| TWIN FALLS -- If it's true that the greatest opportunity for
change always appears in times of the greatest problems, than agriculture
is ripe for a shift. What's needed is a vision.
"The problem we have for today is that we have no vision for
agriculture in the 21st century," Fred Kirschenmann told participants
at the Farmers, Friends and the Land workshop Dec. 1 and 2. As the
recently appointed director for the Leopold Center for Sustainable
Agriculture at Iowa State University, finding a new vision is one of
Kirschenmann's goals.
But since Kirschenmann is a student of history in addition to owning a
3,500-acre certified organic farm in North Dakota and running a think tank
in Iowa, he first took his listeners on a journey back to the four visions
that have guided agricultural production in the United States.
"We have to have a clear picture of where we are so we can think
creatively."
The first vision was held by Native Americans who saw farming as a
supplement to hunting and gathering, a way of ensuring everyone got fed.
Puritans, who wanted to tame the wilderness and create a Kingdom of God on
earth, brought the second
vision; which was followed by Thomas Jefferson's agrarian society.
Industrial agriculture came about in the early 20th century when leaders
pushed to grow as much food and fiber as possible with the fewest farmers
to free up labor to do other things to benefit society.
The common thread between those visions was that agriculture was also
perceived as a public good. Today, without a vision, agriculture is seen
as a public threat. Agriculture is that activity that creates odor, that
activity that erodes soil, that activity that threatens public health,
Kirschenmann said.
So, one part of any new vision for agriculture must include consumers.
"The vision we come up with has to be compelling enough to get our
urban and suburban cousins excited because that's where the political
power is. If we only have a debate about food, we'll lose the
debate."
That's why Kirschenmann believes a new vision for agriculture must
include the environment and health issues that consumers are concerned
about, and the realities that agriculture is facing. One of those
realities is farmers are operating in a "full world," meaning
that natural resources are reaching capacity.
Kirschenmann used fuel prices as an example of what operating in a
"full world" might mean for agriculture. According to a
prediction in the Nov. 20 Des Moines Register, gas prices will hit $3 a
gallon in the summer of 2001.
"How do we deal with this? Most of us will deal with it by putting
our heads in the sand," he said. "My neighbors back in North
Dakota still think diesel is going back to 50 cents."
While $3 a gallon gas sounds pretty dismal for agriculture, it might
have unintended consequences for deriving a new vision. Higher fuel costs
can make ideas like regional food networks sound more attractive than they
have in the past.
Kirschenmann and the Leopold Center staff have been playing with a
diagram of an equilateral triangle this fall. Although economy is at the
top of the triangle, the legs of community and ecology are just as
important in this "new agriculture."
"We've been behaving in agriculture like only the top part of the
triangle is important, like the market is god," he said.
Regional food markets offer a way to bring the three sides of
agriculture into equilibrium and provide a new vision for agriculture that
consumers can get excited about. In small ways, it's already happening.
Community supported agriculture groups, in which consumers pay growers to
receive a quantity of produce on a set schedule, have grown from just two
in the United States 10 years ago to over 700. While still small,
community supported agriculture is becoming a significant part of the food
system.
Successes like that give Kirschenmann hope for the future, even while
he's throwing out bulletin points like "farmers are now five times
more likely to commit suicide than die from farm accidents," or that
"between one-fifth and one-third of farms in Nebraska and Iowa will
go out of business in the next three years."
"I know this probably sounds pretty dismal, but I'm actually
pretty optimistic. I'm a great student of history, and the greatest
opportunity for change comes when things are bad," Kirschenmann said.
"If you think the present agriculture is inevitable, think again.
Just a few things changing makes the whole system vulnerable and
unwieldy."
And that's one reason he agreed to take the job at the Leopold Center
when he could have been thinking about retirement.
"I believe agriculture is on the cusp of change." |