What the hell is "A Modern Agrarian"?
Definitely something someone might think if I came up to them and told them I am a modern agrarian!
Reading Time: 15 min
Well, it’s something that I came up with to try to combine technology with the understanding that we have created our wonderful technologies by processing the Earth. Which to be totally frank, is something we do not really understand yet. Earth is a planet that seems to be an anomaly. Life seems to have just started prospering here. Life on Earth has survived at least 5 mass extinction events, and probably countless hostile environments on this planet. James Lovelock, who is a wonderful scientist and academic writer, developed a theory with Lynn Margulis, who is an amazing evolutionary theorist and microbiologist, about life on Earth called the Gaia Hypothesis. In that theory, all life on Earth has developed into systems that have grown to become some sort of intelligence in itself. They would call that intelligence Gaia. Now, it’s not a conscious intelligence like you who is reading these words, and me who is typing them. It’s more a theory of a collective intelligence that somehow can overcome these massive obstacles that we don’t really understand why life on Earth has survived. Similar to how the inner workings of your body work independently of your own choices and consciousness. I very much align with this theory growing up, and in my family we would refer to that intelligence as Mother Nature. Because it is only a mother who can truly nurture life through the greatest obstacles. That’s why I think we have to start holding ourselves accountable for the destruction we have created here on Earth. We take resources from the Earth that other life on Earth could use for our own gain. Then, the waste from the products we make from those resources cannot be decomposed or recycled by the species on Earth that’s primary goal is to gain nutrients from waste and make other nutrients available for other life. Therefore, we completely ignore what Mother Nature seems to do with all other life on Earth, which is balance. Our technologies and endless production have created hostile environments here on Earth, and I believe most of the humans on Earth believe that as well, and that there is a lot of bad that comes from this life that only the top humans can live.
So, this is a long winded answer to say that I don’t want to come off as anti technology. Technology is wonderful! It has allowed us, as social creatures, to evolve our social structure using them! For the first time in human history, information is in every one of our pockets. Our phones and devices have somehow become portals into endless rooms of information. In our recent past, reading, writing, and generally information and knowledge were restricted to social classes like royal families, religious leaders, and in general charismatic leaders. Now, there are more people than ever that have access to information in all forms that we all can consume and grow from.
Therefore, I want to find a balance between having a life where we can use technology, but without disrupting the nature system so greatly, and Mother Nature in general. I also think that we all have to start thinking about this problem together. If we don’t, then our trajectory will lead us further into the 6th mass extinction that many scientists and biologists would agree is currently going on. My readings and thinking has led me to develop agrarian values, and I believe agrarianism might be at least the first step in helping us human beings find a balance living with other life on Earth. So, that is why I am trying to figure out my own way of becoming a more modern agrarian. One who tries to homestead and provide what I can to my family from my own land, but in a more modern way where we can use certain technologies that are sustainable and encourage more circular industry.
What is Agrarianism?
If you are still reading, then you probably are asking yourself what is agrarianism? If you have some experience reading American history, then you might have heard about Thomas Jeffersons’ views on agrarianism.
Well, I wrote this article in hopes that I might be able to explain this concept in a way that is generally understood, and you may get perspective on why I myself am trying to follow agrarian values, as I believe this is the way forward in what some call the the “Age of the Anthropocene”, or more my view which is away to avoid climate catastrophe and the resurgence of totalitarianism.
First, let’s start off with the dictionary definition. (As my father always suggested was the best place to start when starting to learning something new) According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, agrarianism is:
“a social or political movement designed to bring about land reforms or to improve the economic status of the farmer.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agrarianism
Based on this definition, we can get the idea that agrarianism is a movement that wants to improve the land and give economic power back to “farmers”.
Why is this important, and why should there be a movement to help farmers? There are many people who are disadvantaged and live in much more extreme poverty than farmers, so why should farmers be a focus of a political movement?
