Solving for Pattern

Our dilemma in agriculture now is that the industrial methods that have so spectacularly solved some of the problems of food production have been accompanied by “side effects” so damaging as to threaten the survival of farming.

- Solving for Pattern by Wendell Berry

as it is frequently the case his analysis is much better than his synthesis.

here's some analytical statements:

There is, first, the solution that causes a ramifying series of new problems, the only limiting criterion being, apparently, that the new problems should arise beyond the purview of the expertise that produced the solution...
...
The second kind of solution is that which immediately worsens the problem it is intended to solve, causing a hellish symbiosis in which problem and solution reciprocally enlarge one another in a sequence that, so far as its own logic is concerned, is limitless.

but his synthesis - the final list at the end of the article and this example of the farmer Earl Spencer - are just exercises in wishful thinking.

there's a good reason for that: environmentally friendly industrial scale agriculture is a contradiction in terms © yhs

весь его синтез сводится к лозунгу ребята, давайте жить дружно!