My lifetime has seen the commercialisation of everything except — for the present — the air we breathe.

Has this made us demonstrably happier? A rhetorical question, maybe, but one that deserves more thought than we are often willing to give.  I do not mean to suggest that there was anything resembling a golden age in the past, merely to draw attention to the consequences of incorporating all aspects of life in the ‘market’. Child care, care of the elderly, leisure activities, even arts, have all been drawn into the money economy.

The money economy, in fact the whole superstructure of civilisation, depends on agriculture.  Agriculture marked the end of hunting and gathering and the start of settled communities, which in turn led to the concept of land as private property. When land ownership and management were vested in the same people, in the same locality, sustainability was a concern, because unless the land could be kept productive, it would not keep the community stable. There were other ways to obtain food — by conquest and by trade — but conquest created animosity, even hatred, in the conquered, and trade required the sustainable production of commodities wanted by those with food to spare.  We know that trade was often the prelude to conquest, as in North America when immigrant settlers traded with the indigenous populations, established permanent settlements and then deprived native peoples of their communal lands as they expanded westwards.”Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, as the saying goes.

Agriculture was the foundation of the nation state, but now depends on the decisions made by the elites who run business and politics through the mechanism of the revolving door that connects corporations and nation states with each other. This week I decided to look at the headlines and stories in the ‘Farmers Weekly’, a magazine for farmers in Great Britain.  I wondered whether Farmers Weekly today would reflect the different possibilities for agriculture, such as the promotion of local food chains, community farms, permaculture, and of course organic farming.   I had more than a passing interest because I was a reporter and then a feature writer with Farmers Weekly from 1972 to 1979. Then there was strong pressure from advertisers like Shell (oils) and ICI (agricultural chemicals) to concentrate on high-energy technology-heavy farming as the only possible way ahead. If you wrote about organic farming, or the preservation of rare livestock breeds, or the occupation of farming from perspectives other than that of maximum profit per acre, it was an indication that you were soft in the head, a dimwit. Thus the use of paraquat to kill off crop residues to allow direct drilling of the next crop was greeted as a triumph of agronomic research. Paraquat — 1,1′-dimethyl-4,4′-bipyridinium — has reported half-lives from 16 months in laboratory conditions to 13 years in the field. It is poisonous to the lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, cornea, adrenal glands, digestive system and skin. Humans and wildlife suffer from the toxicity. (See http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/paraquat.htm for a summary.)

The power of advertisers to persuade publications to take a specific editorial line remains an issue. Farmers Weekly is full of adverts for herbicides, fungicides, antibiotics and the like, the essential ingredients for industrial farming, but contains undercurrents of potential resistance to the big-business model. Apparently there are plans to build, in Lincolnshire, a dairy for 9,000 cows.  While farmers seem to think this is inevitable — “…the economy is such that this is the way of things…”, “…I guess this unit will be replicated across the UK as smaller family units cease production…” — approval is far from unanimous.  ‘Old mcdonald’ commented: “This is not farming. It is factory production of milk. Cows should not be kept like this, to me it is a far worse scenario than batery-caged hens”. A farmer called Matthew Naylor commented: “I find it hard to think of a practical objection to continuing agricultural industrialisation. My problem is an emotional one. Deep in my tummy I have a growing sense of unease about the direction in which agriculture is moving. My issue is with the principle of corporate agriculture. It takes responsibility from individual proprietors and places it in protocols and technical procedures.” He continued: “Small-scale milk producers are mightily expensive in comparison to large-scale operations, but they tend to understand their business and their animals intimately. They have principles, they are accountable. I can’t help thinking that ultimately cheap food will end up costing us the heart and soul of the countryside.”

Three cheers for the word “principles”. Farming in accordance with ethical principles, farming as a way of life, still means swimming against the tide, though, and needs our support. Farmers Weekly reported that one farming family in every four in the UK is living at or below the poverty line. Their future in farming is at risk. Do we want food production in the hands of families who care about long-term sustainability, or controlled by corporations looking to expand their businesses in their quest for maximum immediate profits? If we can encourage farming as a way of life, maybe it will be a step towards limiting the corporate power that strives to make business the foundation of the modern state.

It all began with farming, and farming remains the key to our survival.

See Farmers Weekly, February 26th 2010, page 31 for comments on the 9,000-cow dairy plan, and for the issue of poverty in farming (‘Forget the politics, let’s work together’).  See page 32 for Matthew Naylor’s comments, ‘Corporate agriculture gives me a bad feeling’.