Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Want to share an opinion piece that was in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel yesterday. It makes for some good reflection on the direction we need to go as we ponder how in the world we will help this already-depleted planet support a burgeoning population when we are already living beyond its ‘carrying capacity.”

We need to get smaller. Bigger means vast suffering ahead. Smaller gives us a shot at surviving the big crunch time.

Is bigger better, or is smaller the future? The writer, Jim Goodman, is a dairy farmer. His argument is one I make in my new book, Living Beyond the ‘End of the World’ — that large-scale industrial agriculture is a harmful model for food production, not only in regard to the issue of world hunger, but also in regard to the ecology of this planet.

At the heart of the problem is that corporate industrial agriculture is not about food or about eating or about justice. It is about making profits. Food is grown as a commodity for profit, therefore whatever benefits the profit margins comes first — like monocropping, like the massive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (one reason why agriculture is so completely dependent on oil, used to make these environment-wasting chemicals), like using genetically modified seeds which is destroying biodiversity (absolutely necessary to maintain the ecosystems in which we live).

The return to small-scale local farming, especially organic farming, is the direction this must go, and quickly. And this must become international policy as well — providing supports from richer countries to help poor countries develop locally appropriate farming for their local, domestic market.

This is the way to begin restoring food security for peoples around the world. It is also how we begin to drastically lower the amount of energy that goes into food production. Large scale industrial farming uses enormous amounts of energy compared with the more energy efficient smaller scale farmer, especially those using organic techniques. Local production and consumption also cuts the amount of energy that goes into the transportation of agricultural products — you know, broccoli in season and locally produced as opposed to broccoli in February shipped from Chile.

Over the next few decades humanity must develop forms of agriculture that can meet the needs of a growing population while minimizing our impact on the environment. To do so, agriculture must be done more sustainably by protecting soil fertility; must decrease dependence on fertilizers, pesticides, fossil fuels, and irrigation; and must integrate agricultural and natural areas so farms can be reservoirs and corridors of biodiversity.

from: Agriculture and Biodiversity Loss: Industrial Agriculture, C. Picone and D. Van Tassel, The Land Institute

But getting smaller does not begin and end with food. Actually, I wanted to share this article as a kind of metaphor or symbol of the direction we must go in our whole way of life. Everything needs to be scaled down. This is one place where hope for future life truly rests. If we keep on looking to ‘bigness’ to solve our problems, we will continue the path that has led us to the crisis.

Energy consumption, food production, consumer goods production, transportation, the waste we produce and collect, and our whole way of life — as individuals, communities, and globally — needs to be scaled down.

We can do this. We must do this. The Earth is already way beyond its capacity to replenish what we take from it or absorb the waste we put into it. So what Goodman suggests as the path towards healthier, more just, more ecologically-friendly food production is a way to start thinking about how we will live in every aspect of our lives.

[tags] organic farming, industrial agriculture, food production, food for profit, world hunger, smaller is better, scale down way of life[/tags]

Photo credits:
Industrial farm, by Matt Niebuhr, on Flickr
Hawkins Family Farm