Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Farmer Philosopher

Contents

Acknowledgments xiii Editor’s Introduction 1 Preface 8 Part 1: Working at Home: Lessons from Kirschenmann Family Farms Theological Reflections while Castrating Calves 15 On Behalf of American Farmers 22 Pilgrimage to a Barnyard 27 Low-Input Farming in Practice: Putting a System Together and Making It Work 30 A Transcendent Vision 40 Expanding the Vision of Sustainable Agriculture 48 The Role of Independent Beef Producers in Rural Development 63 Foreword to Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches 66 On Being an “Objective” Farmer 71 Being at Home 78 The Pleasure of Good Eating 92 Is Sustainability in Our Energy Future? 96 A Journey toward Sustainability 99 Contents xi Part 2: Cracks in the Bridges: Inspecting the Industrial Food System On Learning to Farm Ecologically on the Prairie 121 Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World? And Is That the Right Question? 141 Biotechnology on the Ground: What Kind of Future Can Farmers Expect, and What Kind Should They Create? 153 Questioning Biotechnology’s Claims and Imagining Alternatives 161 Why American Agriculture Is Not Sustainable 178 What Constitutes Sound Science? 188 And Then What? Attending to the Context of Our Innovations 204 Food as Relationship 214 Is the USDA Accounting for the Costs to Farmers from Contamination Caused by Genetically Engineered Plants? 226 Placing the Pew Commission Report in Context 235 Redefining Sustainability: From “Greening” to Enhancing Capacity for Self-Renewal 238 Part 3: Envisioning an Alternative Food and Farming System What’s an Education For? 243 Resolving Conflicts in American Land-Use Values: How Organic Farming Can Help 248 What About the Next Twenty Years? Or “It’s Turtles All the Way Down” 255 Rediscovering American Agriculture 262 Spirituality and Cooperatives 271 In Search of Objectivity, or How to Create a Credible Certification Program 279 On Becoming Lovers of the Soil 284 Challenges Facing Philosophy as We Enter the Twenty-first Century: Reshaping the Way the Human Species Feeds Itself 290 A Pig’s Tale: Marketing Stories for New Value Chains 306 A Bright Future for “Farmers of the Middle” 317 xii Contents Revitalizing Rural Communities: How Churches Can Help 322 Rethinking Food 336 Using What We Know to Make a Difference 342 Afterword 358 Notes 361 Selected Bibliography 387 Index 395 xiii Contents ...