WTF Is Agriculture?

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"[Agriculture is] the worst mistake in the history of the human race." - Jared Diamond, Ph.D., author of multiple NYT Bestsellers

"[continued] ...the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence." (source)

With such strong language, it is understandable that folks involved with "agriculture" might bristle at the idea of being personally involved in perpetuating "the worst mistake in human history". We're sympathetic to that reaction, and would like to clarify what agriculture is, and what we aim our critique of agriculture at.

Of course, language is fluid and ambiguous, and searching around long enough can lead to a “definition” that allows us to argue that agriculture is anything to do with plants or animals growing in human proximity. Here are three common sources that we might consider with the intent of coming up with some commonalities:





Wikipedia

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinals and other products used to sustain and enhance human life.[1] Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization.

Dictionary.com

1. the science, art, or occupation concerned with cultivating land, raising crops, and feeding, breeding, and raising livestock; farming. 2.the production of crops, livestock, or poultry. 3.agronomy

Merriam-Webster

: the science or occupation of farming : the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing of the resulting products

Compilation

There are a cluster of ideas that are crucial to our critiques of agriculture, and that we intend to evoke when forwarding a critique of agriculture. For example:
  • Product / Production : something that is made or grown to be sold or used. note here the commodification of life for sale in a market economy, which is a specific case of reductionism.
  • Cultivate / Cultivation : to grow or raise (something) under conditions that you can control. note here the notion of control.
  • Domesticate / Domestication : to breed or train to need and accept the care of human beings : to tame. note here the notion of anthropocentrism.
The tendency toward commodification, control, and anthropocentrism are critical similarities in the above definitions, and we find them impossible to disentangle from the term, agriculture. We do not find a close relationship with plants and human or non-human animals necessarily, or a priori, linked to agriculture.

The deeper question is perhaps the involvement of individuals in agriculture. We are not a purity cult, and realize that being born into a global system of domination is not the responsibility of any individual. When we speak of a critique of agriculture, we speak of agriculture as a system – agriculture as a cultural assumption – agriculture as a meme. Just as we do not condemn anarchists who use money or primitivists who use computers, we realize that using the master’s tools is sometimes necessary to dismantle the master’s house.

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