Ralph Waldo Emerson
John M. Gerber is a Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Massachusetts and the Executive Director of the Consortium for Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education in the United States. The CSARE is a diverse set of institutions and individuals working together to create an agricultural research and education system that serves the common good today and to the seventh generation.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson |
Land Grant Universities have been the forum for my educational life as student and teacher for over 30 years. As a faculty member and later as Assistant Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Illinois, I worked with farmers on issues of economic viability and environmental quality. As a director of Extension at the University of Massachusetts, I spoke out on how Extension must change in order to better serve its public mission. As a faculty member once again today, I try to share some of what I have learned with students and colleagues. Emerson wrote that to share one's truth, is an act of love. Today, I try to speak my own truth from a foundation of love. So here are some of my truths, at least for today.
My truth knows that the form of agriculture currently practiced in the U.S. is not sustainable, as it continues to leak toxins and other pollutants from their point of application, use natural resources at rates greater than replacement, and put farmers and ranchers off the land.
My truth knows that the land grant university has lost its way; claiming to serve a public good while being driven by the political agenda of those currently in power, those corporations and large commodity organizations with enough money to get our attention, and the disciplinary based science societies that limit what is considered acceptable research.
My truth knows that the leadership of the farming community has come to rule farm policy, often at the expense of small and mid- sized farmers, farm workers and rural communities.
My truth knows that many of us are running ever faster to stay even on a treadmill where farmers pursue technologies that don't offer long-term hope, researchers pursue the next grant, the next research paper or the next academic award, and extension educators run ever faster to be at the next meeting, answer the next phone call, or file the next report for an anxiety ridden administrator who runs from crisis to crisis without end. There is nothing sustainable about the way we live, the way we work, the way we farm, or the way we treat the earth.
My truth tells me that the quest for sustainability of the earth, including human and non-human communities may be our best hope for land grant universities, the farming communities we love, and perhaps for ourselves. So my own work has shifted from managing the latest crisis in Cooperative Extension to sustainability of the earth, humanity, and the ideals that I cherish, like community, wisdom, service, and love. Maybe, just maybe, working in new partnerships with farmers, consumers, environmental activists and others to find a new way to farm, a new way to do research, and new ways to live, we may revitalize the land, the land grant university, and our own lives as well. It's all about sustainability.
The term sustainability is overused and sometimes abused by politicians, academic leaders and corporate public relations representatives, that is, those who hold economic and political power today. The word has been co-opted by interesting characters from government agencies to evangelists for the current industrial agricultural system. It has been defined and re- defined, used and misused. There are times when I feel that we need a new word to describe the kind of agriculture that lasts. But mostly I feel the debate, argument and even some of the hyperbole has been a good thing, for it focuses our attention on the lack of sustainability of the current food and farming system. So for me sustainability remains a vision worthy to serve.
I also think that if colleges of agriculture were to make a serious investment in working toward long-term agricultural sustainability, we might regain the public trust. We are currently caught in what systems thinkers call a reinforcing feedback loop. The public doesn't trust us, so our budgets get squeezed. We look to our friends in industry and the big commodity groups for political and financial help and what happens? The public says "see it is true, they are in bed with industry", and the budgets get squeezed more. So we turn back to our new partners and ask for more help. It is a vicious cycle, spinning us in a direction away from our primary public mission.
Personally, I believe that we at the university are a bit too cozy with industry, the big commodity groups and farm organizations, but not because of financial ties. We are tied to big farming and agricultural industry by something much more powerful than money. We are tied together by a common vision of industrial, high-input agriculture as the only way to farm. This mental model defines the limits of possibility for most (but certainly not all) of us at the university. I think we need to reject the industrial model of agriculture. We must. It's not sustainable.
In rejecting the industrial model of agriculture and working for sustainability, maybe we can save our land grant institutions by refocusing on the public good. Maybe we can save the land, water and ecosystems that provide the productive capacity for agriculture in this country if we change the way we farm. Maybe we can save our own lives, if we change the way we live. It's still all about sustainability.
This article was submitted (upon request) to a sustainable agriculture newsletter of a major land grant university. Upon receipt, it was deemed too controversial to print at this time. It has not been submitted for publication anywhere else but is being shared with friends and colleagues upon request. July 1, 2001.
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