Friday 17 January 2020

New Agrarianism and Permaculture

In his introduction to The New Agrarianism: Land, Culture and the Community of Life, Eric Freyfogle summarizes what he considers the ethos of the New Agrarian movement, which, although many don’t call it that, is gaining popularity inside and outside of the U.S., as droves of people are moving back to the land, choosing agricultural subsistence farming, over a life lived as an office drone. In his effort to find a common narrative however, Freyfogle’s text, which is far more normative than it is descriptive, glosses over difference in favour of a more undividuated philosophy that values traditional knowledge, family, community, (ecosystem) health, and independence from market forces. Essentially, Freyfogle conceives of New Agrarianism as a reactionary movement, one that turns away from the profit-hungry, short-term thinking of industrial capitalism, in favour of a more sustainable, albeit more austere existence. Although New Agrarianists argue for more interdependence on a community level, what they seem to cherish much more is independence from government and legal bodies – in whom they have lost all trust. New Agrarianism’s concept of community is thus framed in opposition to an ‘outside’ that is corrupt, immoral, or just beyond redemption. The movement, as described by Freyfogle, can therefore be argued to lack a global, intersectional perspective. 

New Agrarians are luddites, and their lifestyle can be perceived of as backwards. Ecofeminist criticism has called out New Agrarianism’s sexist historical roots, its heteronormativity, and its lack of sensitivity with regard to race and class issues. One brave attempt to dispel ecofeminists’ concerns  comes from William Major. In his call for reconciliation between the two philosophies, he focuses especially on the cult of domesticity that New Agrarianism is presumed to cultivate, arguing that “A novel understanding of home and domesticity is necessary if we are to bring these two worldviews together” (150).  Major  points to a common project between feminism and New Agrarianism, namely breaking down the walls between the private and the public spheres, both of which are political spaces, and, crucially, economic spaces.  For New Agrarianism the home is understood not just to be a centre of consumption, but a centre of production as well, which makes man and wife (here’s the heteronormativity) business partners as well as spouses. Major writes that

“[this] different kind of domesticity deserves a second look if only for the fact that its alternative, global industrial market economics and a widely accepted abuse of the land—which in the short run has provided so much to liberate women from the fetters of a repressive domestic division of labor—has done exceedingly little to foster a more moral, ‘kindly’ world where cooperation between the sexes and with the earth’s limitations is the governing principle.”

Perhaps the most interesting juxtaposition, however, exist between Freyfogle’s ‘manifesto’ and an autoethnography about the permaculturist network in Edmonton (EPN), Alberta, written by Randolph Haluza-DeLay and Ron Berezen. In this article permaculture is perceived first and foremost as a practice, not a philosophy. As such, it may prove far more helpful in the face of clime change, than a philosophy like New Agrarianism (which is eerily quiet on the topic). Time and labour intensive as it is, permaculture might not scale up to where it can provide for a growing global population, but it certainly scales down well enough to speak to individuals whose lives are still very much implicated in the capitalist market economy (and thus considered forfeit by by New Agrarianism).

The value of the EPN is not in its concentration, but its distribution. Unlike a “geographically concentrated lifeworld,” like a New Agrarian homestead or an ecovillage, practitioners of permaculture, from novices to experts, don’t tend to “lose their bridges to nonmembers” (139). Practices which haven’t solidified into full-flown philosophies remain much more flexible and approachable, and in a climate-changed world, this flexibility is precisely what we need because transition demands compromise. Moreover, New Agrarian’s emphasis on ‘appropriate’ land-use often involves a return to native flora, or heritage breeds, but such a holding on to the past neglects to face the irrevocable change wrought in this world by climate-change. Some ecosystems are dying, and the only way to save them is to resort to innovative but arguably alien (as in foreign, or non-native) new practices – such as the ones developed by syntropic farmers. Permaculture, as a practice, embraces such experimentation, because it isn’t bogged down with ideology. It asks what we can do here, and now, never mind how humble, to better the world.

Laura op de Beke

Works Cited
Freyfogle, Eric. “A Durable Scale” in The New Agrarianism: Land, Culture and the Community of Life. Island Press, 2012 (ebook).
Haluza-DeLay, Randolph, and Ron Berezan. “Permaculture in the City: Ecological Habitus and the Distributed Ecovillage” in Environmental Anthropology: Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages. Eds. Joshua Lockyer and James R. Veteto. Berghahn, 2013.
Major, William H. “Reconciliation: New Agrarianism and Ecofeminism” in Grounded vision: New Agrarianism and the Academy. University Alabama Press 2011.
More about syntropic farming: https://agendagotsch.com/en/what-is-syntropic-farming/

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