Author Meets Critics: Paul Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil, 2nd Ed

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Notes

1. Just as race theorists have developed the concept of an epistemology of ignorance to explain why questions about the race and class components of gangland shootings are simply not asked, the epistemology of ignorance explains why philosophers have not been interested in developing a philosophy of farming. Though not its main point, Heldke (2006) describes how and why farmers, in particular, are viewed by elites as stupid.

2. Thompson refers to the changed regulatory environment for biotech between the first (1995) and second (2017) editions of the book. However, it is also worthwhile to note how much has not changed. For half of the ten genetically modified crops currently grown in the US, some variety was approved in the mid-1990s. (Canola, alfalfa, apples, potatoes, and sugar beets were deregulated more recently). Papaya is the only GM crop to have originated in academic (i.e., public) research, in spite of much publicly-funded research on biotech remedies for diseases of regional and niche crops. The relative lack of change in the US portfolio of GM crops, in spite of the success of biotechnologies, suggests a disconnect between the agricultural system and the needs and desires of consumers and farming communities.