The Unsettling of America

The maximum population or level of activity that an environment can sustain without experiencing long-term degradation is its carrying capacity. In agriculture, it involves the number of crops, animals, or people that a piece of land can support while maintaining its productivity and ecological health. Natural limitations, such as soil fertility, water availability, and the balance of nutrients, define carrying capacity.

Berry uses the concept to highlight the ecological limits that industrial agriculture frequently ignores. In contrast to biological energy, industrial energy pushes beyond natural boundaries by using synthetic fertilizers, monocultures, and mechanization, thereby depleting the land’s resources and disrupting its natural resilience. Carrying capacity indicates the need for a balanced, sustainable approach to farming that preserves the environment’s ability to support life over the long term. Through this concept, Berry advocates traditional farming methods that honor the limits of the land and prioritize its ongoing health and fertility.

Berry addresses consumerism as a system that reduces people to passive consumers, dependent on experts and industrial systems for their basic needs and comforts. He criticizes how consumer culture fosters a consumer mentality, in which individuals focus solely on earning money and acquiring goods while neglecting the responsibilities of production, care, and self-sufficiency. The act of purchasing replaces the deeper, more meaningful work of engaging directly with the world, whether though growing food, creating goods, or nurturing relationships. For Berry, consumerism represents a loss of personal autonomy and integrity because it encourages mindless consumption and reinforces the exploitative systems that degrade the environment and community.

In The Unsettling of America, estrangement refers to the growing divide between consumers and producers, particularly in the realm of food production. Berry describes how modern society has disconnected consumers from the sources of their food, resulting in ignorance or indifference to the environmental and labor-intensive processes behind it. In addition, producers have shifted their focus from nurturing the land to maximizing output, leading to a loss of responsibility toward sustainable farming practices. This estrangement leads to lower-quality, less nutritious food, environmental degradation, and a culture of waste because both consumers and producers fail to see their intertwined roles in maintaining a healthy food system and ecosystem.

Berry defines an exploiter as a person or mindset focused on extracting maximum profit with minimal regard for the long-term well-being of the land, community, or culture. Exploiters prioritize efficiency and short-term gains, seeing nature and people as resources to be consumed. Berry contrasts this figure with the “nurturer,” arguing that the exploiter’s approach leads to environmental degradation, social harm, and the eventual exhaustion of natural resources. The exploiter represents the destructive mentality that drives industrial agriculture and economic policy, contributing to the erosion of small farms and rural communities.

A central concept in Berry’s philosophy of land stewardship, kindly use emphasizes the need for responsible and caring interaction with the land. Unlike exploitative practices that prioritize short-term profits, kindly use involves understanding the land’s unique needs and cultivating it in a way that maintains its long-term health and productivity. Berry contrasts this approach with the more industrial, generalized methods of farming that treat the land as a commodity rather than as a living, delicate system. By advocating kindly use, Berry calls for a more intimate, ethical relationship between people and the land, in which the goal is not only to extract resources but to nurture and sustain them for future generations.

A community’s ability to meet its own needs for food, goods, and services from resources available within the local area, rather than relying on imports or distant suppliers, is its local self-sufficiency. This involves producing food locally, reducing dependence on external markets, and ensuring that a community can sustain itself in times of economic or logistical disruption. In the text, local self-sufficiency represents an alternative to the centralized, industrial food system, which relies on long-distance transportation, heavy processing, and corporate control.

Berry emphasizes that local self-sufficiency supports healthier, more resilient communities by promoting direct relationships between farmers and consumers, reducing the environmental impact of transportation, and maintaining higher food quality. This concept is integral to Berry’s vision of a more sustainable, ethical agriculture that values community well-being, environmental stewardship, and a deeper connection between people and their local landscapes.

Obtained from non-living sources, machine-derived energy typically extracts and converts fossil fuels or harnesses natural forces like wind and water. People can accumulate and store machine-derived energy (unlike biological energy), which often leads to the illusion of infinite supply. However, this type of energy is finite and inherently links to destructive extraction methods and waste production.

Machine-derived, or mechanized, energy relies on stockpiles or reservoirs, and its detachment from natural cycles makes it difficult to sustainably manage. Berry highlights the dangers of overreliance on stockpiling and using mechanized sources of energy without natural constraints. He critiques modern industrial agriculture and its unsustainable practices, drawing attention to the environmental and moral consequences of using energy beyond what humans can responsibly manage.

The opposite of an exploiter, a nurturer in Berry’s work is someone who cares deeply for the land, working in harmony with nature to ensure long-term sustainability. Rather than focusing on profit, the nurturer prioritizes the health of the land, the community, and the self. Berry associates nurturers with traditional farming practices, valuing quality over quantity and understanding the land’s carrying capacity. A nurturer’s goal is not to exploit but to preserve and enhance life, making this identity a model for responsible stewardship. This figure is Berry’s ideal, embodying a countercultural resistance to the exploitative tendencies of modern industrial society.

In the context of The Unsettling of America, settlement or domestic culture refers to people’s tendency to stay in one place, cultivating a deep relationship with the land and fostering stable communities. Berry contrasts this with the transient, exploitative mentality that seeks quick profits through endless expansion and resource extraction. Settlement, as Berry describes it, is rooted in a sense of belonging and responsibility, valuing the land as homeland rather than a commodity. This concept is central to Berry’s argument for a more sustainable and nurturing approach to agriculture because it emphasizes long-term stewardship over short-term gains.