[.ca] Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization (ISBN 0865476225)

Questioning Common Wisdom*:
I received this volume for review at the same time that Manning's article, Super Organics: Inside the New Science of Smart Breeding, appeared in the May 2004 issue of "Wired" magazine (1). In the article, Manning describes the ability of scientists to tag genetic elements which have been identified as yielding desirable traits. This innovation allows one to more effectively carry out conventional breeding on an accelerated time-table, giving more certainty as to outcome and none of the concerns of the possibility of the claim of creating "Franken Foods" which has plagued the genetic engineered crops. Given Manning's concerns regarding human footprints on the environment, one can almost hear a sigh of relief and feel the hope that this technology might foreshadow a kinder and gentler approach towards agricultural practices, globally, as well as herald the loosening of the economic grip which many believe the multinational agri-business firms hold on the world's food supply. Manning is part of a growing cadre of non-academic public intellectuals whose presence is being felt, not just in conventional venues, but even more so on the Internet via web pages, blogs, email lists, and similar electronic venues. Many of these articles, books and electronic materials are researched with the same care and documentation found within the scholarly art. Others, including, "Against the Grain", are lightly and selectively researched and adopted, often lacking in thorough documentation, and anecdotally argued. It takes little research to raise questions with the intellectually underpinnings of Manning's thesis once one rubs the romantic patina off the surface. "Against the Grain" is one of these pieces, more eloquent than reasoned, and more thoughtful than grounded in substance, though giving the appearance of being researched in a scholarly manner. Manning, in his response to his own question, "Why Agriculture?" says, (the question) is so vital, lies so close to the core of our being that it probably cannot be asked or answered with complete honesty. Better to settle for calming explanations of the sort Stephen Jay Gould calls 'just so stories'." What Manning would have us believe is that the calming stories of agriculture are those of conventional wisdom which tell of human progress due largely to the ability of society to grow because of agriculture. "Against the Grain", he believes is a counter perspective which demonstrates that agriculture, in many ways, is hostile to both the quality of life for humans and, also, the very fabric of the planetary ecosystem. The author finds it perplexing that hunter gatherers would want to give up the life of leisure, gamboling through the ecosystem, picking berries in season and killing a choice animal for meat as needed, or desired. He builds a case for sedentary life coming before agriculture, largely around water, rich with easily obtainable aquatic protein. This sedentary life allowed for the tilling of the soil and the planting of crops, the curse of God on Adam and Eve when expelled from the Garden. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." Manning sees grains (wheat, corn, rice) as the cross that the planet must carry. Storable, tradable, commodities are controllable. Rulers can use them to subjugate farmers, build armies, and conquer free persons and their properties and enslave them. Sedentary populations under rulers could be commanded and humbled. Yesterday, it was the armies of the Greeks and Romans, and today, the giants of the international grain trade and their agribusiness partners. Manning is a "hunter" who believes that humans are constructed to thrive on protein, red meat from the "kill"; and the cultivation of grains, a storable, fungible commodity is not only detrimental to human health but allows wealth in grains, like precious metals, to be concentrated in the hands of a few who then control the larger population. The land, Nature's precious soils, are scared by the plow and insulted by rubbing agri-chemicals into the wounds while precious top soils pollute the waters, the source of life. Unsustainable agricultural practices are subsidized to produce unnecessary surpluses of primary grains, wheat, corn, and rice. Of course, land ownership also restricts hunters and their natural prey. Yet, Manning realizes that because of agriculture, populations have risen, perhaps, in his mind, not as healthy as hunter/gatherers. Manning suggests that human physiology has suffered because of the restrictive grain diets and the subjugation via economics and physical coercion once agriculture dominated the arena of food production. Since we can't return to Manning's Eden of innocence and the idyllic life of the hunter/gather, what are realistic alternatives to continued abuse of the land for production of tradable grains controlled by multinationals? Manning suggests that we return to locally produced foods, animals raised humanely and vegetables produced on community support agriculture operations. Permaculture gets a passing nod as does the "Slow Food" movement which not only suggests that we take more time to appreciate what we eat but also how we obtain it. Do we live to eat or eat to live? Perhaps, Manning suggests, that we should stop to smell the roses, concern ourselves more with appreciating the world around us and less time trying to expedite our consumption of the necessary basics for our biological engines. The reader identifies with the author's point of view which tends to draw one in while reducing the critical eye of a more academic analysis. Jared Diamond's, now almost classic, Guns, Germs and Steel, (2) represents the opposite end of the public intellectual spectrum. Rather than seeing Manning's work as providing new insights, historic perspectives, or cogent intellectual arguments for sustainability, one needs to yield to this volume as to one might to a historical novel. 1) Manning, Richard, Super Organics, Wired Magazine, May 2004, pp 176-180,215. 2) Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1997 *Abridged from a review in The Journal of Sustainable Agriculture (in press)

Interesting Book on Agriculture:
The labels on the packages of the food we eat include vital nutrition information. However, Richard Manning in his book, Against the Grain, contends that the nutrition labels leave out much important information. Large corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland are primarily to blame here. Manning believes that the carbohydrate rich crops of wheat, corn and rice are actually bad for us. He is a devotee of the Atkins Diet that preaches that carbohydrates should be avoided as much as possible. Manning also opposes the way that agricultural concerns "farm the government." This is a provocative and well-written book.

