Sustainable Agriculture in History
Tom Allen (HI500010@brownvm.brown.edu)
Tue, 05 Mar 96 21:25:58 EST
Greetings All: I thought it might interest you to know that yours is a crusade
with an ancient and honerable pedigree. Some one hundred and fifty years ago
many among the well-educated, well-bred, and well-heeled embraced a virtually i
dentical ideology: a belief that the land was a resource to be nurtured and th
at farmers had a special role to play in society. Unfortunately their attempts
to re-educate American farmers was a complete failure. While the latter were
quite willing to accept some of the techniques advocated by their progressive n
eighbors, they never embraced the ideal. Consequently, agriculture continued t
o be practiced extensively, rather than intensively, with the results that we s
ee today. I wonder if there are any lessons to be learned here?
T. Allen