Ecology, Farming, Buddhism - Ethics

Ecology, in its scientific objectivity, is required to be absolutely impartial in the face of values (except with regard to the quality of scientific practice). The farm ecosystem is simply a subject for observation and analysis. On the basis of objective historic observation and analysis, ecology can predict the range of quantifiable outcomes for a farm ecosystem that are likely to happen if a farmer acts in different ways. However, it must suspend any subjective judgement about the value of those actions or their outcomes. This restriction avoids potential bias that could cloud the communication of ecology’s aim of objective observation.

Ecology can answer questions relating to what we can do. It is, however, incapable of answering the essentially political and ethical questions of what we should do.

Ecology also exists in the world of normative deductive reductionist science. Fundamental to this approach is the maxim that a system can be broken into its parts (or relationships), and if the working of those parts can be understood, then the assembly of the component parts will describe the overall working of the system. In oft used terms: The system is the sum of its parts.

Over recent decades the value of deterministic scientific reductionism in the study of ecology has been seriously questioned. The predictive accuracy of scientific models of understanding becomes increasingly weak as systems become increasingly complex. Stochastic models and the idea of emergent properties (described below) have gained traction. Irrespective, science in general and ecology remain focused on a deductive reductionist footing.

Agro-industrial farmers are primarily concerned with inputs, yields and overall efficiency of production of specific commodities. The agro-industrial approach is primarily utilitarian and increasingly dependent on normative ecological science and financial analysis as its guiding beacons.

Agro-industry tends to view farm ecosystems as a canvas for efficient production for the benefit of farmers and consumers. As previously mentioned, the pursuit of efficiency within the deterministic scientific understanding tends to lead to the elimination of as many confounding variables as possible. Simplification and control are features of agro-industry. 

Similarly, the efficiency of agro-industrial models is measured through the narrow lens of financial profitability or near term money spent when compared to near term money earned. They are largely unconcerned with goods and services that cannot be traded. Their ethical operating space is defined by the regulatory restraints of government. These tend to mirror the somewhat nebulous collective ethical mores of the dominant political institutions.

By contrast, agro-ecological farmers have a clearly articulated, if still somewhat anthropocentric, ethical basis. The farm ecosystem is developed in pursuit of human benefit, but its development is bounded by principles beyond the regulatory restraints of ordinary agriculture. For example, the ethical underpinnings of permaculture include:

“1. Care of the Earth: provision for all life systems to continue and multiply.

2. Care of people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary to their existence.

3. Setting limits to population and consumption: By governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the above principles.”

Agro-ecologists, while remaining steeped in normative ecological science, also tend foster a ‘natural’ design ethic and are happy to work with what they view as unknown, or unknowable. They acknowledge the value of induction and intuition as useful complements to normative science, and regard the system as more than just the sum of its parts. They believe that, sometimes, when components are assembled, unexpected and unpredictable properties emerge (termed emergent properties).

Buddhism, with one notable exception discussed below, does not generally speak directly about the value of ecosystems in general or agricultural practice. Buddhism’s view is primarily ethical and more impartial (less anthropocentric). It is also essentially holistic, inductive and intuitive in its approach. Objectivity and the subject/object split of normative science could be viewed as anathema to Buddhism’s central maxim of interdependence.

Buddhism’s guiding ethic has nothing to do with productivity or naturalness, but instead is based on the extent to which an individual might contribute to the overall suffering or wellbeing of their fellow sentient beings[1]. It does however provide a clear framework for ethical interaction with our world, and would suggest that any view of a farm ecosystem that was not holistic would be incomplete.

This view of holism is based on complex interdependencies and impermanence or inevitable change, which would tend to suggest that nothing, including a farm ecosystem or a farmer’s potential impact upon it, is truly knowable. It would further suggest that any ‘value’ we tend to ascribe to a farming system or its outputs is contrived, and the degree to which we attach importance to that ‘value’ will be the degree to which we contribute to suffering for ourselves and fellow sentient being.

That is not to say that Buddhism does not speak to values. Just that the things it professes to value are generally not specifically focussed on the practice of farming. Buddhist ethics will have profound implications for anyone who attempts to integrate farming as a form of livelihood within their Buddhist practice. 

For Buddhism, the ‘value’ is in the way we interact with the system (the process of farming), not in the volume or quality of production that the system might theoretically be capable of producing (the outcomes). Buddhism also tends to work with aspirations based on skilful behaviours (with respect to the generation or amelioration of suffering), but views attachment to aspirations as counterproductive.

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[1] Sentient beings can be loosely defined as all animals that have the capacity for suffering.