Insightful:
This is a book about one powerful idea with many stories and pieces of evidence to support the author's argument. The idea is that agriculture has had a profound effect not only on present day human diet and cuisine, but also on our culture and economy. The author weaves a narrative of his own studies, experience, and travels that persuasively leaves the reader with the impression that our present way of feeding ourselves is unsustainable. A solution is offered without any hint of preaching. I found this book insightful and important and only slightly flawed. I had problems in two areas. First, because the author tries to include many disjointed ideas into one package, I was sometimes confused as to how certain anecdotes or facts fit into the themes of each of the chapters. I suppose this is only natural when one is writing a grand narrative of this sort, but I felt that a smoother flow could have been attained with tighter editing. Secondly, although I did not generally doubt the facts and figures cited by the author, I wish he had included more references. There were a few times in which I thought the figures cited may have been one-sided and it would have been nice at least to see the source. Apart from these minor flaws, I found the book a good read and an important contribution to the body of knowledge in line with the many other 'big idea' books that have come out recently.

Food for Thought:
The first part of the book develops a thesis which readers of Daniel Quinn's *Ishmael* and *The Story of B* will recognize: that 7,000-10,000 years ago, when our hunter-gatherer forbears discovered how to tame the annual grasses and created agriculture, they opened the doors to economic stratification (wealth and poverty), famine, war, organized religion, overpopulation and pretty much everything that's wrong with the world today. The rest of the book expands on information presented by a number of other authors that take current agriculture to task. At times Manning's polemic style carries these ideas over the top: "We did not create (agriculture)...plants domesticated us." At other times it bludgeons its way into novel insights: "The goal of agriculture is not feeding people; it is the creation of wealth." His writing, like his thinking, runs hot and cold. A brilliant sound byte may be followed by a sentence that falls one draft short of comprehensibility. After a bookful of woes, the chapter upliftingly entitled "A Counteragriculture" is a disappointment. After thoroughly building the pemise that totalitarian agriculture has put us in deep global doo doo, Manning devotes a single sentence to the overpopulation problem and narrows his focus onto farmers' markets--a delightful development to be sure, but as an answer to the woes he has enumerated, it's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Besides, if these farmers were ever to snag enough of the market to threaten Archer Daniels Midland or its corporate brethren, they would be terminated with extreme prejudice. *Against the Grain* is a thoroughly-researched book, well-documented with science and statistics. With its lively journalistic tone and trove of ascinating facts, it's non-intimidating for the lay reader.

Agriculture Creates (Bad) Government:
An important book that sheds light on human evolution, the evolution of agriculture, and therewith the evolution (and forcible extinction) of most life on the planet. The upshot of this evolutionary odyssey is clear: agriculture has never had anything to do with nutrition, culinary flavor or food security. On the contrary, it has had everything to do with the commodification of food and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small minority. Readable, quotable, and packed with information, this books is sure to please everyone - unless you are an unforgiving vegetarian. For Manning is clearly a hunter, or perhaps hunter-gatherer is a better term. As he says, "Food is about a great deal more than nutrition. It, along with sex, forms the pathway that connects our species to the future." Yet again: "We must hunt for food and sex. This is our obsession, our drive, the focus of our senses and our sensuality, so ingrained as to define our humanity. These drives are our essence." And yet, Manning does not suggest, or even believe it is possible, to revert to the lifestyle of our by-and-large neurosis-free hunger-gatherer forebears. We have already colonized too much of the planet to support our growing population; so how could six billion people survive as foraging hunters? The solution, as he and I both see it, is "something approaching permaculture" - that is, a perennial polyculture based on local production and consumption. Manning also praises the Slow Food Movement and farmers markets. All together a remarkable book. Some related readings include: "Coming Home to Eat" by Gary Nabham and "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins on the subject of food. For great discussions on agriculture, see "The Fatal Harvest Reader" by Andrew Kimbrell and "A Green History of the World" by Clive Ponting. (Ponting, especially, should not be overlooked by anyone wanting to understand the failure of complex civilizations in general and large-scale agriculture in specific.) For more on human evolution, I recommend Diamond's "The Third Chimpanzee." On the fascinating subject of permaculture, see "Permaculture: A Designer's Manuel" by Bill Mollison or "Permaculture: Principles and Pathways" by David Holmgren.