Ethics in the Organic Movement - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 22

Early theological literature draws a picture of a good world in which one finds
harmony between nature and society and in which all parts intertwine. This is very
much a bourgeois, aesthetic perception of nature removed from the notion of the
natural world as hostile (Dirlinger et al. 1998 , p. 28). As such, this world was
not to be destroyed by human beings; its harmony would be guaranteed through
“Devine” balance (cf. Sieferle 1990 , p. 53, cited in Dirlinger et al. 1998 , p. 29).
Trust in the everlasting use of nature, with its fertility and its imperishability is given
by providential precaution (ibid). From this theocentric perspective, agricultural
practices needed to reduce risks to nature and to God's creations. The IFOAM
Principles still express elements of this type of theological thinking and an holistic
ethic, however without religious beliefs (cf. Mohr cited in Vieth 2008 , p. 166).
Starting in the nineteenth century, animal manure and crop rotation became
central tools for increasing production, and in doing so expressed the strong relation-
ship between soil fertility and animal husbandry/livestock production. Interestingly,
the idea of crop rotation during this time was described as a type of “division
of labor.” Similarly, leguminous fodder plants were used to fertilize the soil and
recycle minerals, while other plants served as subsistence food or as cash crops
(Thaer, cited in Dirlinger et al. 1998 , pp. 32-34). These farming systems were
built on the idea of continuous humus production through fodder legumes, which
also offered nitrogen to the whole cropping system and provided the basis for
protein fodder for animal feed. In this relationship, humus was both the result
of life and the condition for it. The human-nature-relationship was “place-based”.
These production practices relied on limited inputs, a principle that would be later
incorporated into the IFOAM Principle of Ecology.
With the ideas of Albrecht Thaer, a techno-economic oriented agricultural
understanding was set into place that marked the turning point to an industrialized
form of agriculture, and the phasing out of an organic based agriculture. Nineteenth-
century industrialization and early agricultural research led to a new profit-driven
paradigm. This era marked a transition from a fairly closed agricultural system,
including animals and the recycling of nutrients, to a system that was increasingly
open or reliant on external inputs of nutrients and feedstuff. Maximizing profits
became more important than maximizing production (Dirlinger et al. 1998 ,
pp. 32, 33). This conceptualization of agriculture was limited to capital intensive
and market-oriented farms. The majority of family farms participated in the use of
only some elements of modernized agriculture, and continued to rely largely on
organically driven crop rotation.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Fritz Haber created the basis for the
development of industrially produced nitrogen and thereby tremendously changing
agriculture and the world 19 (Smil 2004 ). From this point on, the legumes and animal
manure became markedly less important as a source of nitrogen and other minerals.
Farming had taken the first steps toward becoming an industry-produced nitrogen
driven system.