General

Wendell Berry – Agriculture for a Small Planet, 1974

Many will have been interested to see a video interview with Wendell Berry that I submitted previously. Here is another from the archives.

This is Wendell in the early years of his speaking out for the agrarian cause — quite ‘prophetic’ in his views as a younger man.

The Q&A and associated discussions after his speech is historically very interesting in the light of our environmental awareness today. The debate between traditional agrarian ways and that of the twentieth century industrialised approach to agriculture is palpable.

The damage that industrialised agriculture is inflicting on the soils, the reduced levels of nutrition in our food, as well as the health consequences with such a heavy dependence on chemical fertilisers and insecticides is now increasingly being verified by scientific research long after the ‘prophets’ began to speak, around the time many others like Bill Mollison and David Holmgren began to speak out about the same issues… about the time Permaculture began to emerge as a movement.

Yet we are still so far from making choices that bring about a different future. A little progress has been made maybe.

This is just a small reminder to those who have stepped into the Permaculture way of life, by way of an historic look back, to keep moving forward with confidence… that the way is still being forged.

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Back to top button