A Neo-agrarian culture

[Christy Korrow]

Here are my notes from a talk Wes Jackson gave at The Future of Agrarianism Conference. Please keep in mind that this was really fast scribbling.   One main point that Wes made, was the need for a new generation of accountants. On one side we have the accountants taking care of the world's finances, and on the other hand we have the accountants measuring ocean temp, global warming, population density. But what we need is some one to account for the true cost of every day items, they supposedly did this for 5 years at the Land Institute, and took into account the rubber to make the tires, the energy to produce the fuel and on and on. He said even the creation of the podium he stood at effected his farm some how , " It all fits together so seamless."     The neo-agrarian 1) acknowledges limits we now ignore 2) looks to nature as a standard and a source that offers possibilities that are safe to explore. 3)??   Experts(?) tell us that a nuclear accident from a Nuclear Power plant averages 1 in 10,000 years. With 1000 Nuclear plants, that's one every 10 years.   40% of the world's soils are seriously degraded,   Soil loss in the US is 17% greater than soil building.   In a certain time span(Ididn't get the dates!)Insecticide use increased from 15 million lbs per year to 125 million lbs per years.   In that SAME time span, crops lost to insects went from 7% to 13%. (Not sure if these are world wide or US stats)   Soil is as much of a non resource as oil. We have put chemicals out there which our cells have no history of dealing with.   On a conference call preparing for the 10th Anniversary of the Earth Summit/ Rio, that takes place in Johannesburg, an oceanographer told Wes that there are 50 dead zones world wide.   Soil Husbandry has to become our subject. Who will be the husbands? The new agrarians. Neo-agrarian culture is an enlightened culture.   We are suffering from from a virus of illusion, the illusion of efficiency due to centralization.   The efficiencies of nature are as good as its going to get. Feature recycling and run on sunlight. Nest the human economy within Natures economy.   Neither a wind mill nor a Nuclear power plant will produce enough power in it's life time to create another. Double pane windows proved the most efficient in this regard.