ABSTRACT
Throughout human history, spirituality has been an essential aspect of agriculture. Historically, people gave thanks to God or the spirit world for their food, and farmers proudly proclaimed their responsibility as caretakers or stewards of God’s holy earth. During the mid-1900s, the spiritual connections of food and farming were sacrificed in the process of bringing modern science and industrial technologies to agriculture – at least in the US and other so-called developed economies.
The industrialization of agriculture succeeded in terms of greater productivity and economic efficiency. However, the industrial food system brought with it a large and growing list of unintended negative consequences – ecological, social, and even economic. In addition, it has failed to meet the basic food needs of many people in the US and the rest of the world, in spite of its impressive productivity. With its inevitable depletion and degradation of natural and human resources, industrial agriculture certainly is not leaving equal or better opportunities for those of the future. Today’s so-called conventional industrial agriculture is not meeting the need of the present and it is diminishing opportunities for the future. It is not sustainable.
