Editorial June 2022
The Board of the Institute has noticed an important change in emphasis on the word ecological and its place in world affairs. Heading the change is author Jeremy Lent and his book The Patterning Instinct. Others include high profile author George Monbiot whose 2019 TED talk starts with the question: Do you feel trapped in a broken economic model?
Essentially, they are speaking from the same pulpit although Lent is more passionate about the need for an ecological civilisation to replace that which exists today. This is not a surprising expression of a need given the 100 years plus that the western world in particular has been pouring chemicals into the environment in the name of modern efficient agriculture, now commonly referred to as industrial agriculture. Couple this fact with the following and you start to see that we do have a problem with continuing this approach: Increased emphasis on monoculture, clearing land almost at whim, pollution of waterways, soil erosion, dehydration of the landscape, soil compaction, loss of biodiversity, and, so the list goes on.
Part of the problem of change management is knowing how to transition people out of the old and into the new. This transition requires a psychological adjustment – a preparedness to let go of the old in order to embrace the new. In Dr Charles Massy’s book The Call of the Reed Warbler there are several examples of farmers who made this transition due to external factors such as drought or fire. They simply adjusted their thinking to say – there must be a better way. That way was what we how to refer to regenerative agriculture although we at the Institute commonly refer to it as ecological agriculture.
Letting go and transitioning to a new beginning works well on a small operation but consider doing this as a nation or indeed globally. This is what Jeremy Lent maintains needs to happen. We need to create an ecological civilisation. The Institute of Ecological Agriculture concurs with Lent on this point. The problem is one of determining where to go from here with this judgment. In one respect, we are already doing this by promoting an ecological approach to agriculture but the next step of creating an ecological civilisation seems a step too far from where we are, and yet, we are closer than most in understanding what is meant by this.
The best we can suggest is to keep an eye on this newsletter and our website for news on what we intend to do. There will be some webinars/workshops emerging designed to enable the participants to understand what Jeremy Lent is saying about ‘creating an ecological civilisation.’