Translation of an interview on the website of re-generation.cc
REGENERATION is an initiative of Decade Of Action, an Act tank aiming to make itself redundant in 10 years.
Text: Paul Q. de Vries & Mark Aink – Photography Gabriela Hengeveld – Reading time 12 minutes
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Herman Wijffels: “We need to let go of the idea that we know better than nature”
The changes needed in agriculture point to nothing less than the transition to a new era. Herman Wijffels advocates this like no other. A conversation about reversals, harvesting from the stream and a system that nourishes rather than depletes the Earth. “In these times, what really applies is: planet first.”
You are often asked about your views on long-term social developments. With your famous ‘eagle eye’, how would you interpret our times?
“Haha, my favourite bird is not the eagle but the albatross. I’m a bit envious of him: staying in the sky endlessly and watching from above what’s happening on the ground. It has kind of become my speciality to watch from a certain distance and then recognise patterns. My perception of our times is that we are in transition from an industrial-mechanistic to
an organic era.”
First the old: how would you outline the industrial age?
“The core of the industrial age was that to make wealth, we dug up supplies of minerals from nature and made them into products through all kinds of processing. What residues remained from that process we dumped back into nature. We are now at the point where we have to say: this era, this industrial way of life, has brought us a lot, but we cannot go on like this.”
What has it brought us?
“During the Enlightenment, the Western world actually stood outside nature. From that position, you can start studying what you find in that nature. Science took off and helped the great social project of the time: to create more prosperity, a better life for people. That succeeded. But now we have to acknowledge that with our rational capacities, we have actually also become outside the wisdom of nature.
The method we have developed turns out to cause all sorts of disturbances in the functioning of the biosphere. It harms the soil, the air, the water, the climate, the whole of life.”
How has industrial thinking affected agriculture?
“Before we applied that industrial principle to agriculture, it had always been a purely organic industry and process. We added petrochemical components to it, in the form of fertilisers, pesticides and fuel for the machinery and vehicles involved. In fact, this started after World War II: the gunpowder factories were looking for new outlets and found them in fertilisers. Now those petrochemical inputs account for a quarter of production costs in our food supply, but more and more of it is needed to maintain production, while the production environment continues to degenerate because of it.”
Photographer: Gabriela Hengeveld
Then the new thing: what does the era look like where we are going?
“We are now in a transition phase: from the industrial way of looking and working to an organic way, which is more in tune with reality, with the wholeness of life. With the knowledge we have now, we need to start making intelligent use of the Earth’s natural systems again. This is also a mental-cultural step: we need to rejoin the implicit order of the planet and abandon our pride. No longer thinking that we are outside it, that we can bend everything to our will through technocratic methods; classical engineering thinking. We have to let go of the idea that we know better than nature.”
What does that mean for agriculture?
“That we need to reduce dependence on those external chemical inputs. Not using pesticides, but using natural control from the habitat that surrounds farmland, in the form of insects and other natural enemies. These are mutually balancing forces. But above all: that we need to restore the capacity and productivity of the natural system.Regenerate, in other words. The coming period is all about strengthening, rather than weakening, the Earth as the source and sustainer of all life. That is the route that reveals itself from the facts of our current situation.”
“We are in transition from an industrial to an organic era“
Herman Wijffels SHARE: TWITTER FACEBOOK LINKEDIN (Dutch original)
In the industrial age, we drew on finite resources. What is the counterpart of that in the new era?
“I call that harvesting from the stream. All life processes that manifest themselves here come, at their core, from the interaction between the sun and the Earth. Every day, an incredible amount of energy comes from the sun to the Earth. Plants can convert that energy into edible matter through photosynthesis. And solar energy we can harvest, in various forms, with new technology still in development. So no more burning raw materials to generate energy, but harvesting it from the abundance coming at us from space. These times are also showing us the way geopolitically. Look at what is going on with the war between Russia and Ukraine and what that is doing to energy and food prices. It is clear that things have to change.”
A common objection is: we need intensive agriculture to feed a growing world population.
“There are numerous studies indicating that it is not a problem to feed an extra few billion people áf we reduce consumption of animal protein. It does not fit if we want to try to maintain that consumption globally at Western levels. For the health of the system of life, and our own health, we really need to take steps back from that take. With a more plant-based diet and the regeneration of all those areas that have become unsuitable for agriculture due to careless use, such as salinisation or desertification, we can feed the world’s population without any problem.”
Photographer: Gabriela Hengeveld
Another argument is that the Netherlands will lose prosperity if we phase out our leading position in intensive agriculture.
“You often hear that, but we should not lump all agriculture together here. Take intensive livestock farming. The Netherlands has gained a position that we can produce animal protein very cheaply here. This has to do with European policy: it has been made very attractive to import animal feed raw materials that were not subject to EU levies from elsewhere and bring them to our intensive livestock farming on the sandy soils.It has therefore grown enormously, in a way that is incompatible with our territory, with healthy nature and the environment in our country. So that activity will have to scale back.”
And the other forms of agriculture?
