A Natural Approach to
Agriculture
Study Guide to the Berry Podcast
By Taylor Campbell, Zoe Collier, Sabre Hill, Jake Wells, and
Nicole Eliste
Main Idea
Nature is the standard against agricultural
science must be judged
Key Terms
• Unsettling of America: Larger, less diversified farms, fewer more indebted
farmers, degradation of land, rural communities broken and scattered.
• To accept nature as a standard is to accept the local ecosystem and its
health as the chief indicator of the health of the human economy in
that place
• Health – attribute of a person or place as a whole, standard by which
industrial and natural/local agriculture is judged
• The idea of Art versus Science
Key Terms
• Frontier metaphor: science is at the "cutting edge and will bring us to
places where we have not gone before.”
• Specialization: not inherently damaging; best work is done by experienced
people, so a measure of specialization is needed. Only bad when the
specialization is so extreme that the individual is incapable of seeing the
world past their specialization. In this way, it then hinders any further
momentum, because there is no interdisciplinary nature
Brief Outline
• Introduction – Berry highlights how science should be held responsible for its limitations.
• Body – a discussion of how science and industrial/traditional agriculture have adapted.
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Berry’s science differs from other scientists’ – he takes time to go to the site to learn specifically about an area.
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Specialization is lost in industrial farming – it is still important to have unique skills that are relevant to the land.
Universities creating a new standard for agriculture – industrial agriculture has been introduced because scientists in a lab
have found the “most efficient” way to get a big harvest.
“Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition” – Berry’s essay on how sociobiology is hindering true science.
Science generalizes, experiences are unique – Industrial farming is hurting famers health and ruining traditional culture
• Conclusion – Industrial agriculture is not necessarily better or worse, but science needs to realize it has
limitations. True connection with the land can’t be overlooked in this generalized process that is supposed to
work universally.
Extended OutlineIntroduction
• 5:55 Berry explains how the West Land Institute accepts the ecological norm and shows courtesy towards
the land by treating it the way that it is in nature.
• 7:23 Berry calls for a science aware of it's limitations. He considers science admirable for searching for the
truth, but current industrial agricultural practices are being carried out without an experimental control.
Cultivated lands are not being compared to uncultivated lands of the same time to determine results. He
states the problem is not that it's unscientific, it's that the methods not scientific enough and that proper
methodology is not being applied.
• 9:18 Berry states that industrial agriculture was served by a science that worked on logic without control or
examination of results. Farming communities and damage to economies of farm families were not
calculated, neither were the ecological effects of using chemicals, switching out annuals for perennials.
Results were not calculated or considered. Berry says they were not considered because the agriculture
businesses kept a low standard with profit as the main goal over bettering the system.
Extended OutlineBody
• 13:00 Berry claims that his research is different from others in agricultural science
because he takes the time to study the location and the effects of what he does and
how the results effect the local community.
• 13:21 Berry argues that universities create the ideas for agricultural industry, but do
not take on the blame when something goes wrong. Research is understood to be
inherently good not matter what. The question should be is the research is healthful
to the landscape and the farmers performing the application, as well as the
consumers that will eat the products. Health is the standard upon which research
should be set.
Extended OutlineBody
• 15:51 Berry states that he doesn't believe that specialization is not inherently wrong, but special
work must be done by experienced people. There must be a way to judge if a person is actually
specialized, but also must be able to communicate their work and judge their work by how it
affects the local community.
• 17:36 Berry claims that there are a growing number of people who refuse to accept indifference
and over specialization. They instead are choosing to support local farmers and local economies.
• 19:19 Berry published "Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition". A work against
sociobiology. Berry is frightened by the idea that a scientist of stature will go from supporting
proper science to prophecy, such as that all art, religion, and superstition will prove to have a
biological claim. Berry claims that the human experience is that there is an unknown element of
mysterious dignity. The advances of science are threatening that dignity.
Extended OutlineBody
• 25:50 Scientist of the wrong kind imagine themselves as the explorers and discoverers of the era.
this is dangerous because it takes value off the old and only places value on the new. Especially
the untested new.
• 27:51 Science has given us an undue love for trying to use vocabulary we don't understand. This
reduces people's ability to communicate with each other. Transfers authority from local and
official experience to general authority. There is a limit on how much can be related from one
person to another without fully knowing them or yourself and your weaknesses. This applies to
language because the language we use has to have the ability to particularize. Berry says that it's
an insult to assume that another person understands you completely.
• 31:50 Science generalizes, experience is unique. But often experience has to defend itself against
science. When knowledge grows without attention being brought to know to properly use
knowledge, then ignorance is increased.
