Rachel Mazac, University of Helsinki
I crafted my response to the question asked of myself and fellow students in a course on sustainable agriculture in rural Northeast Thailand. This was a question that helped me to acknowledge my privilege and interest in learning not just about agriculture, but indeed culture itself, in a non-western context. Eventually, we would come to realize a pluralistic understanding of what ‘sustainable’ means in different contexts, to different people, at different times outside of the western scientific paradigm within which I have been immersed as a student and scholar.
Why are you here? Seems to be a question I get often, but most recently from one of the instructors of this three-week sustainable agriculture course. We went around the room, the other students introduced themselves, and they briefly outlined their respective fields of study. My classmates, mostly Thai and all Master’s students, generally mentioned wanting to learn more English and more about sustainable agriculture in Isan, the region of Thailand within which our coursework was to be set. I realized quickly how privileged my position was as a native English speaker and someone with a recently-completed MSc degree in sustainable food systems.
After I had introduced myself to the other students, there was some general nodding and I knew I had already gone off the deep end as far as the rest of the class as concerned. In my answer, I detailed some of my questions about the course as an edifying experience, discussed my MSc work, and left the response with an open-ended question about how sustainable agriculture is practiced in rural locales. See? Too much. Later, when we had some time to actually talk, one of the other students remarked, “So, you’re a PhD student; you must be so smart.” I was taken aback, and I replied, “No no, I just find this topic really interesting and can’t seem to stop thinking about it.” I would later come to realize that I have never considered myself anything more than a creative problem solver with a penchant for critically overthinking the world and a soft spot for existential threats.
Little did we know, but this was the mission and vision of the coursework the whole time. To get us to question why we—as students, people, and, more directly, farmers—were here, why we do what we do, why we should care, and what to do about the challenges we face. Over three weeks of coursework, field research, soil sampling and analysis, and interviews with farmers in the rural villages of Pho Sai and Nong Seang, we were led through a journey of cultural exchange and deepening understandings the agriculture in Northeast Thailand. We gained a view of the tools that are used in sustainability assessments for agricultural development, and in general set out to ask, “Why do farmers do what they do?” Now, I can’t say we came to any definitive answers to this question, but we circled in on some understanding of the constraints farmers face in Northeast Thailand, which subsequently, even surreptitiously, dictate why it is they do what they do. Farmers face many choices, which are constrained environmentally, socially, and economically. Sound familiar? It should…
These constraints were what we sought to understand, quantify/qualify, and communicate clearly by the end of the course. So, three weeks is pretty short for an entire sustainability assessment for agricultural development. Yet, we landed on the understanding that farmers do what they do because that is why they are here. They are doing what they know best, given the constraints and conditions they have to work within, and most importantly given the values that they have.
In a system of values that builds upon itself and is also interconnected to other values, there are land/environment values, farmers’/farms (as businesses) values, and community/village values that influence why farmers do what they do: to instantiate those values through their work in the agricultural system. The land or environmental values form a foundation upon which the farmer and farm values as businesses can be built, which contribute the infrastructure for social values of the community. We came to understand that the value of economic stability is founded on the result of food security—farmers sought the ability to produce a viable living to be stable in food, income, and resources to live a complex and fulfilled life.
Finally, the community and social values of the village were understood in terms of government support for dams and irrigation ponds, family projects, farm plans for the future situated in a historical past, and what was really important for the village. In interviews with farmers and the head of one of the villages, we understood the social values were measured in units that were a bit different than the others. The head of the village indicated a desire for farmers in the village to want to grow their own food, to increase the diversity of crops grown to include more than the staple crops of rice and cassava, and to be able to maintain their own place within the markets to avoid government mandates and price fluctuations. Not in exactly these words, but these units of resources shared, land owned, rights, self-government and self-sufficiency, signified the head of the village outlining a desire for and the value of food sovereignty.
Here is where we started to see the plurality of the idea of what ‘sustainable’ means for different people in different places. Though I have placed these values in terms of the language I have been given for ‘sustainability’, the underlying structures and desiderata are analogous in definition and practice. The environmental value of agroecological sustainability, the economic value of food security, and the social value of food sovereignty. These were why the farmers do what they do. This is why they were here, to lead lives and make every decision balancing of the constraints of the present to attain a desired future. We should continue to seek and participate in experiences which offer opportunities for people—as scientists, students, teachers—to exercise the epistemological agility needed to embrace pluralistic view of sustainable lives. To see and understand the many values, reasons, and ways you are here. I was fortunate enough to be given one of those opportunities through this experience.
So, ask yourself, “Why are you here?” I would later realize that it was also because of my values, of which I shared the same set of with the farmers and my classmates: to help me cultivate the possibility of a life, though constrained, lived in plentitude and for a sustainable future. A life where I can continue to ask deep questions, go too far in sharing my thoughts, and feed my existential propensity for critically over-analyzing the larger systems in play and structures that set the context within which we live it.