Spiritual Aspects of Sustainable Soil Management - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 257

11 Spiritual Aspects

of Sustainable Soil
Management

Bruce C. Ball

CONTENTS
11.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 257
11.2 Spirituality and Deep Ecology ..................................................................... 259
11.3 Soil as a Metaphor of Human Behavior ........................................................ 261
11.4 Connection to the Soil .................................................................................. 263
11.5 Spirituality and Agriculture .......................................................................... 266
11.6 Engaging the Spirit ....................................................................................... 268
11.6.1 Soil Restoration................................................................................. 269
11.6.2 Soil Conservation .............................................................................. 270
11.6.3 Ecological Intensification ................................................................. 272
11.7 Knowledge and Wisdom Exchange .............................................................. 275
11.8 Social Change and Sustainability ................................................................. 278
References .............................................................................................................. 281

11.1 INTRODUCTION
The term “industrial agriculture” for intensive production with high inputs of fertil-
izer, pesticides, energy, and water is used widely for conventional agriculture. There
has been an increasing controversy between those who favor industrial agriculture
and those who prefer alternative and more holistic methods such as organic farm-
ing (Beus and Dunlap 1990). However, as inputs run scarce, industrial agriculture
is looking to adopt more holistic practices. Both types of agriculture are informed
mainly by soil and agronomic science, which can be seen as being based on “logical
positivism.” This is the idea that only “positive” or evidence-based conclusions about
reality are valid. Inclusion of notions of underlying “being” or “soul” or “vision”
or “spirit'' that imply human capacities that transcend mere logic within science is
metaphysical; however, the metaphysics is generally treated as “nonsense” within
science (McIntosh 2008a). Yet the concept of systems working together such that the
overall effect differs from and is greater than the sum of the parts is gaining ground in
ideas such as Gaia (Lovelock 1979) and theories of complexity and self-organization
(Capra 1997). Capra realized the importance to science and to humanity of systems

257