502 Modern Agricultural Reforms
of dialogue’s creative power. Dick’s motto instead stresses the value of retaining
and encouraging difference as part of getting along, as part of good relations and
the achievement of practical outcomes. Falsely treating all our circumstances as
the same leads to both alienation and irrelevance. Consensus is not necessary for
getting along. Dialogue is, and for dialogue we need to retain a measure of dif-
ference if we are to find interest in what others have to say, and thus cultivate
new knowledge as we cultivate their interest in and commitment to what we too
have to say.
Which is just what PFI tries to cultivate. Their vision of sustainable agriculture
is that it brings people together in dialogue – bouncing ideas off one another, test-
ing propositions against the practical needs of growing food and feeding people in
ways that protect the environment – keeps communities vital, and yields secure
incomes. PFI does not offer its members the seductive comfort of final answers.
Silver bullets are bullets just the same, no less hazardous for their gleam. PFI gives
its members people to talk to and a means for comparing practical circumstances,
ever adapting others’ words to their own thoughts and offering their own words
back for others to chew over, to reshape in light of their experiences, and to give
back to others once again. It is not a process of adoption-diffusion. It is a process
of adaption-diffusion.
The draw of monologue, of adoption-diffusion, of the Big Ag way should not
be underestimated, though. Like the farmer at the wheel of a big green machine,
monologue can give those who accept it a feeling of great power, even though the
tractor is something that the farmer did not make and could not make, but merely
switches on. It is a pleasure of power, not of control. That is to say, it is a borrowed
power, an identity on loan. Although it is borrowed, in an uncertain world many
feel they can hope for little more.
Figure 20.1 The view from Highway 71, north of Audubon, Iowa. 2001