Well, that is all very true. However, I argue that farming is a much deeper occupation than many other occupations out there. (Big claim I know) The main reason why is because farmers are truly the “Shepherds of the Land”. Farmers not only have to manage the land appropriately to ensure they will always be able to grow crops off their land to feed the community, but in doing so they are managing the Earth. So, they are constantly trying to balance what is best for the land, and what is best for the community. If a community goes without food, then that is usually the first sign of the collapse of that community. If the land is used incorrectly, then the land can become dead and lifeless and nothing will grow, which again will result in no food and most likely the collapse of the community. So, this is a very important balancing act for farmers.
Therein lies the problem. Farmers have had that role taken away from them. They are not there to be “Shepherds of the Land'' anymore. They are there to grow food for production. Well, it would be more accurate to say they grow food for endless consumption. It does not matter if something is sustainable or not anymore. What matters is if money can be made. That is why over the course of a couple of hundred years, we have seen major changes in resource management and land use, as well as what a typical farm consists of.
When food is grown for production rather than what food is there for which is for living, improving health, and treating illnesses then food becomes a very different function in society. It becomes what we see today in our western culture. A product to be bought to satisfy a craving, for mood modulation, and in many ways used to be part of a group. (Vegan, Vegetarian, Paleo, Carnivore, etc.) Or a different way of putting it is a product to be sold for profits, for manipulation, and unfortunately for class separation.
Food Companies are just Food Manufacturers
You see, it’s not the farmers who are deciding what is done with food or deciding how it is sold. It is the companies that manufacture food that decide all of that, and they put quotes on the farmer to grow a certain amount of food to properly feed the manufacturing facilities to meet the profit growth that these companies are held to by their investors. This creates major problems because the food company now has control of the farmer using quotas and price control, which in turn affects the land. As well as, the food companies are incentivized to get people to buy more food than what is needed because that is what the company needs to get profits going up. So, food companies use multiple different unethical tools to keep the profits going up. Advertising has always been a big one. Hard to go through a day without hearing or seeing an advertisement for some food product, and a lot of them are directed towards kids as well. Another big tool is that food is generally designed to create cravings so you are inclined to want to buy more. This is part of the problem with manufactured food, because it is manufactured to be addicting. At the end of the day, there is not much difference between food and drugs. Drugs are just chemicals that are consumed that are absorbed by the body to manipulate different biological systems within us. Food goes through the same mechanisms, but our bodies require us to eat to gain the chemicals and nutrients we need to live. This is why sometimes food and drugs are managed by the same organizations in a government, like the United States of America.
Here is a great example. Serotonin is a hormone used in the body to regulate uplifting emotions. 90% of all the serotonin in your body is developed in your gut from what you eat. If you get happy feelings from what you eat, and companies design food to give you certain happy feelings that you begin to crave, then it sounds like manufactured foods are more like drugs rather than more whole foods. Now, if foods are designed to work like drugs and play on our cravings, then let’s think about how a heroin user might react to a landscape that is constantly bombarding them with advertisements for different heroin related products. They will probably go hog wild! The reason why I use this example is because I feel that this encapsulates what a person with weight problems goes through on a daily basis, just not to that extreme.
Agriculture Should be a Major Focus of Change!
Another point I want to make is about land usage, and just how much agriculture affects the Earth. One interesting statistic is just how much land agriculture actually takes up on Earth. Out of all the habitable land on Earth, 50% of it is agriculture. (This includes crops that are grown, and land that is used for grazing for husbandry) For a comparison, forests take up 37% of all habitable land. Actually, back in the 1960s 66% of all habitable land was forests. So, in 60 years we have cut down almost half of the Earth’s forests to replace them with agricultural land. Now how much land do you think humans take up in terms of our cities, roads, and basically any land that a human lives on? It’s only about 1%. That’s right. Our species, which literally only takes up about 1% of all habitable land to live on, bestows the right to produce food on 50% of habitable land for our consumption, which nature would have had first rights over.
This is a significant change, and it is a change that in reality nobody knows how this will affect all the natural systems that Life on Earth has developed over millennia. That is not an opinion you hear very often, because most talk is about the massive amounts of carbon dioxide that are released into the atmosphere every year that have been proven to increase the global temperature. Having said that, it is disingenuous to focus on only carbon dioxide, because that limits the solutions to the problems of climate change. Carbon dioxide is only another symptom, or a portion of the problem not the full issue!
