Travis’s work is important for the Ecozoic era because it includes the subjectivity of the farmer, the land, and the non-human beings on the land in the conversation of what it is to farm. And thus to eat, and to be. Beyond the techniques of organic we need relational practices – rituals – that honor the whole.
You can soon watch his informal presentation at CIIS here https://pccforum.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/travis-cox-transpersonal-agroecology/ or read-on for his article from The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2014, Vol. 46, No. 1.
Travis E.B. Cox, M.A. (now PhD)
Fairfield, Iowa
ABSTRACT:
Industrial agriculture has taken over as the dominant form of food production globally, resulting in alternative production methods converging as a sustainable counter. Unfortunately, the ideological and metaphysical underpinnings of these alternative agricultural philosophies have been ignored as have the metaphysics of industrial agriculture. Using transpersonal ecology as a disciplinary analogue, this paper demonstrates an ideological commonality among alternative agricultural theorists, such that the term transpersonal agroecology covers their beliefs like the term transpersonal ecology covers the commonality of deep ecologists. The commonality is threefold. First, theorists are united in opposition against the scientism and economism that make up the productionist mentality. Second, there is awareness that in the practice of sustainable agriculture there is a process for and experience of identification with the beings on the farm, and with the farm itself. Finally, theorists contribute to the transpersonal conversation through their emphasis on values, alternative methodologies, and spirit.
KEYWORDS:
Sustainable Agriculture, Transpersonal Ecology, Identification, Agroecology, Environmental Philosophy.
For most people, sustainable agriculture pertains to the on-farm activities of practitioners, such as cover crops, integrated pest management, and no-till. This is true even for the off-farm activities of consumers, who choose to purchase their food locally or look for the USDA organic seal. However, a study of the progenitors of sustainable agriculture—people such as Albert Howard, Masanobu Fukuoka, and Rudolf Steiner, who developed organic agriculture, natural farming, and biodynamics, respectively—indicates that there is something more than just practice to sustainable agriculture. There is something deeper at the level of the mind-set of the farmer.
By employing transpersonal ecology (TE) as a disciplinary analogue, including direct quotes from the aforementioned theorists, as well as many others, this article shows that sustainable agriculture has implications for the worldview of its practitioners. These implications include an opposition to the scientism and economism of industrial agriculture, a sense of the process and experience of identification with the farm and the beings on the farm, an awareness of alternative methodologies and epistemologies, and an explicit role for values and spirit. The end result of this study is a theory, transpersonal agroecology (TPAE), that conceptualizes the commonalities of these alternative agricultural theorists and thus opens a discussion about the deeper and more human aspects of sustainable agriculture and provides a framework with which to guide such a discussion.
The article continues at: https://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/trps-46-14-01-035.pdf