A sense of place/becoming native
Why would an intellectual giant such as Wes Jackson be interested in a parochial project such as Matfield Green? The reason is the importance, for an ecologically and socially sustainable community, of a sense of place. We can only tolerate the destruction of our local environment and community if our sense of ownership and commitment is broken down or replaced by a feeling of mobility, by the intrusion of a homogenous culture in the form of television and the growth of mass-market brand-name consumerism. Wes further proclaims "you don't build satellites of agricultural sustainability and expect them to safely orbit the extractive economy".
A really sustainable society (or agriculture) must be responsive to the infinitely changing nuance of the immediate environment. Prescription agriculture (or the 'cookbook' approach) will never deliver sustainability. The alternative farmer must always remain alert to the changed requirements of his land between the different soil types, aspects, topography and seasons.
Wes Jackson describes this with the powerful words of his friend Wendell Berry, words and ideas which are just as applicable to Australia as they are to the mid-western states of the USA. Berry says, "We came with vision but not with sight”. Wes expands this to say “We came with visions of former places but without the sight to see where we are.” We still have this vision, still carry the legacy of the conquerors. One consequence of this is that the grand sons and daughters of the settlers are the new redskins. Just as white men dispossesed the native, so the new corporate state tells the current generation of Matfield Green to move over.
Wes believes that if we are to become serious about sustainability, then we must get serious about "becoming native to this place". We must put behind us the age of conquest and begin the age of discovery. We must learn the nuance of our place in the world and understand the capability of that place rather than imposing the cookbook on the resource base.
This is a paradigm shift as fundamental as the changes at the time of Copernicus. We thought then that the sun goes around earth. Galileo attempted to get churchmen to look through the telescope and to develop sight over vision.
Wes says "we must give up the mind of the conqueror, forcing nature to give in to our will. We must move instead to accepting nature as the standard by which things are measured".
The failure of The Soil Conservation Service to prevent soil erosion, despite 50 years of effort, thousands of miles of earthworks (control banks etc.) and up to one sixth of the U.S. budget (during the 30's soil conservation was used to employ thousands of mean emerging from the great depression) is called by Wes "the failure of institutions".
The process of change is not easy, as there is a long history of earth abuse. Wes quotes the Book of Job “The waters weareth away the stones & take away the home of man” Our lack of heed over the years is called by Wes "the failure of history & prophecy".
The Amish, a simple living christian sect which attempts to acheive good stewardship and believes that the highest possible calling is to take care of the land, still cause erosion. This is called by Wes "the failure of stewardship"
Mid-western U.S.A. farmers were able to produce 30 bushells per acre of corn in 1930. In 1978 they could produce 100 bushels per acre - surely we must be doing something right. But at what cost? The attractiveness of high yield as evidence of our intelligence and good management is called by Wes "the failure of success".
We can only believe that we are successful if we turn our eyes from the ecological capital which is running out to the sea and the presence of unfamiliar chemicals with which our tissues have no evolutionary experience.
