About two weeks ago a reader (Julie) e-mailed me about some young gardeners/farmers and how they believed in a natural balance. The e-mail read: “Would you mind devoting a blog or two to the philosophy that nature is perfectly balanced and will find a solution to whatever ails it and therefore we do not need to use any chemicals or poisons to fight pests and disease?”
I thought this was a good question, and here’s my quick answer (followed, naturally, by a more long and drawn out answer). Yes, I do believe that nature will strike its own balance. Unfortunately this balance won’t always be great for humans.
The more in-depth explanation…..Organisms like diseases, plants and animals do what they have evolved to do. The plants grow, the insects feed on them, the insect poo goes back into the ground. The insects get eaten by an animal and then that animal’s poo goes back into the ground – the tree uses the poo as fertilizer — it’s all a big cycle and it works. If any particular plant or insect gets out of hand then invariably something that eats it will eventually show up and go gangbusters — and all of it goes back to the ground.
For humans who “live off the land” this balance works fine. They’re not looking for huge yields of food per acre, and they’re willing to forgo certain foods if that food happens to be in short stock in a particular forest in a particular year because of an insect or disease or whatever. And so insect or disease losses will usually leave them plenty of food to eat. But modern agriculture is based on large yields per unit area. That means that the whole balance thing goes out the window. Likewise, because humans prefer non-blemished food, the whole balance thing gets screwed up too. So, in the end, we usually end up doing something to get rid of pests.
And then there’s fertility to consider — When we grow crops on a piece of land we take whatever is produced and then eat it or sell it – but rarely do we put our waste back on that land. What that means is that we’re fighting the balance. By not recycling our waste we’re taking from the land without returning what we took from it back to it. So, after a few years, we end up having to fertilize because the land just can’t make up for what we’ve taken and not returned.
Balance is great – I just think that it’s tough to strike a balance with modern agriculture and still feed ourselves.
So, there you have it – my two cents on balance.
Thanks Jeff. There’s a lot to ponder in those 6 short paragraphs – like where does the small farm model end and the large farm model begin, especially with regard to fertilizer and methods. I have a profit motive in asking this…not just a philosophical one..
A soon to be released book by Emma Marris would be a timely read for this post. A Rambunctious Garden. NY Times Q and A here.
Reason Magazine review here. This paragraph is what brought Jeff’s post to mind:
Marris also cites research that shows that the notion of the “balance of nature” is scientifically specious. Early in the 20th century influential ecologist Frederic Clements developed the theory that each ecosystem tended toward a stable climax that, once achieved, was perfectly balanced unless disturbed by people. Each participant in the climax ecosystem fitted tightly into niches as a result of coevolving together. However, ecologist Henry Gleason, a contemporary of Clements, countered that ecosystems were assembled by chance just depending on what species got there first and were successful in competing with other species as they arrived. For the most part, 20th century ecologists fell into the Clements’ camp.
Marris also cites research that shows that the notion of the “balance of nature” is scientifically specious. Early in the 20th century influential ecologist Frederic Clements developed the theory that each ecosystem tended toward a stable climax that, once achieved, was perfectly balanced unless disturbed by people. Each participant in the climax ecosystem fitted tightly into niches as a result of coevolving together. However, ecologist Henry Gleason, a contemporary of Clements, countered that ecosystems were assembled by chance just depending on what species got there first and were successful in competing with other species as they arrived. For the most part, 20th century ecologists fell into the Clements’ camp.
There has been a paradigm shift that has led to thinking outside the box, leading to a perfect storm – the concept of balance. It’s just another buzzword: Balance is a deceptive term that is being used by charlatans, advertisers and woo-peddlers to suggest stability where there is none. [You do not need to “balance” your digestive tract or your “chi.”]
Ray found a good quote but I would argue that no ecosystem is sta
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ble in the long term. If it was then evolution would cease. A year with a lot of rain may favor one type of plant species that feeds a particular bug that outcompetes a less common species into extirpation or extinction. Or a series of dry years can eliminate all of the plant and animal species that need more water – even if that dry spell is a short lived anomaly.
Nature does not always find a balance – it always changes. Species come, species change, species go. The field converts to a pine forest to a hardwood forest to a swamp that dries up and becomes a field again. That is the nature of biology and that is the nature of evolution and extinction.
Stepping off of my “I hate the term balance” soap box now.
A reliance upon balance, or stability or natural cycles even, is part of the foundation upon which small, sustainable, local agriculture is building itself. I am trying to sift through these words and concepts and find what works for me and my business. I admire the crop-mobbers here in Georgia and the energy of young wanna-be farmers, but I hear a lot of comments from these young people that cause me concern..a view that things on the farm will always work out. The crops will produce, the pests will be controlled because nature is perfectly balanced (their words). It is a romantic view. I want to grow sustainably…and local…and with as many organic methods as I can…but I also have to have a profit and much as I try to believe the small farm will “balance itself”, I just can’t buy it.
