The loss of barley is a small thing in comparison to this erosion of the more natural fabric of life. As huge corporations give up the simpler attempts to monopolize a particular crop or commodity in favor of cornering all of agriculture, we need to regard what we are losing here. What is human food? Is it food humans create? Engineer, even?Until now the line of thought among modern economists has been that small scale, self-sufficient farming is wrong-- that this is a primitive kind of agriculture--one that should be eliminated as quickly as possible. It is being said that the area of each field must be expanded to handle the changeover to large scal American-style agriculture, This way of thinking does not only apply to agriculture-- developments in all areas are moving in this direction.
Or should we find the nature in ourselves and sustain it with the nature we find without? Or should we supercede the natural world for one we create, escewing natural capital for manufactured, economic capital?
This is the loss I find in this chapter...
HG