ABSTRACT
Duties of stewardship complement and qualify the productionist ethic in traditional agriculture. Most farmers accept responsibility to care for nature, and the goal of this chapter is to articulate, qualify, and finally to evaluate critically the ethical assumptions and values on which this responsibility is based. The traditional agrarian view of stewardship cau be summarized as a religious duty to protect and foster the beauty and integrity of Gods creation. The primary flaw can be summarked, as well. Traditional agrarian stewardship is conceived as a duty ethically subservient to production; hence when stewardship would entail constraints on production, duties to nature seldom prevail over the productionist ethic. As such, if stewardship is to serve as a component in an environmental ethic for agriculture, it must be broadened and reshaped.
