Biological Agriculture and a Happy Thanksgiving

"The aim of biological agriculture is to cultivate ease and order rather than battle futilely against disease and disorder."

Eliot Coleman Paper at Yale University Agrarian Studies Colloquium, November 19, 2010

The above paper makes the case that the pre-industrial agriculture system was superior to our current industrial chemically-based system. I have included some excerpts below.

Last April, we had an expert on Nutrient Dense Crop Production speak at our church. His name is Jerry Travers. I once visited his home and toured his lush gardens.

Being that today is Thanksgiving, I thought about the first growing experiences our pilgrim fathers must have had here in New England back some almost 400 years ago. They were saved by the local knowledge that the Indians had.

This evening, we will watch my favorite Thanksgiving film, "Squanto, A Warrior's Tale" with our holiday house guests from Bulgaria.

I am trying to live up to my blog name, Athol Road Agrarian. God bless and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. All good things come from God!

"The best biological farmers follow a pattern at odds with the pattern of chemical agriculture. The chemical/industrial mindset focuses on the symptom of a problem and devises expensive products in order to palliate that symptom. The biological/agrarian mindset focuses on the cause of the problem and looks to manage natural processes in such a way as to correct the cause." p. 17

"...Frank Egler’s statement, “Nature is not more complicated than we think – Nature is more complicated than we can think.” p. 21

"There seems to be great difficulty in comprehending what I call a plant-positive approach (strengthening the plant through optimum growing conditions) as opposed to the conventional pest-negative approach (killing the pest)." p. 22

“But though part of Nature, man’s unique function . . . lies in controlling and transforming the natural world, not piously seeking its guidance. How profoundly we believe this today. How could we help but believe it; the entire edifice of our civilization is built upon it. The Baconian conception of science as control over nature is not only an intellectual presupposition of ours, it is a deeply implanted emotional attitude as well.” p. 24 (Thomas Colwell)

"The third explanation goes back to the beginning of the industrial revolution when the money world began to replace the non-money world. At that point what would have been seen as the great benefit of a biological production system, minimal need for purchased inputs, suddenly would come to be seen as its defect. In an industrially dominated money economy the processes by which biological agriculture produces food are inherently subversive because they are self-resourced through that partnership with the natural world noted above. By self-resourced I mean that for those participating in biological agriculture, the majority of the inputs are coming from within the farm. Thus, biological farmers who take full advantage of the earth’s contributions do not need to purchase industry’s products. The aforementioned Cyril Hopkins was fully aware of that reality in 1912 when he wrote in a University of Illinois agricultural circular; “The real question is, shall the farmer pay ten times as much as he ought to pay for food to enrich his soil? Shall he buy nitrogen at 45 to 50 cents a pound when theair above every acre contains 70 million pounds of free nitrogen?” p. 24 (Cyril G. Hopkins)

"Could it be that we the people have been conned into ignoring a whole other way of farming by a limited worldview that has never allowed us to consider non-commodifiable options?" p. 26

"Biological agriculture has dared to “disturb the universe” in its search for a better way to farm. Its success has created a solid foundation for the superiority of agriculture over industry and a secure future for the agrarian dream." p. 28

"Nature is a series of biological rhythms, interactions and interdependencies, which are essentially non-mechanical because the stage on which they operate, is that of life." p. 30

"If men can be forced and regimented to sacrifice their spiritual inheritance in order to serve the machine, nature and the earth cannot and will not any more than the winds of heaven can be controlled by pistons and levers. The earth demands the labor of a true man, not the gyrations of a senseless machine, in order to give of her best, and thus quality in farming, as malnutrition has shown us to our bitter cost, must forever take precedence of quantity. Farming as a craft can never be old-fashioned or superseded since it is dependent upon doing things in the right way and at the right time and not in the wrong way and the fastest time as a passing economic fashion based on predatory relations with nature demands. Where fertility is the master of production and quality of quantity as subsistence farming fosters, there need be no fears as to the health of man or the bounty of earth.”" p. 31 (H.J. Massingham)