For instance, according to the National Academy of Science, if you look at global carbon emissions per industry, then the energy sector has the most at 25% of all emissions. Here is what you don't hear, agriculture comes in at 24%!
According to the article from the National Academy of Science called, “ The Challenge of Feeding the World Sustainably: Summary of the US-UK Scientific Forum on Sustainable Agriculture”:
“Even if all non-agricultural fossil fuel use was to stop, future green-house gas emissions solely from agriculture because of land clearing, ruminants, manure, rice, burning, and nitrous oxide from fertilized soils would, in total, accumulate so as to exceed the emissions limit set by the Paris Agreement for staying below a 2 degree Celsius global temperature increase.”
Now, let's look at the bigger picture. What makes up the climates on Earth? Well, the main engines are the biogeochemical cycles on Earth. Those cycles would be the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorus cycle, nutrient cycle, sulphur cycle, and rock cycle. Then, these cycles are utilized in the 5 different types of Earth systems, which are the biosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere. When you start to think about agriculture and what we as humans use as tools for our agriculture system, you start to see how many of these cycles and Earth systems it affects compared to any other industry. For instance, the water cycle is changed because of ground cover, and the soil is open to erosion instead of being absorbed into the water tables. Nitrogen and phosphorus are used as fertilizers, which are added to these lands that erode the land and these fertilizers end up in waterways and travel to different parts of the hydrosphere. (See table below of natural resources used per global industry) I could go on, and will go on in a different articles, but you get the idea that agriculture seems to affect multiple systems. Don’t get me wrong, the energy industry and the burning of fossil fuels is a huge part of climate change too. It’s just not the only industry and problem we have to fix to learn to grow with climate change.
My opinion on why the focus is on energy is because the energy industry is the most profitable. To change the agricultural industry, it is basically going to be a money sink because there are so many problems with our agriculture system. So much so, that it means you have to dismantle a tool of colonization and oppression for hundreds of years.
Indigenous Peoples of the Earth Already Understand this!
Lastly, I want to make one thing clear about everything I have written about so far, and it’s about giving credit where credit is due. Indigenous peoples all over Earth already understand and know some sort of version of these ideas and they have passed them down in their communities through their generations by stories. The stories change based on the environments around them, but they can live with ease where many can’t because of their teachings.
However, unfortunately colonization has interrupted those teachings and atrocities have been committed to indigenous for generations as well, and many of those teachings have been lost because so many have been killed and integrated into different societies.
What makes it even more horrible is that agriculture has been one of the primary ways of colonizing a community. People were either slaves, or put in situations of debt or other ways of suffering. Farming and agriculture is hard work, but indigenous people had easier ways, but because they were seen as savages or lesser people we made them do it the way that is primarily done now. Quotas, debt, or slavery.
They shepherd entire ecosystems and manipulate them by understanding what would happen by observing how the ecosystem worked through surviving in the environment for so long. They even went as far as observing to make sure they didn't take from a species that already used the natural resources in their area! They understand it is all part of something bigger, but that is a mystery. However, many have stories about everything being their kin. Something Charles Darwin also believes as well.
Maybe now is the time more than any other time to stop and listen to the indigenous peoples wisdom, and step back and see how they made it work for so long. Maybe then we might be able to start sharing our knowledge with them, and we all can grow as human beings on this Spaceship Earth flying through space.
I have thrown many different ideas at you for the time being, and I think I may save any more ramblings for the next article. This article is just to introduce you to different ideas and thought processes that have led me to try and go down the harder route of developing a more modern homestead rather than just go to the grocery store. Myself as an individual may have zero effect on change to our society, but the more people that push for a change in society to a more nurturing society instead of the exploiter society we live in now, then the more change we will start to see.
At the end of the day, we are all responsible for this problem because all 7.5 billion of us are human first. It does not matter what race, nationality, or self description you have, because first and foremost you are human and we all bleed red. Every human is capable of great good and great evil, and so we are all capable of solving this problem collectively. Which may allow us to finally find a new place as part of the life support systems that make up Spaceship Earth.