The Tipping Point
Dr. Philip Rasmussen
Western SARE Regional Coordinator
Originally published in Fall 2010 Simply Sustainable
A recent workshop in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Farm Foundation, USDA-NIFA and the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Science, marked a critical juncture in the agricultural sustainability phenomenon. The workshop centered upon defining USDA's response to the recently published landmark NRC publication, Towards Sustainable Agriculture in the 21st Century. Some of the clear messages that had already surfaced as recommendations within the comprehensive NRC report were:
1. There is a clear need for both incremental (slow) and transformational (rapid) changes in order to create a more sustainable agricultural system throughout the nation and its island territories and protectorates. Traditional incremental change will not suffice.
2. There is an urgent need for research that addresses the multiple dimensions of sustainability in order to engender systemic changes in the "whole of American agriculture."
3. Needed research must include the knowledge-base and voice of farmers, ranchers and agribusiness in the research and education efforts. It cannot be limited to scientists alone.
4. Needed research must include transdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of agronomy, sociology, economics and other critical sciences in a meaningful way.
5. There is a critical need for an order of magnitude increase in research and education efforts, if the daunting challenge of transformational change is to be addressed.
Several attendees of the workshop, including several Western SARE Administrative Council members and alumni members, clearly and forcefully expressed the fact that SARE is the model to address many of the recommendations of the NRC report, given sufficient resources. For over 22 years, SARE has championed the inclusion of farmers and ranchers in the decision matrix for large research and/or education grants. In addition, SARE has championed farmers and ranchers as recipients and innovators of both small transformational and incremental research topics. SARE has also, from the beginning set of research grants, encouraged "whole farm systems" research and transdisciplinary research.
We stand at a pivotal point as the history of agriculture and sustainability is being written; the critical "tipping point" that many prominent business professors and commentators have extensively described [see: The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen (2000), Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore (1991), and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)].
In 1997, noted Harvard professor, Clayton Christensen, remarked that "an innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers access to a product or service." Professor Christensen notes that these are often simple products and services with little initial market penetration that quickly grow in customer acceptance and market share. In many ways sustainable agriculture may be such a simple but transformative system as Professor Christensen describes.
We are at that tipping point when a new idea is moving from the early adopters to the general populous. It is often the place where many companies capsize by failing to notice the tremendous momentum of the moment. This has also been outlined in the book, The Tipping Point by Dr. Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell defines the tipping point as the sociological "moment of critical mass, threshold, the boiling point - the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable." Gladwell also defines the "law of the few," which states that "the success of any social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts."
The USDA-SARE program is at such a tipping point - where the public sentiment is clearly behind the idea of sustainability. In addition, in many ways, we have "people with a particular and rare set of social gifts." Nevertheless, the USDA-SARE program is relatively unknown to many key decision-making circles. It is our goal to take advantage of a plethora of past, present and future SARE research and education projects to substantially increase awareness of the program.
This will take hard work, effort and the combined hours of all those who have been leaders in the sustainable agriculture research and education efforts. Nevertheless, we do have the tools and extensive database of project results to show that sustainability can be a reality in the agriculture environment. Our goal is to carry that far beyond the normal circle of supporters, to the "whole of American agriculture." This is a challenge that we can meet.