“In dairy farming, the problem is different. The main issue there is that in many places it borders on nature areas where ammonia emissions cause damage. In other places, it fits much better, so here you have to look regionally at what can be done where. In arable farming, the Netherlands is one of the largest producers of onions and seed potatoes in the world. I see no reason why that position could not remain leading, even if we move towards regenerative agriculture.There are issues there around fertilisers and pesticides, though, where strip farming and cultivation can offer solutions.”
How do you interpret the tension you sometimes see between biodynamic farming and regenerative agriculture?
“Organic farming has been working the way it needs to for a long time. We should have a lot of appreciation for that. I do think they could make their knowledge more available to farmers who want to work with the transition. Some organic farmers look a bit suspiciously at all those new kids on the block; often young people with new terms like regenerative agriculture. And think: “we’ve been doing that for a long time!”True, but there is great social momentum behind the rise of regenerative agriculture. People recognise that things cannot go on like this. That we need to restore the capacities of the soil and the entire life system. That’s regeneration and we can use the experience of organic farming very well for that.”
“With the knowledge we have now, we need to start making intelligent use of the Earth’s natural systems again“
Herman Wijffels SHARE: TWITTER FACEBOOK LINKEDIN (Dutch original)
Everyone is always talking about what the farmers all need to do differently. But how should the other parties change?
“Everyone has a role: farmers, banks, supermarkets, governments, consumers. A whole system has emerged around that primary agricultural production with various players. Take the cattle feed manufacturers. There is a huge input of feed coming into the country. Really huge flows of biomass, like soya from Brazil, where growing it leads to deforestation. A basic principle of the agriculture of the future is the cycle: nutrients that disappear with food production must be replenished locally. Now it is taken from the production environment in Brazil and brought here, and so that is depletion there. The old stock thinking from the industrial era.”
And the retail sector, for example?
“Retail has positioned itself into a position of being able to make demands on products and prices via huge economies of scale. This was born out of post-war agricultural policy: everything here is all about cheap. Nowhere else is “cheap” mentioned so often in food commercials. That is rooted in Dutch culture. But now that we humans are being asked to reconnect with the Earth, that also means: covering our basic needs from the land you live on. And regional distribution fits into that much better than the national or international retail chains we have now. Those chains need to organise themselves in such a way that they can also bring local product flows to consumers.”
And the financial sector?
“In the industrial era, we used natural capital to generate financial capital. Nature was abundant, financial capital was scarce. Those scarcity relations have been completely reversed. In the logic of current relations, financial capital must now be used to work for people and Earth. This raises interesting questions. Take ownership of land: in the old model, you are allowed to maximise financial returns from it. That is the core of the capitalist system. But now the right to use property without restriction for one’s own short-term benefit is being challenged. Fertile farmland should belong to the commons, resources for common use that should be well managed and maintained. We must move towards a financial system that harnesses accumulated financial capacity to restore the Earth to its full glory as a carrier of the sources of life. In these times, what really counts is: planet first. No longer a system that exploits the commons for the sake of financial capital formation. You already see new forms of financing emerging, such as Herenboeren and Land van Ons, in which citizens raise money to enable ecologically responsible food production. Banks will also have to work in this direction.”
All in all, that is a fundamental social transformation?
“Indeed. In fact, we have to rebuild the whole society from the bottom up. In the industrial era, we organised everything top down and made a pyramid landscape of the Netherlands. Those old structures essentially exploited the farmer, the consumer, the citizen. Ideally, citizens and farmers now acquire greater autonomy by starting to produce their own energy and food. This is already happening, with energy cooperatives and food arrangements and community-supported agriculture. Basically a reversal of the organising principles of the past.”
A reversal?
“Instead of organising from the top down, we are now going to do it from the bottom up. Instead of drawing from stocks, harvest from the stream. No longer serving financial capital, but letting that capital serve us. Once you grasp those reversals, the organising principles for the current transition and the new era flow from that.”
A final question to the albatross: what do you think the new era looks like in concrete terms?
“I am not going to predict the future, but I do have a picture of what is possible and, as far as I am concerned, desirable for primary necessities such as energy and food. In that picture, soon there will no longer be energy companies producing and distributing energy. Individually and collectively, people will generate their own energy with harvesting equipment such as panels and heat pumps. What is left over is shared on the grid. Citizens acquire land themselves or make arrangements with farmers who produce healthy food according to their desires. Partly with the aim of regenerating the land and passing it on to future generations. Much of what we need to live, people shape under their own direction. We then live in a social model with more autonomy, and more connection with each other and with the Earth. We are literally more grounded. From a system that was at the expense of life, we then move to a system that nurtures and supports life. That’s a great perspective, isn’t it?”
Who is Herman Wijffels?
Economist Herman Wijffels is concerned with the ‘Great Transition’ towards a harmonious relationship with the Earth, for example in the fields of agriculture and energy. Among other things, he was a top executive of Rabobank, worked at the World Bank, chairman of the Social and Economic Council and Natuurmonumenten, and professor of Sustainability and Social Change at Utrecht University. His father was an arable farmer.
SHARE: TWITTER FACEBOOK LINKEDIN (Dutch original)
Photographer: Gabriela Hengeveld
Translation made possible by Deepl.com
