John Ikerd
-----Original Message-----
From: Hal Hamilton [mailto:hhamilton@centerss.org]
Sent: Friday, July 09, 1999 9:45 AM
To: Jim Worstell; Ikerd, John E.;
sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: RE: Social and political aspects
Jim and John, etc.,
This seems to be an extraordinarily fruitful line of
thought. My suggestion would be to ground it in actual experience and case
studies.
I think of a friend Arie van den Brand, who runs an network
of "nature coops" in the Netherlands. These are groups of farmers who
contract, as groups, with local authorities for payment to protect
specifically defined biodiversity. It all started with concern over bird
nesting, and the realization by enviro groups that farm fields were actually
better for particular species than "wild" nature. The farmers have become
expert at noticing species interactions and entrepreneurial in their
development of contractual relationships. We might describe this as
component reductionism, but it seems to me to be an example of what Jim
calls a learning community in which relationships and continual learning
lead to a more complex "box."
The conversation also makes me recall long "lessons" from
John Berry Sr., who described the tobacco program: "We created the program
for people. The crop was incidental. The goal was to keep these families
on these hills (as he waved his arm across the window of his little country
law office), to support a local economy based on good grass farming, to make
sure they could pay their notes and send their children to school." [Wes
Jackson once observed that the best thing about the tobacco program in KY is
that it subsidizes a grass based economy.]
I also recall a group of Americans I was leading in France
last year. We were visiting very successful coops and entrepreneurs, and a
couple of our US participants kept asking, "What's your 10 year plan for the
business? What are your long term goals?" The answer kept coming back that
our hosts were satisfied with where they were, of course aiming to make
improvements, sometimes with modest growth goals, but rarely with ambitious
growth goals. The US participants at first thought the French farmers were
lying--such is the power of our assumptions. After several more interviews
we because clear that there was a significant cultural difference. These
were people who had created successful products, were making money, but who
had few aspirations to wealth. Protecting native meadows, keeping stocking
densities low, developing relationships with consumers, supporting new
allied businesses in their towns, celebrating traditional culture along with
innovative ideas--all these aspects are intertwined. Supports your
assertions, Jim, I think.
Hal
Hal Hamilton
Center for Sustainable Systems
433 Chestnut St., Berea KY 40403 USA
Phone: (606) 986-5336; Fax: (606) 986-1299
hhamilton@centerss.org
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
[mailto:owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu]On
Behalf Of Jim Worstell
Sent: Friday, July 09, 1999 9:59 AM
To: Ikerd, John E.; sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: Re: Social and political aspects
John,
I like your three dimensional box analogy much better than
the three-legged
stool. I guess I'm not so much interested in measuring the
outside of the
box as I am understanding how the box creates itself. Like
many phenomena,
the important dimensions of sustainability are as yet
undefined. These
dimensions could be said to be folded up inside the box--as
in string
theory, we know time and three dimensions, but several more
are inaccessible
to our observation.
The three dimensions are the results. What are the causes
of
sustainability?
Let's hypothesize that the vital cultures discussed by
Douglass and Bawden,
are at once the foundation and the generator of
sustainability. Given that
notion, the task is to define the values, assumptions and
habits of such
"learning communities" to determine which are causes of
sustainability and
which are epiphenomena or even detract from sustainability.
Most people growing up on small farms close to no large
cities, as you and I
did, experience something less than a "vital rural culture."
Something like
the old German saying, "Cities make free" lead many to find
vital community
away from the often stultifying rural areas.
So, "vital rural cultures" to many is a internal
contradiction.
Do you think this line of thought is worth pursuing? If you
do, how would
you do it?
----- Original Message -----
From: Ikerd, John E. <IkerdJ@missouri.edu>
To: 'jim worstell' <jvworstell@futura.net>; Hal Hamilton
<hhamilton@centerss.org>; Wilson, Dale
<WILSONDO@phibred.com>;
<sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 2:33 PM
Subject: RE: Social and political aspects
> Jim;
>
> I think you raise an excellent point concerning the
natural tendency of
> people to want to dissect sustainability into three parts
- ecological,
> economic, and social. I try to avoid the habit of
referring to
> sustainability as having three "parts" - although the
reductionism habit
is
> hard to break. Instead, I think of sustainability as a
single entity
that
> has three distinct "dimensions" -- in the same sense that
a wooden box has
> three dimensions; height, length, and width. A box that
lacks any one or
> two of these dimensions is not a box at all, but instead
is an infinitely
> thin board or stick. We can't understand the fundamental
nature of a box
> by taking it apart and looking at its height, length, or
width separately.
