From WLockeretz@infonet.tufts.eduFri May 10 11:32:14 1996 Date: Fri, 10 May 96 7:21:38 EDT From: WLockeretz@infonet.tufts.edu To: sanet-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu Subject: What is "agriculture" Bill Duesing asks whether there is a generally accepted definition of "agriculture". There answer is simple: No. Some people (also the Census of Agriculture) use it to mean the part of the food and (natural) fiber production process that happens on farms. Others use it to mean the entire production process, both post-farm industries (e.g., grain handlers, food processors, distributors) and those supplying farmers with production inputs (e.g., fertilizer manufacturers). People who use this broader definition, when they want to confine themselves to the on-farm part, call it "production agriculture." Conversely, people who use "agriculture" to mean only on-farm production typically refer to the larger version as the "food system", or something like that. As long both of these widely divergent definitions are in common use, there may not be much point in trying to refine the definition any further. But each has some vagueness and inconsistency. For example, while the broader definition includes food processing, it does not include the manufacture of cotton shirts, although it definitely includes cotton growing. "Production agriculture" has definitional difficulties too, such as whether it includes farm-related activities like agritourism, woodlot management, or on-farm value added processing. It's sometimes hard to decide where agricultural production ends and something else begins, when the latter also takes place on a farm. And, as in so many cases, there are definitional disagreements that at bottom are really political, i.e., modes of production that some people exclude from agriculture because they don't like them. It's sometimes hard to confine oneself to purely lexical matters, but it would be helpful if "What is agriculture?" could be discussed separately from "What is desirable agriculture?" Willie Lockeretz Tufts University From cfowler@hawaii.eduSat May 11 00:59:36 1996 Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 16:06:21 -1000 From: Cynthia Twyford Fowler To: Bill Duesing <71042.2023@compuserve.com> Cc: SANET-MG Subject: Re: What is Agriculture? Dear Bill Duesing: There are no clean and clear boundaries between agriculture and the rest of society. Agriculture penetrates all aspects of daily living for everyone on this planet. It is an essential activity for human survival. There are so many different asapects of producing, distributing and consuming food. Any attempt to delimit agriculture will exclude some important aspects of it. Cynthia Fowler Agricultural Anthropology University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii cfowler@hawaii.edu On Thu, 9 May 1996, Bill Duesing wrote: > A document I saw recently indicated that 50% of the workers in agriculture work > at the retail level, which seems to indicate that agriculture is more than > farming and growing food. > > Does anyone a good definition, generally agreed upon, for agriculture? Where is > the boundary between agriculture and the rest of society? > > Thanks, > > Bill Duesing > Solar Farm Education > box 135 > stevenson, CT 06491 > 71042.2023@COMPUSERVE.com > > From 71042.2023@compuserve.comWed May 22 10:50:41 1996 Date: 22 May 96 05:05:56 EDT From: Bill Duesing <71042.2023@compuserve.com> To: SANET-MG Subject: Grapes of wrath I really appreciate the historical perspective of recent postings. I've just started reading The Grapes of Wrath, but my wife and son have both read it recently, and shared parts of it with me. This winter, about the time one of the big vegetable grower magazines was crowing about the increasing concentration and market share of the country's largest vegetable growers (I believe that one firm grew half of the carrots in California) Suzanne was telling me about the early chapters with tractors and concentrated control of land pushing people away from a sustaining way of life into homelessness and hunger. Dan read me an incredible piece of writing from Steinbeck's classic, the description of the lush orchards where the fruit was destroyed rather than fed to the hungry. Suzanne remembers armed guards around enormous tomato fields in California in the 1980s. Around here there are food drives for the needy outside enormous new suburban markets which give away two of an item if you buy one. Buy one dozen eggs, get two free. and on and on, food item after food item. I think the most critical difference is not right versus left, or industrial versus biological, or capital-intensive high tech ( genetic engineering, etc.) versus knowledge/experience-intensive high tech (biodynamic,and various traditional agricultures) and not even not sustainable versus sustainable. The critical difference is the role of the individual in his or her own life. Mr. Avery's vision effectively removes / assumes that most people will not be able to do anything to sustain their lives other than to try to find a job to buy the necessities