Lost in all the many debates about genetic modification and organic food and heirloom tomatoes and starving Africans is one simple fact: Agriculture must be sustainable. Because, as Michael Pollan (whose fault it is that we all care about heirloom tomatoes) points out, the definition of unsustainable is that someday it must collapse. And agriculture is truly the one thing that cannot be allowed to collapse. So, for a quick early definition: sustainable agriculture is agriculture that can be practiced for the long haul. If we run out of cheap oil or the climate changes or the politicians flip-flop, sustainable agriculture keeps going.
Sustainable agriculture may or may not contain genetically modified foods, but it certainly contains improved varieties of staples like corn and wheat. It also, for the record, needs to be concerned with preserving some of those heirlooms, not so we can sell them for $3 a tomato at farmers markets, but because genetic diversity is key to survival for any species, and relying on a limited genepool for our food is like assuming that we can rely on the same royal families to provide our monarchs forever—eventually we’re going to run into problems. Sustainable agriculture probably uses synthetic nitrogen, and it definitely uses it for now—there are too many places where building up soil to a point where a stable agro-ecosystem can sustain the kinds of yields we need will take decades. At least until then, we need a jump-start.
Sustainable agriculture will not, eventually, look like a cornfield in Iowa—it will be more diverse, and less input-intensive, and that’s good for all of us. But neither will it look like your backyard garden. And it certainly won’t look the same everywhere. It will rely more on natural systems and less on fossil fuels. But it won’t fit anyone’s dogma. Agriculture isn’t about 10 commandments, it’s about pragmatism, and that’s true whether you’re a corn farmer in Indiana or a corn farmer in Ecuador or a corn farmer in Malawi. There’s a reason people grow corn in all those places, and there’s a reason they grow it differently, and there’s a lot of conflicting stories about why the guy in Indiana grows so much more of it.
And that’s the story I want to tell. Check your dogmas at the door and let’s get down to issues: why are so many people hungry, how do we feed the world without destroying the natural resources that let us do it, and what does this mean for all of us who eat food, that comes from plants, that grows from soil.
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