> We have to understand the concept of a box as a whole.
But, once we
> understand the holistic concept of a box; knowing its
height, length, and
> width become important descriptive dimensions. A
fundamental problem
with
> sustainability is that, unlike a box, we can't measure the
three
dimensions
> of sustainability using inches or feet or any single unit
of measure.
> That's one reason why we simply cannot ignore the fact
that sustainability
> has these different dimensions.
>
> It really doesn't matter to me whether we come to the
sustainability issue
> from an economic, ecological, or social perspective, as
long as we give
due
> consideration to all three dimensions. I have no problem
with your
> suggestion that we approach sustainability from a
social/cultural
> perspective as long as we give adequate consideration to
the economic and
> ecological dimensions. I agree that we have given far
too much emphasis
to
> the economics and too little emphasis to social
organization in the past,
> but we don't want to make a similar mistake by ignoring
the economic
> dimension in the future. We can't make a bigger box
simply by making one
> that it taller, or wider, or longer - by concentrating on
one dimension
and
> ignoring the other two. You included "the values of
stewardship,
> self-reliance, humility and holism" in your description of
sustainable
> social organization. I just prefer to deal with the
dimensions more
> explicitly so that none gets left out.
>
> John Ikerd
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jim worstell [mailto:jvworstell@futura.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 9:17 PM
> To: Hal Hamilton; Wilson, Dale;
> sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
> Subject: Re: Social and political aspects
>
> By accepting a reductionistic three component definition
of
> sustainability we invite people to delete or redefine the
"social"
component
> as wilsondo@phibred.com <mailto:wilsondo@phibred.com> and
others do.
> The original source for the three part definition seems to
> be misleading simplification of a 1984 analysis by Gordon
Douglass.
> Douglass described three schools of thought regarding
agricultural
> sustainability. The "community school" , in contrast to
the other two
> schools, "pays most attention to the effects of different
agricultural
> systems on the vitality, social organization, and culture
of rural life".
> "[I]t's members are also ecologically minded, but their
prime interest is
in
> promoting vital, coherent, rural cultures that encourage
the values of
> stewardship, self-reliance, humility, and holism".
> The "social aspects" then become not one leg of
> sustainability, but the entire foundation. Any economic
or ecological
> "profit or loss" results from these social structures.
Such an approach
> underscores the qualitative difference of sustainable and
conventional
> agricultural systems.
> Think about abandoning component thinking for a more
> holistic approach. Aren't "vital, coherent rural
cultures" common to all
> sustainable agricultural systems?
> Stressing profit and ecology instead, as we have here in
the
> U.S., have led us into our present quagmire of
agricultural crisis.
Social
> organization which encourages "the values of stewardship,
self-reliance,
> humility and holism," appears to provide the long-term
solution. Yet
we've
> allowed such concepts to be marginalized to the point of
extinction in ag
> policy debates.
> Douglass' book, Agricultural Sustainability in the New
World
> Order, in out of print, but a webpage discussing some of
his ideas can be
> found at www.canr.msu.edu/bailey/background/pub
> <http://www.canr.msu.edu/bailey/background/pub> 3.htm
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hal Hamilton <hhamilton@centerss.org
> <mailto:hhamilton@centerss.org> >
> To: Wilson, Dale <WILSONDO@phibred.com
> <mailto:WILSONDO@phibred.com> >;
sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
> <mailto:sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu>
> <sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
> <mailto:sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu> >
> Date: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 11:34 AM
> Subject: RE: Social and political aspects (was:
> Questions on organic
> livestock...)
>
>
> >Dale,
> >
> >Sustainable agriculture, as defined by Congress and
> many others, has a
> social leg to balance environmental and economic legs.
>
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