Transforming the Earth : a study in the change of agricultural mindscapes

Abstract

This thesis links three interconnected stories relevant to humanity's future: 1. Exposition of a different form of agriculture; 2. An exploration of the nature of transformational change; and 3. Revelation of a new way of regenerating Earth via the melding of new and old knowledge. A confluence of multiple and interconnected crises threatens the self-regulating capacity of the planet and thus the future of humanity. Food security is one of these crises, placing agriculture front and centre in addressing this challenge. Agriculture is problematic because practices integral to industrial agriculture are known to inhibit the continuing provision of essential ecosystem services (including adequate healthy food and water). This thesis explores both the reasons why traditional agricultural practices fail, and the rise of a change-oriented new-organic agriculture that is taking their place. The study population comprised seventy-nine innovative Australian farmers who have successfully developed ruminant-based, agro-ecological practices that cover broad areas of land. The challenge was to find how and why this group of agriculturalists undertook transformational changes in their practices. Preliminary investigation suggested farmers' belief-systems were central to the answer. Multi-method research based on critical, open trans-disciplinary inquiry was used to analyse interviews, documents, and historical material. The study focused on the interconnection of language and metaphor, the role of discourses, and the power-knowledge nexus in the formation of personal psychological constructs. A study of Western thought since 1500 revealed that an earlier organic view of the cosmos was replaced by science- and technology-based mercantile capitalism which led to an embedding of the mechanical metaphor in Western thinking. This metaphor regards nature as dead and passive, and something to be reconstructed, dominated, and controlled: as opposed to the ancient organic metaphor which saw the cosmos as a living female earth, to be nurtured and sustained. Analysis of this metaphor shift revealed that major personal psychological constructs appear to drive society and land-use practices. Socially-embedded constructs have regularly been found resistant to change. Mechanical constructs, deeply entrenched and unrecognised by most farmers, are behind harmful land-use practices in Australia. By contrast, analysis of the evolving regenerative agricultural discourse revealed startling differences in language and metaphor. Transformative agriculturalists have overthrown the mechanical metaphor and thinking for what is termed the new-organic. This comprises a bio-philic, earth regenerating and transformative frame of 'mind' with associated practices that combines new agro-ecological knowledge and rediscovered ancient knowledge (the pre-mechanical organic). This fundamental transformation involved farmers changing their personal construct systems. Transformative agriculturalists had reflected on their situation and undertaken social learning within communities of practice. Here they exhibited different ways of learning, thinking and feeling, exemplified in their use of the trans-disciplinary imagination: the bringing together of multiple knowledge in a synergy of new ideas. Given the urgency of the sustainability challenge and the promise offered by a shift to sustainable-regenerative land-use, these findings have major implications for agricultural practice and extension services. While transformative change cannot be forced, nevertheless the ground can be prepared for change. Show more