Extended OutlineBody
• 33:34 Local adaptation is the idea that when something fails to adapt it simply fails, but
science tells people that humans are exempt from this idea. As power and knowledge
increases, so does the ability to cause damage by refusing to adapt.
• 36:28 Farmers are being harmed by industrial agriculture. They have become passive
followers of highly specialized instructions as technology takes over and ignores the
intelligence of the consumer/user. We need to take the necessity of local adaptation and
intelligence from experience over the intelligence of a few selected and hired minds that are
somewhere else.
• 40:25 Propriety is not stuffy, it’s the ability to determine what is appropriate in varying
circumstances. Decency consists of our ability to do and say what is appropriate. Knowing
what the circumstances are is what leads you to determine what the appropriate response is.
Extended OutlineConclusion
• 42:25 Berry believes that scientists have caused harm by assuming that their work will give results that are helpful and good.
Assuming that your only obligation is to your science and not to the other people it may affect is dangerous and has caused
harm. The example used was that of nuclear fission. Berry goes on to say that it is possible to follow any branch of science
in a destructive way.
• 44:50 Berry explains "Physics Envy" that people in the arts are envious of the "discoverers" in the sciences, so now the arts
are becoming more obscene to one up the sciences. Writers have been exploiting others for the sake of art, the way
scientists exploit others for the sake of science.
• 47:00 Berry explains that the idea of modern superstition is that one day humans will know everything through science.
Berry argues that even as science grows, we were never be able to determine the future and that has humans we will never
have all of the knowledge about our universe. We will be endlessly surprised.
• 50:00 The great cultural problem is that we carry on as if every new idea is 100% net improvement. We do not take the
time to deduct the negatives. The example of increased life longevity. While people are living longer, it cannot be
considered a 100% improvement because there are people who live in misery longer than they should
Main Points and Takeaway
• Berry explains that the convergence of knowledge from independent points will one day unify all
sciences together, and to explain and weave all known scientific disciplines reasoning's, facts, and
findings under one roof. He refers to the book by Edward O. Wilson called Consilience: The
Unity of Knowledge which Wilson predicts that the synthesis of scientific knowledge will also merge
with the humanities. That the different disciplines and specialized fields will one day merge and
be the basis and foundation where all knowledge is transferred to, and compiled to form the
universality of knowledge for all common good.
• Berry asserts that we have come to accept the sciences as the basis for solving our answers and
providing us with the latest technological means and knowledge. He refers to this as the frontier
metaphor where science is at the "cutting edge and will bring us to places where we have not
gone before." That science is the way and method to solve our problems and provide us with
the answers that have been humanities mysteries.
Main Points and Takeaway
• Science, as Berry says, has become too specialized where one's discipline has become focused on the single
variables and not the whole of the picture. He refers to this as reductionism where one's specialization is to
investigate a minute aspect or separate part of the whole. He refers to this as the beginning where all the
whole of the scientific disciplines are granting powers to the specialization or reductionism to be inherent of
their own powers separate from the responsibilities of the whole.
• Berry felt that these unchecked scientific principals and procedures has caused the break down of; rural
agricultural farms, damaging to the rural family cultures and lifestyles and their economies, degradation of
lands and waters through chemical use and large scale production farming, and that these negative results are
not considered and calculated beforehand to show the possible consequences. Berry adds that we must have
a more truthful balance sheet showing the pros and con's of these institutional and industrial enterprises that
are driven by university research scientists, who he feels are not held responsible of the negative results and
consequences. Berry concludes that we must have our cultural resources and not to depreciate them by the
telling of the appropriateness and circumstances with truth's to each other's
Discussion Questions to Think About
• Is there a best of both worlds scenario where industrial and traditional
agriculture can mesh together? Or is one strictly better than the other?
• In this hyper-age of industrial production to meet the growing demands of
increasing populations, coupled with decreasing resources; Do you envision
that one day industrial farming and methods will revert back to traditional
and rural family agricultural practices? Or do you feel that because of supply
and demand for food products, that industrial agri-business will grow more
exponentially to feed the growing populations?
Discussion Questions to Think About
• With the current economy and population in the US alone, do you think that
it is truly feasible to do away with industrial agriculture? What do you think
is the best way to go about doing this if it were possible?
Additional Resources
• “Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition” – Berry’s work on
sociobiology
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Episode 8 – the original podcast
Argument against industrial agriculture– University of Missouri
Argument for industrial agriculture – Global Harvest Initiative
Biography of Wendell Berry – The Poetry Foundation
Wendell Berry’s website – with links to all his other works