Kirschenmann’s Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: A Better Philosophy for the Food Movement

First paragraph: National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” program was brought to me this morning by “Monsanto: helping farmers around the world be more sustainable.” From multinational corporations like Monsanto to the vegetable farmer at my farmers’ market, everyone in the agriculture field wants to talk about sustainability. What does sustainable mean? Do humans influence the environment, or are humans and the environment constantly influencing each other? When farmers say they “know” how to farm, what kind of knowledge is that? Is that knowledge drawn from years of experience, or from scientific experiment?..