ORGANICA Magazine
Volume 22 · NO. 66 · WINTER 2003
www.organicanews.com

 

Book Reviews

Putting Nature Back into the Farm

Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
Edited by Andrew Kimbrell.
Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002.
396 pgs. Softcover. $45.00

The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems
Edited by Dana L. Jackson and Laura L. Jackson.
Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002.
250 pgs. Softcover. $25.00

Reviewed by Dave Brian Butvill

Imagine a culture centered around good health. Its members harness endless supplies of sunlight and wind for energy because burning fossil fuels depletes ozone, aggravates asthma, and takes hundreds of millions of years to replenish. They protect forests, coral reefs and other habitats because nearly all medicines originate from nature. But perhaps more than anything else, they engage in healthy food production because spraying what they eat with carcinogenic chemicals-that spill into streams and lakes, and disperse in the air they breathe-just doesn't make any sense.

This is the common-sense vision of two new books tackling the grand issue of food production. While Fatal Harvest brazenly points out the pitfalls of industrial agriculture, The Farm as Natural Habitat introduces an emerging movement to bring nature back to farms to make them healthier and more stable. Both books show that pockets of this world already exist, profiling one farmer after another making a living-rather, thriving-producing food in a way that's healthy for rural communities, farm families, consumers and nature.

A dramatic call for action, Fatal Harvest provides an exhaustive argument against today's industrial farming practices. Beginning with essays by leading thinkers such as biologist Wes Jackson and poet and farmer Wendell Berry, who set the political stage, the book swiftly launches into full-scale war. In the very first attack, entitled "corporate lies," editor Andrew Kimbrell-named by the Utne Reader as one of the world's 100 leading visionaries-combats the "industry's well-funded misinformation campaigns about the benefits of industrial agriculture." Drawing on reports by the USDA, FDA, EPA and other governmental organizations, Kimbrell systematically debunks the seven most common myths-including that intense monoculture farming will feed the world, keep food cheap, and offer more food choices. He points out, for example, that there has never been a food shortage, and today enough food is produced worldwide to provide every human on the planet with more than four pounds of meat, dairy, grains, fruits and vegetables every day.

Before dozens of other essays delve into the social and economic implications of industrialized agriculture and much more, Kimbrell compares the impacts of conventional and organic farming-product by product, from grains, through berries and melons, to vegetables. While this approach makes it easy to get the picture, Fatal Harvest drives the point home with full-page snapshots showing diverse, colorful, organically cultivated acres powerfully juxtaposed with long dusty rows of lifeless monoculture. The result is a dizzying wake-up call to a country deafened by corporate jingles like "DDT is good for me."

While Fatal Harvest, from the title alone, risks being chalked up as whiny environmentalist propaganda, The Farm as Natural Habitat will likely one day be considered the book that broke down the barrier between environmentalists and the larger farming community and helped reform contemporary agriculture.

The Midwest was once a vast sea of pristine forests, clear streams, and prairies containing herds of buffalo. But it has become transformed into what authors Dana and Laura Jackson call an "ecological sacrifice area," cleared of every remnant of nature and substituted with row crops. Iowa, for example, has only one-tenth of one percent of its original vegetation intact, and the most polluted lakes and streams in the nation.

The Jacksons eloquently argue that this trend is "an unacceptable, unaffordable sacrifice that is far from necessary" and then show how farmers across the nation are discovering this for themselves, ignoring government recommendations, and changing their lives for the better. For example, when South Dakota farmer Dennis Fagerland discovered that nutrient runoff from his farm had decimated fish populations in a local lake, he took action. By converting part of the land into temporary wetland habitat, he was able to slow rainwater runoff and filter contaminants before they reached the lake. Now, fish, shrimp and crayfish in the lake have rebounded, and the wetlands attract more species of waterfowl than he can keep track of. "It'd be easier to name the species I haven't seen," he's quoted as saying. Additionally, the temporary waters leave behind a rich stand of slough grass in quantities triple the amount of hay he'd grown there in previous years. This free fodder feeds his 100 head of cattle.

After providing myriad other examples of farmers reconnecting with nature to increase the value of their property, their product and their lives, the Jacksons outline how to spread the fever: the sacrifices farmers must make, the changes in consumer diet that must take place, and the role of government policy.

While the current administration may make a healthy vision of the future appear as dim as the sun on a hot, smoggy afternoon in L.A. (or Houston, Mexico City, or Tokyo, for that matter), these books go beyond a glimmer of hope to show that sustainable agriculture is on the horizon.