Poet, author, farmer, philosopher—Wendell Berry (1934–2026) was all this and more: a conscience-keeper, a voice of morality and ethics in a country increasingly at war with others and with itself. He breathed his last on August 31 at a time when our deeply troubled and badly threatened world most needed his essential message of peace and justice. Not just in his own country—the USA—but across the entire world, his sage words—crafted with the creativity only an exceptionally gifted writer and poet can achieve—have growing relevance and significance.
Following his recent death, several memorable passages from his writings on farming and rural life in the USA have been recalled. However, no less important is what he said on war and conquest, particularly in writings published around the Iraq invasion of 2003. Berry wrote: "Our right to live, to be free, and to be at peace is not guaranteed by any act of violence. It can be guaranteed only by our willingness that all other persons should live, be free, and be at peace—and by our willingness to use or give our own lives to make that possible."
At the same time, he made a very significant political statement: "For about half of the last century we worried about world conquest by international communism. Now (writing around 2002), with less worry (so far), we are witnessing world conquest by international capitalism. Though its political means are milder (so far) than those of communism, this newly internationalised capitalism may prove even more destructive of human cultures and communities, of freedom, and of nature. Its tendency is just as much towards total dominance and control. Confronting this conquest, ratified and licensed by the new international trade agreements, no place and no community in the world may consider itself safe from some form of plunder. More and more people in the world are recognising that this is so, and they are saying that world conquest of any kind is wrong, period." (Yes! Magazine and Resurgence, November–December 2002).
Pointing out the ironies of a world that misses the most important truths amidst its information boom, Berry wrote: "Yet at the end of a century in which we have fought two wars to end war and several more to prevent war and preserve peace, and in which scientific and technological progress have made war ever more terrible and less controllable, we still, by policy, give no consideration to non-violent means of national defence. We do indeed make much of policy and diplomatic relations, but by diplomacy we mean invariably ultimatums for peace backed by the threat of war... To achieve peace by peaceable means is not yet our goal. We cling to the hopeless paradox of making peace by making war."
If Wendell Berry were writing in the context of today's situation, he would surely note how things have deteriorated significantly since the time he wrote this, a little before the Iraq invasion, around 2002. Back then, I found these comments so relevant that I placed them at the top of my book on the Iraq invasion, titled Iraq Invasion and the Quest for Peace (English version). In the context of the issues he raised, I later found another statement of his highly relevant: "The increasingly aggressive trends in world economy are tied up inseparably with massive plunder of others' resources, hence with conquest and war. So let us look at Mahatma Gandhi's catchwords: meet the needs of all and greed of none."
These words of Berry, which linked economic and political aggression, personal and social violence, and internal and external stress, were of great importance to me as a writer working thousands of miles away in India, as they closely aligned with the understanding I had developed through my own study and work over several years. Like Berry, I too found the insights and conclusions of Mahatma Gandhi very useful in my quest to understand persistent problems and their possible solutions (more on this in my book Man over Machine). In addition, I found Berry's understanding of the disruption of farming and rural communities along similar lines to be very useful.
Wendell Berry argued that, in addition to destroying soil and the environment, several modern farming trends promoted by big business interests and governments lead to big farms pushing out small farms, thereby disrupting rural communities and their culture. In his famous book The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, he wrote: "A healthy farm culture can be based only upon familiarity and can grow only among a people soundly established upon the land; it nourishes and safeguards a human intelligence of the earth that no amount of technology can satisfactorily replace. The growth of such a culture was once a strong possibility in the farm communities of this country (USA). We now have only the sad remnants of those communities. If we allow another generation to pass without doing what is necessary to enhance and embolden the possibility now perishing with them, we will lose it altogether."
The social and ecological harms are related, as big companies cannot care for soil and crops in the way that small farmers and farm-family communities can. The machines that have taken over most of the work on farms in some of the richest countries can produce more food but cannot protect soil for future generations. As more and more skilled farmers are driven away from agriculture, it becomes increasingly unlikely that enough people will be available not just to produce food but also to protect soil and land. Farm animals are being treated as mere commodities, with little concern for their welfare.
Berry questioned the unquestioned spread of machines and mechanisation in farming and everywhere else. He insisted on using horses on his farm while tractors and other machines were taking over elsewhere. Here too, I found myself in complete agreement, as in India I had started a campaign to protect and bring back bullocks at a time when they were being rapidly discarded in many villages following the advent of tractors.
Much confusion arises from treating agriculture like an industry (or even mining), with a single-minded pursuit of maximising short-term production and profit. Wendell Berry aptly exposed the fallacy of this: "The farmer differs from the industrialist in that the farmer is necessarily a nurturer, a preserver of the health of creatures." He further wrote: "The economy of industry is, typically, extractive. It takes, makes, uses, and discards; it progresses, that is, from exhaustion to pollution. Agriculture, on the other hand, rightly belongs to a replenishing economy, which takes, makes, uses, and returns—it involves the return to the source, not just of fertility or of so-called wastes, but also of care and affection."
Arguing why this basic understanding of agriculture is so widely missed today, Wendell Berry writes: "The 'free market'—the unbridled play of economic forces—is bad for agriculture because it is unable to assign a value to things that are necessary to agriculture. It gives a value to agricultural products, but it cannot give a value to the sources of those products in the topsoil, the ecosystem, the farm, the farm family, or the farm community. Indeed, people who look at farming from the standpoint of the 'free market' do not understand the relation of product to source. They believe that the relation is merely mechanical because they believe that agriculture is or can be an industry. And the 'free market' is helpless to suggest otherwise."
This draws attention to a very basic reality: the most essential interests of safe and healthy food cannot be protected by the industrial agriculture system, as its main priority is to increase the profits and control of big agro-business multinational companies, which in turn rely on hazardous technologies and inputs. Hence, despite all the publicity given to the industrial farming system, the safety of food and the sustainability of small-farmer households are best ensured by natural farming systems rooted in small-farmer and family-farm communities.
In fact, Berry also questioned the increasing intrusion of machines in our daily lives and was content to use paper and pen (often pencil) for his writings, ignoring the insistence of many people and friends on the help he could get from computers. When told he could work faster on computers, he said he wanted instead to work more slowly, hence more thoughtfully. When told he could write more on a computer, he said he wanted to write less, and better. When told one should not ignore new things like computers, he said that computers may be new, but his decision to avoid them is newer!
Like most great people who have the capacity to inspire the changes the world needs, Wendell Berry was known for his original thinking and views, which were closely linked to the creation of a more peaceful world—one where the value of truly being at peace is widely accepted and appreciated, and where the needs of all people get clear priority over the greed of a few, as emphasised by Mahatma Gandhi.
Much of Wendell Berry's work relates to increasing the understanding between external and internal distress and stress—for example, between the external violence and wars of a country and its increasing internal problems, or, in the more specific context of farming systems, the links between the external aggressions of multinational companies and the internal disruption of farming communities and family farms within the USA. This was also a matter of great distress at a deep personal level for Wendell Berry, who had given up lucrative urban and university positions to return to his family farm. I have also worked on this issue for decades, and followers of Berry's writings may be interested in reading my latest article on this issue, published last month: "Suffering on Both Sides—How Efforts to Destroy, Dominate, or Harm Others Also Harm the Aggressor."
Rest in peace, Wendell Sir. You truly deserve this, as you did so much to remind a forgetting world of the true meaning and roots of peace.
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The writer is Honorary Convener of the Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include India's Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food, Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, and A Day in 2071. His website is bharatdogra.in, and his YouTube channel is Bharat Dogra | Save Earth Campaign
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