemed to vary with the type of farming and the size of the farm. The big ones, usually cash crop farmers (corn, soybeans, wheat, etc) seemed to not really care all that much about land stewardship. You’ve got pesticides, fertilizers, runoff, who cares. The companies and the government both say to go nuts, so they do. The only concern is making sure that the land is still good enough to throw down some fertilizer and grow a crop next year.
The hippies throw a tantrum because the corn field next door might have GMOs in it.
I find myself choosing a middle ground, and it’s taken me some time to completely understand where we fall. I treat my land as something to be preserved. I depend on it for sustenance, and I have no intention of moving when it is depleted or trying to replace nutrients with fertilizer or topsoil imports. I feel like the farmer crowd treats their land as a consumable resource, to be used and discarded. The hippies treat it as something to be preserved in some pristine state, with as little of mankind’s footprint as possible.
I prefer to treat the land as something to be respected, but also something to be used. Something to be molded by my labor into something new, productive, self-sustaining, and beautiful.
I cut trees, plant trees, build fences, dig holes, erect buildings, mow grass, shoot wildlife, etc. I also graze pastures rather than use tractors as much as possible, I put manure from my sheds back on the fields as much as possible, and I use grazing chickens rather than pesticides to control insects. I breed for grass-feeding rather than grain-feeding, so that I can import as little feed as possible. I impose my will on the landscape and make it productive for my own uses, while using methodologies that ensure that any productiveness is not depleted in succeeding years.
I don’t like the word environmentalism, because the hippies have completely destroyed it. It’s gone, never to be recovered. But as with many other things in the liberal agenda, the movement gained prominence because of a core of truth. The modern factory farm really does treat the land and the animals badly, creating food and an environment that are not necessarily healthy for the people in the vicinity or the consumers that buy the food. What’s unfortunate is that the only credible opposition to factory farming are people who have taken a diametrically opposed position, that we all need to eat vegetables or eat out of dumpsters or something else equally absurd.
I’ve heard the word conservationism batted around to suggest a philosophy similar to mine, but that feels like an attempt to set up a camp analogous to and in opposition to the environmentalist camp. I don’t want to join a battle, I don’t want to argue with these people, I just want to do what I think is right on my own land. I don’t need a label to do that.
There is clearly a strong tendency on the liberal side to over-react and swing to the absurd side of a given policy issue. But I think there is a danger on the conservative side too, that of ignoring or glossing over the core problems to which the liberals are reacting. Both sides try to use government to browbeat the opposition into submission. I want nothing to do with that. All I want is to do what I think is right, on my own land, with the maximal amount of freedom. A pipe dream, yes, but what a dream it is.
* GMO = genetically modified organism. Most modern crops have been genetically modified (beyond old-style selective breeding) to be pest or disease resistant, more drought resistant, etc.
Comments
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I’m perfectly OK with GMOs myself, but the hippies do have a point when they are concerned about the farm next door using them. The pollination range of some crops (Definitely the grains, don’t know about other crops for certain) has been shown to be much higher than was previously thought.
Wouldn’t bother me, I’m all for disease- and pest-resistant crops myself, but they will be cross-pollinating over into the “Organic” crops, unless they’re awfully far away.
WayneB | 9/17/2007 09:01 AM CDT -
The ones I’ve talked to are less concerned about cross-pollination than they are about living next to the stuff. Like it’s equivalent to a toxic waste dump or something.
American Farmer | 9/17/2007 09:03 AM CDT -
AF- You’ve stated how I feel about “sustainable land stewardship” almost exactly. I’ve struggled to find a label for it for several years that would distinguish what I believe from what a tree hugger would feel.
For me, it comes down to rational, sensible use of resources. I’ve always believed it’s foolish to waste anything you can reasonably retain.
I think it has to do with taking the long view: My action today won’t hurt anything down the road, but what about years of that action from millions of people? You’ve found the reasonable middle ground between the agribiz guys and the hippies. Sustainable, reasonable, comfortable, conscionable.
I’ve never understood the “minimum footprint” viewpoint. Beavers, termites and buffalo herds alter their environments. Why shouldn’t men? And if we can do it intelligently so that we improve it for our uses and can stay in the same place forever, happy & productive, why shouldn’t we?
I’ve also never understood the “rape the land for maximum profit” mentality. Wouldn’t you eventually run out of land.
Thanks for sharing.
Weetabix | 9/17/2007 09:29 AM CDT -
American Farmer, d’you note any difference between the “conventional” (used for lack of a better term) farmers who own their land and those who rent land from others?
MiddleAgedKen | 9/17/2007 10:10 AM CDT -
Not really.
There are a few exceptions, but in my experience, not many.
American Farmer | 9/17/2007 10:16 AM CDT -
Thought you might enjoy this American Farmer. Yes it is a liberal septic tank but damn it can be very fun to live here.
dbltap | 9/17/2007 12:56 PM CDT -
OT… it is cool coming to my site and seeing a post to read… and a dicussion besides? Way cool.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/17/2007 02:14 PM CDT -
AF- I spent some small share of my life farming, and you express a lot of the type of experience I had. Impose your will on the land, to the extent that it sustains, and is sustainable.
Also: you need to find a copy of the “Farmer’s Shop book” by Louis M Roehl. It’s a great reference- used to be taught in grade school to rural kids- and it’s further, a great insight into the brain of the early 20th century farmer. Make do, do the best with what you can get, make the most of what you have, save money, conserve resources, make the most of space. If you buy that book and don’t like it, I’ll eat it.
og | 9/18/2007 09:09 PM CDT -
As someone in the conservation biology field, conservationism is what you’re doing. There are two conflicting camps that have set up shop: conservationists vs preservationists.
Conservationism can be summed up as sustainable use (which is what you’re doing). There are some arguments on how to measure sustainability.
Preservationism is the complete removal (or as much as possible) of human interference--keeping nature in it’s pristine state, there’s also a lot of moral superiority tossed about re the intrinsic value of nature and that its value shouldn’t be viewed in terms of what it can do for mankind.
The problem is there’s enough evidence running around to show that strict preservationism doesn’t work. 1. B/c too many people depend on the land for subsistence and can’t afford to just rope it off and ignore it, and 2. b/c humans have been altering their enviro for thousands of years and nothing on the planet (except maybe Antarctica) is “pristine”.
Also, GMOs are going to be the way of the future. 1. We simply can’t produce enough food using traditional methods. 2. The damage that is caused by current ag practices is heading toward irreparable (if it isn’t already there).
TattooedIntellectual | 9/19/2007 04:06 AM CDT
