Few of us are old enough to remember when the circus came to town and actually set up a tent. These days, the few circuses that exist at all perform in our many multi-purpose arenas. But the popular image of the big tent remains as a place where people gather from every walk of life, with a variety of opinions and beliefs.
Ecological and regenerative agriculture has always been a big tent. Acres U.S.A. has, for five decades, stood as a place where farmers, agronomists, scientists and thinkers who are interested in ecological agriculture can come together under one broad coalition. Our tent includes the farmer planting his first stand of rye as a cover crop, and it includes the organic or biodynamic grower who has not applied a man-made chemical to his soil since Eisenhower occupied the White House. Everyone who wants to build soil, strengthen rural economies and steward creation is welcome.
But even big tents have side curtains. Any community with convictions must, sooner or later, define who is inside and who is not. To refuse to draw lines is simply to allow the culture to be defined by whatever loud voice shows up next. In politics, this lesson has been learned before. William F. Buckley Jr. understood in the 1960s that the conservative movement would destroy itself if it refused to distinguish itself from the conspiratorial John Birch Society. Bill Clinton made a similar stand in the 1990s by publicly distancing himself from Sista Souljah. Both men understood that a movement broad enough to matter still must be bounded enough to remain coherent.
Agriculture is not politics, but wisdom crosses domains. Acres U.S.A. must remain the big tent of ecological agriculture — but we also must be honest about what falls outside its walls.
We must honestly, and soberly, assess that a farmer who sees no value in reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, and who believes agriculture’s future lies in doubling down on twentieth-century reductionism and unlimited genetic tinkering, is not in our tent. Yet, at least! Such a person may be hardworking and sincere, but he is not interested in the central mission of building farming systems that regenerate the land rather than mine it. Most such farmers have no interest in joining us anyway, but we must remain winsome, in the hope of convincing these folks that the only agriculture that makes sense economically is that which is ecological.
Second — and more uncomfortably — we must guard our tent from the purist who would refuse fellowship to any farmer still on the journey toward ecological farming. The person who would bar the door to a conventional grower trying — too slowly, in their mind — to reduce nitrogen inputs or to experiment with multispecies covers does not embrace the spirit of our movement. If only the already-perfect are welcome, then no one will be. Such a posture is neither charitable nor wise. It resembles the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son — correct in one sense, but wrong in the greater one.
These descriptions are somewhat caricatured. Real people are more complicated. Most farmers and thinkers fall in the vast middle, trying, failing, learning, adjusting and improving — the way human beings always have. Perfection in this fallen world should never be the condition of acceptance by one another.
The important point is this: those who are inside the tent are those willing to engage in the family conversation. Debate within the tent is not only welcomed — it is necessary! (Although some debates are thankfully over, like whether every person deserves dignity regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religion, etc.) Let’s argue vigorously about what technologies can be used responsibly and what cannot. Let us challenge one another, sharpen one another and learn from one another.
But those unwilling to have the debate — those who reject the conversation entirely — sadly place themselves outside the tent.
And that’s the view from the country.
