ABSTRACT
It is widely held that our farming and food systems require a systemic change away from industrial agricultural approaches and towards greater ecological and socio-economic sustainability, but such change, as this chapter argues, is only half of the challenge. Through an examination of the scholastic works of neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist and psychologist Anne Baring, the industrial worldview appears as a disorder, a manifestation of an irregular, left-hemisphere-dominant brain, which expresses through the need for material security as well as to hold dominion over nature. This worldview is then contrasted with those of indigenous, non-materialist cultures that recognise not only our interconnected relationship with nature but also hidden, invisible dimensions to life which are variously interpreted as involving vibrational energy, consciousness and/or spirit. Applying this to contemporary farming approaches, the chapter critically analyses the extent to which the modernist, ecologically based movements (agroecology, permaculture and organic farming) share the physical-material worldview of industrial agriculture, with biodynamic farming emerging as the exception. The chapter culminates by introducing the discipline of Subtle Agroecologies as an antidote to this predicament and suggests that by researching and applying subtle farming practices that work with the hidden dimensions of nature, we may enhance the sustainability of agriculture as well as fundamentally shifting our relationship with nature as a whole, and in doing so move towards the healing of the hemispheric rift or imbalance that McGilchrist, Baring and others have spelled out. Because these dimensions promise a more complete understanding of reality, our contemporary global challenges may not be overcome until we do take seriously the hidden half of nature.