in a world where concerntrated control of automated production produces a plethra of goods with disasterous side effects. His agriculture is not participatory. My recent search for a definition of agriculture was an earnest one. What are we talking about when we are talking about agriculture? The most official response (from usda.gov) was **"AGRICULTURE is commonly understood to be any component of the industrial segment which provides goods and services to producers of food and fiber, production of food and fiber commodities, storage of food and fiber commodities, processing of food and fiber, transportation of food and fiber, marketing of food and fiber. American agriculture, like agriculture anywhere in the world, is an industrial system. The primary difference is that the production segment is highly dependent upon the environment, much more than other industrial systems. Furthermore, a breakdown anywhere in the system directly affects the lives of anyone interested in eating. There is no other industrial system upon which humanity is so dependent. In my opinion one of the clear problems we have moving into the 21st Century is to communicate with the public that agriculture is not simply the growing of crops and livestock."** I'm not sure that "agriculture anywhere in the world is an industrial system" as this reply implies, and certainly I am not sure that this is desirable. I've heard about some very interesting biological or even ecological systems. Based on this definition, however, we'd have to say that the aluminum can of corn-sweetener-based soda, dropping out of a vending machine is an example of this broader definition of agriculture. This gives us a few things to consider when thinking about sustainable agriculture. We might be able to grow a genetically-engineered corn that resists insects and an otherwise benign substance that kills all green plants, and which produces is own nitrogen. It could even be grown in a way that conserved all the topsoil. Even then, what effect would that have on the overall sustainability of that can of soda as delivered. Salmon in Northwest rivers are facing extinction in part to produce artificially cheap aluminum for this can. (What is life like near the aluminum mines in Jamaica and Brazil? What is life like in the places which receive toxic inks from the labels from the recycled aluminum cans?) The natives of James Bay have been flooded out and had their environment poisoned for the same purpose-cheap aluminum cans. I suspect that cokepepsibudweisermiller (with about three quarters of the soda/beer market here) and their smaller compatriots may be among the main beneficiaries of the large dams that are displacing people from the land all over the developing world. (Think about what effects on "Agriculture" a change from aluminum cans to refillable glass bottles would have. The distribution technology and the structure of the system are closely related. Refillable milk bottles imply local dairies.) The radioactive wastes from the electricity to run the soda machine (in order to keep a few gallons of liquid a few degrees below ambiant temperature) and the cfcs in its refrigeration system become part of the agriculture in need of sustaining. The rapidly falling percentage of the food dollar that goes to "Production agriculture" indicates that over three quarters of agriculture happens off the farm even before you consider the increasingly important seed/machine/chemical/capital farm input suppliers. (I know that agriculture is not just about food, but this figure is at hand. One of the great things about having a small piece of land is that it can provide so many benefits/services-building materials, firewood, fenceposts, beauty, flowers, nutrituous weeds like lambs quarters, recreation, solar access for home, garden and clothesline and so much more.) Although certainly the sustainability of the soil, plants, animals and environment of the farm is critical, sustaining the kind of growth and changes that are happening with the industrial food system in Connecticut is going to be very hard on the environment. It is constantly rearranging the land to make larger and fancier food retail environments, and widening the roads to bring in the packages needed to supply supermarkets and fast food restaurants. Meanwhile the medical industry and its cost continues to grow as more and more people suffer from the diseases either of excess food comsumption (see USDA, ERS bulletin 711, The American Diet, Health and Economic Consequences) or of poverty and the lack of availability of the healthiest foods (whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables) in the cities. One of the most moving parts of Grapes of Wrath that Suzanne and Dan both read to me, is chapter 14-apparently an editorial digression from the story. It is very powerful. Averys' bombs thrown at organic and sustainable community food security and other are probably evidence that those who want to control it all are scared. Steinbeck's image of two men sharing what they have as the thing that must be stamped out is haunting.