When I started my lifetime in the soil it was the late ’60’s and I shoveled bare foot and believed gardening was about harmony with nature and maintaining nature’s balance.
Now I believe the definition of gardening might better be “working to sustain an imbalance with nature to secure my own advantage”.
The trick is finding least disruptive ways to sustain that advantage.
It is a human-centric concept to imagine that nature’s balance should somehow favor its most disruptive species. Balance would mean reducing human population on this planet drastically IMO.
Philosophically I land right on the comments of Alan and Diana and enjoyed the reference to and comments of Emma Marris. Where I WILL stop and listen to these “nature creates balance” voices is when they talk about working WITH the natural system …at least to the extent that we can and that it is to our advantage (shout out to Alan), albeit tempering that with “leave an ecologically kind footprint on the farm” insofar as our agriculture impacts water systems, air, animal communities and so forth. Where is the “balance” I must strike to lever the kind of balance Jeff is talking about, over and against the imbalance that is there, in order to make a profit on my small farm? There is much that needs to be discovered, reasoned and printed with regard to this discussion in order to make small, local, sustainably-oriented farming a reality and the profitable venture that it needs to be to provide a greater measure of food security to our citizens in the event of crisis, natural or otherwise–a goal also set forth by the Dept. of Homeland Security btw
Good grief.
Look, small farms aren’t sustainable. Sorry. Scalability ensures reliability.
Sure, you could kill of 4/5 of the humans on earth, and then maybe you’d stand a chance. But then you’d have no economy, and no internet, and none of the other trappings of modern life.
Life on a farm is hard. It was even harder in the good ol’ days. Most people, and I would include you, Julie, would perish after a few years, at best.
What you want is a fantasy. You do not understand that “organic” is a marketing term, and a scientific fallacy.
thanks again for what you said, Alan Haigh. Man too is part of nature, and as you say, its most disruptive species.
Julie, you’re welcome and I will come to your defense in response to plantman…
Plantman, (and I do like your super-hero pseudonym- on another site mine’s Harvestman) I think you speak with too much confidence in describing what is or isn’t sustainable. Of course it is unlikely and not practical for a return to a small farm, rural economy America that was Thomas Jefferson’s idea of utopia. But that doesn’t mean that mass production, monocultural food production has proven itself sustainable either. What will happen when human population doubles and oil becomes scarce? When China’s billions get used to a daily portion of corn-fed beef?…As I’ve been saying for a couple decades now, sustainabity cannot be proven, only disproven- when a system collapses…. I think most of us would agree that there is evidence of collapse of our own agricultural systems already- and after a very short time. For brevity I won’t make a list of long term food production risks facing our species…
I will mention that the Yemenite and Amish farmers in our own country have shown how they can manage farms in a manner much more sustainable to the soil than what mainstream agriculture does, as a whole. These are relatively small farms where individuals have a sense of direct responsability to the land they steward. And these farms are, for the most part, profitable. Now there is a wide spread movement of small farms once again supplying at least a part of the diet of Americans. This movement can at least help stave off the development of agricultural land for residential construction. It also allows many Americans to eat fresher produce and sustain farmland near their communities. Sounds like a pretty sustainable concept to me.
Related to this discussion and a good read:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/new-farmers-find-their-footing/?ref=opinion
If oil becomes scarce and there is no viable replacement, then it’s back to the stone age. Systems are sustainable until they’re not. Sounds silly, but fact is you can’t account for all future events.
Quite frankly, the word “sustainable” is a weasel word – a feel good term used mainly to extract more money from gullible consumers.
Actually civilization developed without much use of petroleum and the industrial revolution was mostly about steam- it is the green revolution that has required it. Far more petroleum calories are consumed for each food calorie produced in this system and cheap petroleum creates the illusion that modern farm practices are actually efficient.
LOL. This isn’t the 18th century.
Modern first world living exists because of division of labour. Cheap energy is required for this. You know, I’m not going to bother going into this – take a basic econ course at your local community college. What’s keeping the lights and computer on in your house, BTW?
The comment above: “systems are sustainable until they are not” – yes, that’s the point. The current system is dubiously sustainable. We have about 3 days of worth of food at grocery stores in the event of any major disaster that disrupts the food supply line. “Systems are sustainable until they are not”. Excellent point. Nice time to re-invent the local food supply system. It’s a big, scary world out there isn’t it? As far as the word “sustainbility” – you can thank the 1990 Farm Bill for introducing that word in the sense and context into which it is now known. I’ll give you this though – the word organic is most definitely a marketing tool! Nevertheless, whatever inherent good there is in “organic” systems, I am interested in discovering it.