Finding Common Ground in Eco-Ag
One of the many effects of technology in the past several decades has been the dissolution of a common culture. This statement is not a moral one — it’s not that technology has necessarily made our culture better or worse (although it probably has made it worse!) — it’s simply an assertion that Americans used to share more in common than we do today.
Take, for example, something as benign as our television viewing habits. More than two-thirds of American television sets used to tune in to I Love Lucy. Today, the most-watched events are big football games, which barely register over 10 percent of viewers. Regardless of whether either of these subjects is worthy of anyone’s time, the point is that several decades ago you could walk into a diner, or over to the water cooler at work, and have a reasonable expectation that other people had also watched Lucy stuff her mouth with chocolates last night. That just isn’t the case these days.
Similarly, for better or worse, Americans used to get their news from just a few media outlets. The vast proliferation of such organizations today means that people can choose to tune into outlets that tell them what they want to hear, leading to a loss in common understanding and increased polarization.
As regenerative farmer Gabe Brown puts it, we must regain “common ground for the common good.” Brown argues that farmers and ranchers who seek to be regenerative agree on 85 percent of things. They recognize the general needs for better soil health — to implement the principles Brown himself has so famously advocated. Even conventional farming is picking up on the importance of cover crops, soil biology and keeping the soil covered.
The corollary of focusing on the 85 percent of common agreement is that we don’t spend all our energy bickering about the remaining 15 percent. This unfortunately happens in many communities — we end up having bitter disagreements with those in our same camp over internecine matters while neglecting to try to convince others about our key beliefs. In regenerative farming, maybe this means holding relatively loosely our views on whether it’s more important to balance soil chemistry or to improve soil biology — see our articles on this topic in this issue by Timothy Reinbott and John Kempf — or being open to the ideas of the next generation, even if that means surrendering some control on the farm — see Marty Travis’s article on farm succession.
And as we come together this month at our annual Eco-Ag Conference, let’s be sure to keep that 85 percent in mind — even as we constructively challenge each other in the remaining 15.
And that’s the view from the country.
