Manure Management
and Moral Community

Paul B. Thompson
Purdue University

Les E. Lanyon
The Pennsylvania State University

Different approaches to manure management run deeper than personal preferences and technical expertise. Some of the current thinking on manure presumes that the problem is simply a matter of finding cost-effective ways to raise animals—hogs, chickens or dairy cows—in a manner that limits discharge of nutrients into watersheds at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or state environmental agency-approved levels. Others find the fact that nutrient management has become problematic to be a symptom of a deeper and more far-reaching predicament. One perspective emphasizes technological solutions to the containment and disposal of nutrient wastes, while another emphasizes policy solutions and community development. One set of approaches relies on farm-based strategies for containing contaminants, while another emphasizes the local flow of crops, that is limiting the space and time in which nutrients must recycle (Magdoff, Lanyon and Leibhardt, 1997).

In previous work Thompson (1994, 1995) has described the argument between utilitarian and agrarian or communitarian philosophies of agriculture. A philosophy of agriculture consists of beliefs about agriculture's purpose, and about the ways of pursuing that purpose. It is normative in the sense that it stipulates, presumes or implies norms or standards that would indicate whether any given system or approach to farming and food production is good or bad, successful or not. It can be personal or social. If social, a philosophy of agriculture states what farming is intended to accomplish for society overall, irrespective of the personal goals that an individual farm family might have. Utilitarian philosophy is guided by the following rule: act so as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. The utilitarian evaluates a farming practice in light of the degree to which its benefits outweigh its costs. To the extent that one can make a reasonable prediction of the consequences from any farming practice or public policy, utilitarian philosophy supports case by case assessment and comparison. The utilitarian maxim then directs us to choose the most efficient or optimal course of action from all the available alternatives (Thompson, 1993; 1995). Agrarian or communitarian philosophy of agriculture begins by describing an ideal. In America, the agrarian ideal is characterized by multi-generational and diversified family farms, interacting with one another and with the businesses and people of a small rural town. The agrarian ideal provides a way of envisioning community itself; hence its philosophical meaning extends beyond agriculture and rural life.

Prior to World War II, these two philosophies would have been unlikely to spark much conflict in rural America. Agrarian philosophy is based on norms and reciprocities among people who routinely interact with one another. The utilitarian ethic governing farming dictates that market exchanges between free and informed individuals provide reliable signals to guide production decisions. When the majority of animal producers are operating diversified farms with extensive animal grazing, there is no reason why these two philosophies should come into conflict with one another. However, modern technology has created social relations between peoples distant from one another in space and time. These relations challenge the conception of a moral community that is implied by agrarian philosophy. Agrarian philosophy emphasizes reciprocal duties exchanged by people who live in the same place over a period of generations. The new relations of production challenge utilitarian philosophy by dramatically expanding the universe of affected parties. An agricultural policy environment controlled by urban constituencies challenges both views (Lanyon and Thompson, 1996).

At some point in the technological transformation of animal production, philosophical differences lead to different perspectives on this situation. For a utilitarian, there are new costs in the form of potential environmental impact and the abatement of nuisances. The administrative structure for regulating environmental impact also entails costs. Nevertheless, it may well be true that benefits (in the form of lower food costs and increased income for industrial producers) outweigh environmental and abatement costs. If so, someone operating with a utilitarian philosophy of agriculture may feel entirely justified in pressing forward with more efficient intensive and industrial technology. The key burden of proof will be to assess costs and benefits and to compare the costs and benefits of relatively more industrialized production systems with the costs and benefits of traditional systems.

For the agrarian, there is no compensation that will redress the transformation of community that takes place when people who once regarded one another as lifelong neighbors must now look at each other as potential litigators. The failure here is ecological: soil and water eco-systems are challenged (Lanyon, 1995), but beyond that, the community's ability to reproduce itself with any degree of historical of cultural continuity is threatened. The reciprocities that form the basis of family and community loyalty are transformed into legalisms that require government and expert mediation. The fact that utilitarian thinking seems entirely unresponsive to this transformation simply adds insult to injury.

We have outlined a philosophical framework for interpreting the challenges of manure management in light of a tension between two distinct philosophies of agriculture. We are not claiming that this framework applies to every situation calling for manure management. Whether or not the framework applies to any specific animal production system or to any specific rural community depends on local conditions. Nevertheless, increasing awareness of the philosophical dispute, rethinking the role of technical experts, and becoming proactive with respect to moral community can improve the situation in many instances.

Increasing Awareness. People in conflict over environmental issues have a working understanding of why others oppose their action. Opponents may be thought of as ignorant of essential knowledge. They may be thought of as people who "don't understand agriculture," or "live in the past." Opponents may be characterized as lacking an understanding of ecology or of economics. Opponents may also be described in moral terms as embracing values that are inimical to property rights, personal freedom or sustainability. While we would not deny that there are some circumstances in which this interpretation of environmental conflict is warranted, we would argue that the tension between agrarian and utilitarian philosophy does not, in itself, support such a pessimistic view of conflicts over manure management. Both agrarian and utilitarian philosophies have deep roots in American culture. Each embodies wisdom and each deserves respect. At the same time, each has been associated with unsavory episodes in our past, so neither can be understood as an unalloyed solution to all problems in American agriculture.

