“This culture is on an extraordinary pace toward needing things to be more efficient. But that is a value that is ultimately antithetical to the gospel. I’ve never heard of efficient wisdom, efficient love, efficient suffering, or efficient compassion. So what does it mean that we inhabit a world that is so dominated by this ideology of efficiency? That’s my interest in asking, what does it actually mean? How is it shaping you without your knowledge or permission right now?”
I came across this quote today while reading one of the blogs that I make sure to hit each day. This particular quote comes from pastor and author Shane Hipps, and while it is clearly a quote based on the subject of Christianity it really hit me from an agricultural point of view.
I wholeheartedly agree that our culture is running at a breakneck speed towards even greater efficiency and that is just as true in the agricultural world as it is anywhere else. If you don’t believe me than just read my post about the new John Deere planter (it is all about speed and efficiency). But, just like Mr. Hipp I at times question the importance of efficiency because I think we don’t always look at the consequences.
While I understand that efficiency has allowed us to do more than we have ever done before I often find myself thinking about whether or not that is a good thing. Do we need to continually be doing more and creating more (and getting rid of more)? In fact it reminds me of a Joel Salatin interview that I saw on Youtube where he questioned the idea that we even need big cities…
Maybe there is something that could be said about doing things inefficiently? Maybe we would be a little better off if we just had to do things the old fashioned hard way from time to time? Just a thought.
There are natural and seasonal rhythms to farming that are already efficient to their created purpose. Much of what modern agriculture seeks to do is control and manipulate these rhythms.
What is better? A dairy cow that produces “more” for two years or a dairy cow that produces “less” for 15 years? Efficiency isn’t always about the here and now, but what is best over time.
Allow me to make a couple of comments regarding efficiency in this context, and perhaps to suggest that our modern efficiency is inefficient, and that it might not be particularly wise either.
On the first item, I think we’re subject to a modern, inaccurate, definition of efficient. What’s efficient? Is speed efficient? Or what about speed and accuracy?
Probably neither. In real material terms, the most efficient thing may be the thing that uses the least amount of non replenishable resources in terms of the results achieve. If that’s the definition, almost all modern farm implements are highly inefficient. The amount of resources that go into their make up, transportation, and fueling, make them inefficient. On a per acre basis, draft animals are probably more efficient.
Draft animals wouldn’t be more efficient in terms of our own time, or acres able to be worked, but that’s likely besides the point. If it takes more farmers, and draft animals, to work the same acreage, in terms of resources, and even worthwhile labor, the older method would be more efficient
Which takes me to our next point. What of efficiency? So what? All animals, of all kinds, including ourselves, are unhappy outside of the environment we’re meant to be in. It might be highly efficient to keep all animals in a zoo at all times, but I doubt they’d appreciate the efficiency. Likewise, it might be more efficient to have as few farmers as possible, and have all humans work in cubicles, but it wouldn’t be something we’d really enjoy, or profit from. So, efficiency is only a virtue if it serves some other goal, and is never a virtue in and of itself.
Yeoman, when you state
“…If it takes more farmers, and draft animals, to work the same acreage, in terms of resources, and even worthwhile labor, the older method would be more efficient…”
what exactly do you mean?
Are you referring to an individual’s sense of accomplishment from finishing a ‘good’ day’s productive work? Or, is the philosophy behind the labor more important than the productivity of that labor?
On the subject of efficiency, aren’t cattle that are ‘efficient’ at converting the available forage under the prevailing weather conditions into beef a desirable part of most ranches? If ‘efficient’ cattle are desirable, then why wouldn’t ‘efficient’ pigs, machinery, grasses, etc. also be sought?
Of course, blindly pursuing efficiency just for efficiency’s sake is a mistake. A balance between efficiency, productivity, and profitability needs to be found.
Still following the blog and interested in getting “Making Your Small Farm Profitable” by Ron Macher when you get the chance.
Jilann
I have to agree with MikeW. Getting too efficient is what gave us big agribusinesses to begin with. Many people are coming to realize that it is healthier and smarter to buy local from small farms, and outlets.
God bless.
William
Rich, when I very unclearly stated:
“Draft animals wouldn’t be more efficient in terms of our own time, or acres able to be worked, but that’s likely besides the point. If it takes more farmers, and draft animals, to work the same acreage, in terms of resources, and even worthwhile labor, the older method would be more efficient”, what I meant was this.
Modern mechanized equipment is more efficient in terms of time. A farmer with a very modern tractor can work more acres, in less time, than one with an older tractor. Both can work more acres, in less time, than a man with a mule and a plow.
But, if we take the resources put into the making and fueling the tractor, and refining the fuel, and shipping the fuel, and all the raw components that go in to the tractor, this is no longer the case. The tractor in the field in Nebraska, lets say, has components and fuel that had to come from all over the globe. Highly inefficient, in terms of resource allocation.
The old fashioned (say pre 1940) American horse based farm, on the other hand, might very well have raised and fed the horse in front of the plow from resources on the farm. The horses byproducts were used for fertilizer, and the horse’s offspring sold as a crop. Off farm resources were certainly used, but the actual efficiency of resources was more efficient, in that sense.
It depends on what the goal is, of course. If the goal is the maximum per acre yield, irrespective of all other costs, the balance is with modern Big Ag. If the goal is an acceptable economic crop with the minimum amount of invested resources put into to grow the crop, the balance is with the old fashioned animal powered farm. If the goals something else, efficiency would have to be calculated in another manner.