Next green revolution

What is a healthy, enduring agriculture? Once you have an idea of what it is, how do you practice it? And once you have some success at it, how do you convince others to change to try something new?

These have been important questions for us at the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Since 1985, when the Kerr Center came into being, answering these core questions has been our task. In this book, we attempt to answer the first two questions, and, in doing so, persuade oth ers to try new approaches to agriculture.

A healthy, enduring agriculture is a sustainable agriculture, and this term has become the umbrella term for approaches to agriculture that are environmentally friendly, profitable, and fair to farmers and ranchers. This book largely grew out of Jim's experiences in Oklahoma at the Kerr Center, as well as work on the regional and national level with the USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. We wrote this book to convince those people who are unfa miliar with, or perhaps suspicious of, sustainable agriculture that change is both needed and possible.

Although the situation has improved in recent years, there is still a lack of information about new approaches to farming and many mis conceptions about alterative agricultural approaches. It is our inten tion to remedy that situation by writing an easy-to-read, practical introduction to the subject, with the goals of a healthy agriculture syn thesized into eight comprehensive steps.

The time is right for this book; there is more interest in sustainable

agriculture than ever before. Since 1985, the number of farmers and ranchers around the United States and Canada who are making their farms more sustainable has been slowly but steadily rising. These farmers are reasonable people who have recognized that to survive and prosper, they must try something new. There is nothing offensive in their approaches, although some proponents of conventional agriculture have attempted to brand these alterative farming methods as naive and unrealistic. The eight steps presented in this book, too, are reasonable and prag matic. The Kerr Center's approach to change has been to meet farmers where they are and then slowly move them toward sustainable farming New farming systems don't happen overnight; they must evolve.

The eight steps are essential for a healthy, sustainable farming operation and are, by extension, essential principles for a sustainable agriculture. Two other principles are also key: A sustainable agriculture enhances the quality of life of farm families and revitalizes rural communities. Taking good care of both human and environmental resources is the heart of a sustainable agriculture. Unfortunately, the demands of conventional agriculture for farmers "to get big or get out," or, in more recent times, to become low paid workers in vertically integrated corporate "operations," force agricul ture in an unhealthy direction. Such trends erode the quality of farm life and the vitality of rural communities as well as threaten the health of the natural environment. This book is intended to be used for education and outreach in agri culture programs and courses. It is also for anyone who has an interest in the future of agriculture. Both ordinary citizens and those in positions of political power reading this book will realize that the current industrial agricultural system is broken. How to fix it? Too often, what are pre sented as "new" solutions are, in reality, just tired old policies, respun. Genuinely new approaches are needed. The root causes of the farm prob lem must be examined and solutions found that take care of nature, keep people on the farm, and provide meaningful employment in rural communities.

This book, although including much analysis of the harm that indus trial agriculture has brought to rural America, is ultimately a positive book. Perhaps USDA programs should also focus on a positive rather than negative approach. Why not pay farmers to implement practices that would fulfill the eight steps rather than pay them later to clean up pollution or compensate for overproduction? We hope agricultural economists, in particular, will see the wisdom in this book. As a group, agricultural economists have made so many wrong assumptions about farmers and natural resources that such things as lost topsoil, lost biodiversity, and lost rural communities should not be included when calculating the bottom line. Natural resources are not infinite, and healthy rural communities are important, such "intangibles" have value and should be counted.