The crisis of contemporary agriculture as an opportunity for agro-ecology.

Understanding the crisis in agriculture is not an easy task and requires broadening one’s vision to a global and historical perspective (which is not the prerogative of practitioners), and becoming aware of the difficult condition of the peasant, which is, admittedly, a novel exercise for intellectuals… 

Yet the question concerns us all and its understanding is vital. 

At the crossroads, the scientist is now ready to recognize in the man on the ground a partner of common sense, precious for his research, a fortiori if it deals with resilience, autonomy, local adaptation or know-how that has proven itself, in short, sustainability. 

Yet the ecological approach to agriculture is much more than a technical model. 

 » Stemming from a scientific approach attentive to biological phenomena, agro-ecology associates agricultural development with the protection-regeneration of thenatural environment » says P. Rabhi. It is an interdisciplinary practice combining an agronomic, socio-economic, cultural and also political approach; a holistic approach of the crisis and its overcoming and it is in this perspective that we are situated. 

Every observer of our countryside over the last few decades can testify to this: the number of farms is decreasing and the ones that survive are getting bigger. This does not mean that they hire more labor, but rather the opposite: fossil fuels (mainly oil) seem to have massively taken over from the peasantry. 

 » It took only a century for the most important social category in the history of major human civilizations, since the advent of agriculture (10,000 years ago), to be virtually wiped off the landscape of the working world  » brilliantly reminds us A. Ruwet in the January-February 2013 issue of Imagine. This is far from trivial and deserves our full attention at a time when many are looking for work and peak oil is over. 

For this evolution is not inexorable and is the result of deliberate competition between production systems (very unequal in terms of productivity and costs), through a « blind » globalization of the economy, while transport is deliberately underestimated. 

This selection by the market leads us, of course, to a rationalization of production for the greater profits of the private sector, which realizes the surplus value, and in the short term of the population whose expenses in food decrease with the quality of what it swallows. 

But if it appears, as we believe, that the resulting relocation-concentrations seriously undermine our food security, that we are indeed confronted with a whole series of impasses that make this model unviable, and that in the end it was a mistake to apply industrial logic to agriculture, our ultra-liberal policies and the citizens who support them risk bearing a heavy responsibility for the food « crash » to come. 

Among the proven impasses, any well-informed person thinks, of course, first of the energy issue. One liter of hydrocarbon to produce/process/distribute one kilogram of wheat is too much! Too much! In the context of our ecological transition, this dependence must be drastically reduced in all areas… and agrofuels are not going to get us out of it. 

Industrial agriculture will most likely be considered the biggest energy waste in history! Do you realize that we have replaced farmers capable of producing in an entirely renewable way, by farmers who only know how to aggravate the planetary imbalance? 

The exploitation of resources! This is the major characteristic of the food system that has led us to the current crisis and that will only get stronger until the end: because what happens when we draw on a resource without worrying about its renewal rate? We’re wearing him out! She is exhausted… 

This applies to the exploitation of all the mines of the earth’s crust that our agrochemical-military-industrial complex needs so much (and that prefigures its end), but also to drinking water, arable land, biodiversity, climatic equilibrium,… and peasant skills. As if the destruction of its resources was part of its insane development logic, aimed at maximum profit. 

There is no need to continue this macabre statement: you will have understood that the crisis is structural and that it is not necessary to go further into error! Perseverance at this stage would be criminal. We have to give up a certain idea of opulence, put away our old ideas about progress (which is still too often confused with innovation) and break with the capitalist logic, if we want to achieve the necessary, radical and sustainable changes in society. 

 » The new logic to be built will have to turn its back on productivism, integrate the ecological deal, eradicate the different forms of oppression (racial, patriarchal…) and promote the common goods « , summarizes Éric Toussaint of the CADTM very well. 

Of course, it is not « only » about food. While one human being out of seven falls asleep with hunger in his belly, we talk about financial, economic and ecological crisis: everything is linked, but we think that by aiming at food sovereignty thanks to agro-ecology, we will give our economy the chance to be connected to a new engine that has been widely tested: the human being, his needs and the truly sustainable energies that he has locally. 

Thus, we believe that an ecological sustainable agriculture is not only able to feed the population, but that it is one of the best ways to cool the planet, by fixing more carbon (in the form of wood and humus) than we emit, and this, without resorting to agrotoxics and GMOs that poison us. 

This option also commits us to the construction of fairer societies for producers and consumers, by promoting dialogue and exchanges that are conducive to meeting long-term interests. 

Protecting life in general and agriculture in particular means opposing the power of transnational corporations and large financial trusts today. This is an urgent political act. But the political class seems uninformed or paralyzed to do so. Fortunately, the political awareness of citizens is growing in this area, thanks in particular to media such as yours, and we can observe a great convergence of associations and the social economy around these issues, with timid achievements that give us hope. 

At the individual level, the commitment to voluntary simplicity and to food autonomy seems to us to reflect the most coherent citizen position at the moment… until a large part of the active (or inactive, but sensitive) population has returned to the land. 

As a peasant organization, it is our mission to accompany it, saving and transmitting a maximum of seeds of resilience. 

Thomas Lauwers, for MAP