I also appreciate his third point and Gary Weber's comments about the
importance of actually doing work on the systems that embody the
principles of sustainable ag. Where there is general
agreement about the principles -- and apparently there was at the
1978 Organic Conference -- then there is little need for discussion
of definitions or clarification of direction. My reading of the more
recent literature suggests that there is considerable differences of
opinion about what is meant by sustainable and how to get there, and
therefore there is a need to discuss and clarify goals and
directions. I don't think this is a wasted effort... how can we work
together until we are sure that we are working on the same thing
rather than working on different things?
I agree with Gary Weber's comment that farmers and ranchers
are in the decision making role, and that there is much work to
be done in helping them make decisions that will lead to greater
food safety and cleaner water. But I disagree with the generic
idea that "helping" farmers and ranchers achieve their goals is
necessarily sustainable if the goals themselves are not sustainable.
A former Secretary of Agriculture advised farmers to "Get
Big or Get Out"... The extension service has assisted them in taking
on debt, and purchasing larger machinery and farming more acres.
These trends continue. Is that sustainable?
According to Charles Kidd (Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics, 1992) there was talk about sustainability and sustainable
societies in the early 1970's (The first use of the term
"sustainability" also seems to have originated from Britain in
William Goldsmith's edited volume titled "Blueprint for Survival".)
Once the idea of sustainability started to be used, it seems that it
was only a matter of time before people started talking
about sustainable sectors of such a society: hence sustainable
agriculture. Kidd argues, correctly I think, that the concept of
sustainability has roots in several different areas: ecology/carrying
capacity, steady state economics, natural resource economics, critique
of technology, and eco-development. Each of these fields bring
somewhat different problems, perspectives, assumptions, and meanings
to the general term sustainability. I think there is a similar
variety of meanings in sustainable agriculture. This does not mean
that we should all stop what we are doing and spend all our time
coming to the one true universal definition. Rather, I think we
should recognize that sustainability is a somewhat vague and evolving
concept. We should be explicit about what we mean when we use
the term in order to avoid confusion. Furthermore, we should spend
some time reflecting on how new information and our particular
actions might promote one version of sustainability over another, and
thereby help clarify the concept as it evolves.
Respectfully,
Gregory McIsaac
PS: My embarrassment at my ignorance of the 1977 volume, and the
similarity of Colin Fisher's ideas to my own, is somewhat
mitigated by a comment that Herman Daly made in one of his books (I
think the second editon of "Steady State Economics"). Daly
doubted that any of his ideas were really original because he had
on several occasions been surprised to discover what he thought
had been his original insights were actually published years
or decades before his own publication of said insights. Such is the
rough and tumble world of publishing and/or perishing.
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