Agrarianism

When used in discussions of contemporary food issues, the term agrarianism most commonly refers to a cumulative mix of philosophy and ethics, political platform and critique, the social critique of industrialization, the environmental critique of industrial farming, and a prescribed normative way of life. It takes as its central premise that humans are inherently tillers of soil and that they need to produce and thus consume products of photosynthesis and their derivatives, including especially livestock, in order to survive. Given this human role and the 10,000-year history of humans as agriculturalists, agrarians believe that the healthiest way to produce food for land, soil, and culture, and the healthiest way to structure society, is as self-sufficient, internally reliant farming communities that are built around the art ...