Spiritual Aspects of Sustainable Soil Management - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 278

their tolerance to shade. This cycle continued for about 7 years, when the forest was
allowed to reseed with crops still growing around the young trees. We need to build
on such traditional, indigenous knowledge with the wise use of modern and innova-
tive techniques (Lal 2009a; Shaxson 2006). A knowledge society differs from the
societies that scientists inhabit in that its structure is to a greater extent the result
of social action. As we reform it, we need to promote a plurality of opinions and
approaches and develop an agricultural learning society (Uekotter 2006).
11.8 SOCIAL CHANGE AND SUSTAINABILITY
The soil scientists Vernon Gill Carter and Tom Dale recognized back in the 1970s
the need to “adjust the population and the standard of living to usable resources.”
They realized that our crisis is one of overconsumption and an unjust distribution
of consumption. The growing demand for food by our swelling population and its
changing diet is very unlikely to be met in the not-too-distant future because we
simply do not have enough fossil fuel, water, minerals, and soil to sustain us. In the
Northern Hemisphere, we all need to consume less, waste less, and recycle more of
everything. We also need to consider how to reduce the number of mouths to feed
by reducing family sizes—particularly in the Southern Hemisphere—so that we can
live within the capacity of the land and diminished resources, particularly of fossil
fuels.
Carter and Dale (1974) also predicted that a failure to balance people and resources
would require us to adapt to a lower standard of living. This is indeed proving to be
the case as we see austerity measures being adopted in Europe since the recession of
2008. To achieve this without pain, we need a fundamental change in mindset from
all of us. For this, we all need to engage the spirit within. Lichtfouse (2009) realized
how agriculture was an important science in tackling more general global society
issues because agriculturalists are trained to manage a network of inputs of many
disciplines including transport, health, and economics. We need to change our spirit
by accepting the direction of the spirit within nature and by developing our connec-
tions with the springs of love deep inside us in order to work toward a sustainable
future.
In my community in North East Scotland, like many other places in the Western
world, twenty-first century living brings problems of obesity, alcoholism, anxiety
and depression, dependence on cars and on big supermarkets, materialism, depen-
dence on fossil fuels, isolation from neighbors, and lack of spiritual awareness. We
are living in a social recession and try to cope with the threats of violence, environ-
mental destruction, and inequality with the short-term fixes of retail therapy, over-
eating, and alcohol. The population struggles between the pull of the slower pace of
the past and the urgent push of the future crowding them into greater productivity
and consumption. Some spiritual input is required to sustain the community, the
soil, and agriculture and to give a sense of lasting satisfaction. One approach may be
to relearn ideas from our ancestors in their tribal lives, aiming for mutual support,
security, and safety.
A wholesale social shift toward low-input simple living was recommended by
McIntosh (2008a) to combat climate change, and I am sure that this would help other