25 February 2025
What I did:
This week I read about the concept of calculability in agriculture and how regenerative agriculture practices are often reduced to figures that can be incorporated into “farming by numbers” rather than fundamentally changing argi-food systems. The article I read centered on soil microbiology as an example of this. I read another article about working towards a decolonial definition of regenerative agriculture and the importance of reincorporating values and cultural significance to interactions with land. I must admit, I am still processing everything I learned and what it all means. Growing pains.
(Side note: There are SO MANY overlaps with this study and Land Acts.)
What I learned: (a LOT… this doesn’t even capture it all…)
Moving towards an Anti-colonial Definition for Regenerative Agriculture
https://research.ebsco.com/c/q4dy5d/viewer/html/6cb6tgskjz
Interest in soil microbes is growing in popularity as individuals recognize their important role in soil health. The recognition of these microorganisms can contribute to understandings that soils are living and agential. However, the way that they are being incorporated into agriculture reinforces current environmental relationships in which microbes as another data point to be measured and monitored, rather than encouraging alternative approaches to agriculture. Quantification reduces objects to numbers, calculation creates relationships of value between the objects and comes to a conclusion about such objects and relationships. In agriculture, quantification and calculability have been used to improve and progress, rendering land, non-humans, and humans calculable.
It is common to discuss how governance systems can be oppressive and harmful, however, habits of self-governance, which are influenced by overarching power structures, often go unconsidered. “Habits of self-governance are ingrained by training, fostering, inciting, and even coercing individuals to observe and self-regulate their behaviour.” Governance systems need not constantly be reminding us how to act because we have been “trained” how to act; there is a biopolitical power operating within us, not just outside of us. This need not scare us, rather, it can be a source of hope that we can change our habits of self-governance as a way of resisting the ecologically and socially damaging power of biopolitics.
The modern farm mimics a factory in which the farmer is the factory manager. The ideal manager self-regulates, always seeking to optimize their behavior in line with governance objectives. For example, if the government desires more profit, the manager can alter their operations to make more money. Or, if the government desires higher yields, the manager can implement practices that produce higher yields. For this operation to function properly, the manager must be able to assess the impacts of their decisions before making them. Calculability provides evidence that the manager can use to justify a certain decision, especially a change in behavior. This is especially critical when providing a rationale that demonstrates the value of their decisions for themselves and others.
Microbioloitics involves creating categories of microscopic biological agents. Counter-microbiopolitics resists the aforementioned categorization due to how the strict organization of microbial (and human) lives causes social and ecological harm. Rather than continuing to operate under structures informed by biopolitical knowledge, a shift to embodied ways of knowing can resist oppressive structures. A focus on the body and the specificity of encounters with the environment can disrupt anthropocentric ideologies in which humans view themselves as the central beneficiaries of services and resources. A shift from knowing-as-observing to knowing-as-relating is a way to begin reshaping our encounters with the land and each other.
Organisms do not function as bounded entities although Western scientific practices like to think so, studying or experimenting with organisms in isolation. Microorganisms help with interrelations between organisms; their absence from social and ecological life has caused ecosystem collapse and declines in mental and physical health in humans. Encounters with microbes can occur in agricultural settings, however they are present in other environments such as our own bodies and artisanal trades (sourdough, cheesemaking). Learning about the capacities of microbes in everyday activities is a way for people to expand their worldview. That is to say that everyone can and should learn about how microbes impact their lives on a daily basis and in different mediums. Cultivating this awareness can ultimately be traced back to agriculture and food systems. For example, in considering one’s gut microbiome, one must consider how the food they eat impacts that microbiome; where that food came from and how it was grown (especially the conditions under which it grew) are tied to one agricultural landscape or another.
Soil microbes present a life-line for farmers who constantly struggle to make a living. Straying away from a reliance on expensive inputs can be a way to cut costs; “cheap labor” of microbes or “cheap nature” of crop residues are appealing (this perspective problematically reduces microbes, plants, etc. as tools to be used rather than beings to work with).
Farmers in this study that began implementing cover crops and reducing chemical inputs utilized their senses to observe changes in their soils including the look, touch, and smell, developing localized and embodied knowledge. Unfortunately, farmers were uncomfortable with relying on this type of knowledge alone, still wanting a financial or tangible benefit to justify their practices. One farmer foresaw big-data science utilizing AI to interpret large amounts of data regarding soil microbial makeups to make this part of agriculture more “legible” for conventional practices that rely on calculability rather than embodied knowledge.
In conclusion, the consideration of microbial communities as critical parts of ecosystems and agriculture does not challenge existing conventional systems. Facilitating environments where microbes can thrive is by no means a silver bullet in solving problems of soil health and land degradation. Rather, how microbes are acknowledged matters, who leads knowledge production and sharing of these organisms matters, and whose interests that knowledge serves matters.
As one farmer in the study put it, “farms are businesses…”
But what if they weren’t?
The author states, “If you can’t manage what you can’t measure, then you also can’t be a manager of an unmeasurable domain.”
Management of farms as businesses relies on this idea of calculability.
But what if we stopped relying on calculations for management? What if we acknowledged the unmeasurability of domains around us and no longer reduced the world to numbers and associated values? What if we relied on embodied knowledge for management?
Moving towards an Anti-colonial Definition for Regenerative Agriculture
https://research.ebsco.com/c/q4dy5d/viewer/html/6cb6tgskjz
Regenerative practices cannot be layered atop an agricultural industry that is grounded in principles of production and profits. Well, they have been, but they have done nothing to address problems within a food system with a history of deep ecological and social injustices. Regenerative practices will only have effective change if they are applied to a system with renewed principles and values.
Land sparing is a concept that is common in places with histories of colonialism, separating out land for different purposes and embracing the concept of “wilderness,” also termed “colonial conservation.” Another concept, land sharing, is quite different in how land is regarded; seeking to produce food while conserving, restoring, and regenerating the natural environment. Even 12,000 years ago, nearly 75% of land was inhabited by human societies. The idea of wilderness could not be any more “unnatural.” Through careful and intentional intervention, societies can balance the needs of humans and nonhumans. However, transformations cannot only happen in practices, they must happen in principle. Often, relational values of “respect” and “love” are dismissed, values which are essential in Indigenous worldviews. The ecological concerns of agriculture are often addressed in isolation with science-backed methods that promise improvement. However, because the ecological concerns of food systems are caused by economic, social, and political injustices, they cannot be solved without changes to existing socio-economic and political systems.
Many regenerative agriculture practices that are being implemented in modern agricultural systems are found in pre-colonial systems around the world and emerged independently in different times and cultures. Collaboration of Western science with Indigenous expertise is beneficial yet only if incompatible elements of each system do not get left behind, for example, cultural significance and values. Many farmers have a sense of stewardship and connection to the land, however this is often overwhelmed by financial concerns. In order to truly change our landscapes– the physical world around us, we must reassess our mindscapes– how we conceptualize reality.
What I am doing next:
Next week I will be taking a break from theorizing… or at least taking a break from reading new articles. I cannot stop turning these ideas over in my head. I plan to review soil testing procedures and map out/measure the land that I would like to sample. Additionally, I would like to go out to LaFarm and get a sense of the land that I plan to work with, beyond just measuring it. What does it look like? What does it feel like? I have not yet heard back from Ryan Snyder.
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