For those unfamiliar with the work of Wendell Berry (and for those familiar who may need a little refresher), he is David to the agribusiness Goliath. Berry works tirelessly to promote proper land stewardship, sustainability, and conservation and uses every opportunity to point out the drastic short-sightedness of our current path.
A passage from his 2010 book What Matters: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth sums up our current path in this way:
We know from much experience that everything that is priced will sooner or later be sold. And from the accumulating statistics of soil loss, land loss, deforestation, overuse of water, various sorts of pollution, etc., we have reason to fear that everything that is sold will be ruined. When everything has a price and the price is made endlessly variable by an economy without a stable relation to necessity or to real goods, then everything is disconnected from history, knowledge, respect, and affection–from anything at all that might preserve it–and so is implicitly eligible to be ruined…If we put wants (cheap food) first, we put needs (healthy soil, water, and food) last. If we put consumption first we put health last. If we put money first, we put food last.
Wendell Berry’s (and associates) 50-Year Farm Bill, attempts to address the destructive path down which our current 5-year farm bills keep us headed.
The 50-Year Farm Bill uses 5-year markers to assess the success of the following goals:
-Protect soil from erosion
-Cut fossil fuel dependence to zero
-Sequester carbon
-Reduce toxics in soil and water
-Manage nitrogen carefully
-Reduce dead zones
-Cut wasteful water use
-Preserve or rebuild farm communities
In contrast, our current 5-year plans address:
-Exports
-Commodities
-Subsidies
-Some soil conservation measures
-Food programs
Tom Philpott, Grist’s senior food and agriculture writer, calls the 50-year plan an attempt to “rescue U.S. farm policy from its fixation on promoting the short-term interests of agribusiness over the long-term ones of farmers, the environment, and society as whole.”
Berry’s thoughts on the short-term interests of agribusiness vs. the long-term interests of society as a whole: “Simple solutions will always lead to complex troubles, and simple minds will always be surprised.”
Let’s not be surprised.
More on Wendell Berry
From The Land Institute: Wendell Berry’s 50 Year Farm Bill
From Grist: USDA chief flatters industrial ag while Obama honors its greatest critic, Wendell Berry
From Wend Magazine Greenery: The Progressive: Wendell Berry’s 10 “Authentic Reasons for Hope”
And, a Wendell Berry-inspired cartoon: A Wendell Wedgie
Joe’s cartoon archive, here. Joe’s twitter feed (@GreenCartoons), here.
Wendell berry 50 year plan hits every element to bring back farmers and rural america. Every one has choices but perspective is a must if america is to save its air water land from big corporations and government that doesnt care. Stand up and be counted for a clean environment.
Great stuff. I just wrote a piece earlier today here on PS about Berry’s colleague Wes Jackson, the founder of the Land Institute. He refers to the 50-year-plan and the need to perennialize major crops. Annual crop strains are a big part of the problem of unsustainable agriculture, according to Jackson.
Yep. And soil erosion and degredation is something to which Mr. Berry (and Wes Jackson) have been trying to draw attention for years. Sadly, federal agricultural policy works to promote the interests of industrial agriculture, at the expense of sustainable farming, both in the U.S. and abroad. Nothwithstanding the medal.
definitely — an issue too many big Ag people don’t want to even mention..