Productionism

Within agriculture, productionism is the ideology and suite of associated practices that privileges agricultural productivity over other values or goals that might be associated with agricultural landscapes or communities. Although productionism remains the dominant perspective among most agricultural professionals—from farmers to agricultural scientists—there is a growing recognition that other values may also be important to consider in today's society. The ideology of productionism is prevalent, though by no means universal, among agricultural professionals around the world. However, most scholars trace the ideology back to European roots—to the Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution.

Productionism is the idea that agricultural yield, especially of staple food and feed crops, is the most important goal of farming and the measure by which producers are judged. Other social goals, long-term conservation or environmental goals, and even economic goals are secondary concerns. Productionism can be understood as both a hegemonic ideology as well as a suite of technical and socioeconomic practices supporting the ideology. Although productionism is not limited to agriculture, it is arguable that it is within agriculture that productionism is embodied in its most encompassing form. That is to say that although yield or production of goods remains one of the primary goals of most material-based industries, there are usually other goals, especially those of profit and efficiency, that are also central.

The roots of productionist ideology and practice can be traced to the development of modern Western thought regarding science, technology, and morality. Early production-ism emerged in the West out of an interaction between agricultural communities and landscapes, with the changing view of the world provided by the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution.

The philosophical and spiritual debates over the nature of salvation and morality that led to the Protestant Reformation also fed productionism by linking productivity with morality. Max Weber's early sociological work examining the effects of the Protestant work ethic and ideas about predestination, published in the early 20th century, though not specific to agriculture, can help us understand the very deep, and in many ways spiritual and moral, roots of productionist values. Weber traced the development of capitalism to the Protestant work ethic, and in his day would likely have exempted farming from the suite of capitalist enterprises he was interested in. However, his analysis of how the work ethic leads to productivity and accumulation is central to understanding agricultural productionism.

For productionism to have taken hold, farmers must have a reason for producing more than they are already producing. A peasant farm family's current level of production was sufficient for their subsistence needs; for example, they may have been uninterested in expending the extra effort to produce excess. However, during the 15th-17th centuries, Protestant religions took hold in most of northern Europe. Protestant reformers were especially concerned about the perceived hedonism and corruption of the Church, and many protestant groups adopted an ascetic Puritan ethic and endorsed the virtue of hard work, arguing that God was best served if one's talents and labor were spent on being productive. Hard work in itself became a virtue, and sloth or leisure a vice. One of the best ways to demonstrate that one was working hard, and was therefore a virtuous person, was to produce a great deal of whatever it was one was engaged in producing. This production led to the accumulation necessary for capitalist investment.

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