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"Anything that I will ever have to say on the subject of agriculture can be little more than a continuation of talk begun in childhood with my father and with my late friend Owen Flood. Their conversation, first listened to and then joined, was my first and longest and finest instruction. From them, before I knew I was being taught, I learned to think of the meanings, the responsibilities, and the pleasures of farming."
Culture & Agriculture Copyright
(c) 1977 by Wendell Berry. All rights reserved. |
When
I was working on this book - from 1974 to 1977 - the long
agricultural decline that it deals with was momentarily disguised as
a "boom." The big farmers were getting bigger with the help
of inflated land prices and borrowed money, and the foreign demand
for American farm products was strong, so from the official point of
view the situation looked good. The big were supposed
to get bigger. Foreigners were
supposed to be
in need of our products. The official point of view, foreshortened as
usual by statistics, superstitious theory, and wishful prediction,
was utterly complacent. Then Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz
issued the most optimistic, the most widely obeyed, and the Worst
advice ever given to farmers: that they should plow "fencerow to
fencerow."
That
the situation was not good—for
farms or farmers or rural communities or nature or the general
public—was even then evident to any experienced observer who would
turn aside from the pre-conceptions of ''agribusiness" and look
at the marks of deterioration that were plainly visible. And now,
almost a decade later, it is evident to everyone that, at least for
farmers and rural communities, the situation is Catastrophic.
Farmers are losing their farms, some are killing themselves, some in
the madness of despair are killing other people, and rural economy
and rural life are gravely stricken. TV agricultural economists chart
the "liquidations of assets," the "shakeouts,"
and the "downturns," apparently amazed that now even the
large "progressive" and "efficient" farmers are
in trouble.
But
this is not just a financial crisis for country people. Critical
questions are being asked of our whole society: Are we, or are we not
going to take proper care of our land, our country ? And do we, or do
we not, believe in a democratic distribution of usable property? At
present, these questions are being answered in the negative. Our soil
erosion rates are worse now than during the years of the Dust Bowl.
In the arid lands of the West, we are overusing and wasting the
supplies of water. Toxic pollution from agricultural chemicals is a
growing problem. We are closer every day to the final destruction of
private ownership not only of small family farms, but of small usable
properties of all kinds. Every problem I dealt with in this book, in
fact, has grown worse
since the book was written.
The
one improvement has been in public concern about the problems. Among
farmers there is growing distrust of the "agribusiness"
line of talk and growing interest in agricultural health and sanity.
Among city people there is a growing awareness that sane and healthy
agriculture requires an informed urban constituency. There is hope in
these developments and in the continued existence of a remnant of
excellent small farms and farmers.
Some
prominent agricultural economists are still finding it possible to
pretend that the only issues involved are economic, but that
possibility is diminishing. I recently attended a meeting at which an
agricultural economist argued that there is no essential difference
between owning and renting a farm. A farmer stood up in the audience
and replied: "Professor, I don't think our ancestors came to
America to rent a
farm."
'Nough said.
Wendell Berry, March 1986
CHAPTER
ONE
The Unsettling of America
CHAPTER TWO
The Ecological
Crisis as a Crisis of Character
CHAPTER THREE
The Ecological
Crisis as a Crisis of Agriculture
CHAPTER FOUR
The Agricultural
Crisis as a Crisis of Culture
CHAPTER FIVE
Living in the
Future: The "Modern" Agricultural Ideal
CHAPTER SIX
The
Use of Energy
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Body and the Earth
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Jefferson, Morrill, and the Upper Crust
CHAPTER
NINE
Margins
Notes
Afterward to the
Third edition
"Eventually
this mechanistic line of thought brings us to the doctrine that
whatever happens is inevitable. Actually, this stark determinism is
altered in general use to a doctrine that is even more contemptible.
Every bad thing that
happens is inevitable. For every good thing that happens there are
mobs of claimers of credit. Every good and perfect gift comes from
politicians, scientists, researchers, governments, and corporations.
Evils, however, are inevitable; there is just no use in trying to
choose against them. Thus all industrial comforts and labor saving
devices are the result only of human ingenuity and determination (not
to mention the charity and altruism that have so conspicuously
distinguished the industrial subspecies for the past two centuries),
but the consequent pollution, land destruction, and social upheaval
have been "inevitable."
"Thus
President Clinton (for whom I voted) could tell an audience of
"farmers and agricultural organization leaders" in
Billings, Montana on June 1, 1995, that the American farm population
now is "dramatically lower, obviously, than it was a generation
ago. And that was inevitable because of the increasing productivity
of agriculture."
Who so
Hath his minde on taking,
hath it no more on what he hath
taken.
MONTAIGNE, III. Vl
Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berry, Wendell,
1934-
The unsettling of America.
1. Agriculture-Economic
aspects-United States.
2.
Agriculture-Social aspects-United
States.
3. United States-Rural conditions. I. Title.
[HD176l.B47
1986] 338.I '0973 86—6426
ISBN 0—87156—877—2
(pbk )
Return to North Glen or Reading List or Credo or Berry's writings