If opponents come to see one another as working from different philosophical visions, a different working understanding of the conflict can emerge. Opponents are not seen as necessarily ignorant or evil, but as having different goals and as applying different burdens of proof. When one is dealing with reasonable opponents, it becomes possible to search for partial solutions that satisfy all parties, with the recognition that such agreements do not lay the foundation for future attacks. Furthermore, it is possible to develop a more effective strategy for communicating or negotiating with opponents. If one understands that opponents do not particularly care about compensating costs and benefits, for example, one will not waste one's breath with such arguments.

Redefining the Role of Expertise. Technical experts do not usually advocate for utilitarian or agrarian philosophy. Yet science and engineering prove far more useful to utilitarians, who see ethics as a future-oriented process of comparing options, than to agrarians, who see ethics in terms of maintaining the integrity of a moral community rooted in the past. The predictive capacity of technical expertise enjoys a natural fit with the future orientation and cost comparing mentality of the utilitarian. Those who take an agrarian approach might prefer activities that examine and propagate a vision of cultural identity with the past. If utilitarian and agrarian philosophies were to compete on a level playing field, advocates of each view would have equal access to knowledge and public programs. As it stands, however, there are many publicly funded scientists and technicians supporting work that can be deployed in a utilitarian agriculture, and few public servants undertaking activities that would help rural communities understand their past, their present identities, or providing tools to help communities maintain a sense of community. This is a completely unintended bias in public funding, but it is a bias nonetheless.

Moral Community. As noted above, changes in production and transportation technology have severed many of the practical ties between close neighbors and especially between producers and the eventual consumers of animal products. If one takes an agrarian viewpoint, this development is an evil in itself. If one takes a utilitarian viewpoint, the problem consists in an unusual kind of market failure. Consumers are unable to express their preferences for environmental quality or for a particular form of social organization through their food purchases. Whichever view one takes, there is an opportunity to experiment with new market structures.

Community supported agriculture (CSA) is one approach that attempts to increase market-based feedback between producers and consumers, and the green marketing strategy that has been developed in Pennsylvania is another. Economists have not always been strong supporters of such efforts, largely because they involve cumbersome institutional arrangements, and may not provide adequate price incentives for either consumer or producer participation. Regulation by external experts is generally seen as a surer way to bring about environmental improvements. However, if one sees these experiments as attempts to close the gap between two philosophies of animal production, a different rationale for attempting them begins to emerge.

The Dairy Network Partnership (DNP) in Pennsylvania, a coalition of environmental, advocacy and educational organizations brought together to promote dairy farm survival and environmental protection, is creating a milk marketing initiative (MMI) to link dairy farmers and consumers. This initiative is based on the adaptation of Farm*A*Syst, a national farmstead assessment program, in central Lancaster County, Pennsylvania under a USDA Water Quality Initiative Project. Although the original program was intended as a self-awareness effort for farmers to protect their groundwater, it has been adapted increase a sense of moral community with respect to water quality protection assurance between dairy farmers and off-farm stakeholders. Farmstead water quality protection evaluations result in scores for six areas on each dairy farm and an overall farmstead score. Those farms with scores above the threshold are providing water quality protection services that consumers value. This value is communicated through a premium consumers pay on specially labeled milk. The premium will help to offset costs of water quality protection incurred by dairy farmers providing those services. It will also provide a positive and ongoing incentive for those who are not receiving the premium to change practices in order to qualify.

The MMI differs from other cost-share programs organized under Farm*A*Syst in that funds are allocated to the farms that are most likely to qualify for the performance premium after implementation. Normally, cost-share funds go to farms with the most serious water quality problems. The rationale for the normal policy is utilitarian: make the most efficient use of cost-share funds by attacking the most significant problems. The rationale for the MMI performance premium (and the reformulated cost-share) is based on two notions that draw on an agrarian or communitarian conception of moral community. First, water quality protection as a value-added service to society. Second, consumers are brought into the loop. Their decisions affect environmental quality, and help create a sound business planning mechanism for the implementation and maintenance of water quality protection measure on dairy farms.

The ethical dilemma is to create a satisfactory reward framework for a consumer that is sensitive to indirect goods or consequences. Consumers and the valuing process thus are a focus of the water quality protection efforts we attempting to implement. A revised formulation of ethical development is essential to this effort. A community structure rather than an individualistic worldview encourages the discipline (what we won t do that is within our capacity) that is critical to the success of the MMI. We hope that through transparent standards and evaluation techniques we can forge an ethical community that is sustained through information rather than face-to-face interaction. This ability to act upon the distributed consequences of our actions for others and nature is the essence of the environmental message for living within our present and future community. The MMI is simply a mechanism to promote this message and to demonstrate its implementation in a concrete way.

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