Short review

Article 1: Does Community Have a Value? By Wendel Berry

A picture of the community that Wendell Berry tries to convey through the story of Loyce and
Owen Flood who married in their early teens and moved to a farm in hilly country near Port
Royal, Kentucky. The atmosphere I can imagine from Wendell Berry’s storytelling is almost
similar to the story of ‘The Little House on the Prairie’, which I watched on television.
Wendell Berry is left with the question of whether community life is necessary nowadays and
also Wendell Berry expects there will be questions about whether Wendell Berry wants to
turn back the clock. From my perspective, community life is necessary but we do not
necessarily have to abandon modernity and advanced technology that humans have
created.

For another thing, Wendell Berry said the failing farming system has replaced the way
communities live. Just as Wendell Berry did not deny the failure, so do I. This is because I
am a nature lover and sensitive to behaviors that can destroy the environment. I have a
background in agriculture and there I learned about the ways and practices of workers on
farms, most of which are not environmentally friendly and only focus on agricultural
production. As for some example, single-use polybags and caterpillars are killed to control
their population, unlike David Kline told by Wendell Berry who was an outstanding
conservationist and naturalist, who may delay a hay-cutting in order to allow bobolink
fledglings to leave the nest.

Article 2: Does Community Have a Value? -a reply by Carl D. Esbjornson

Based on the story of Carl D. Esbjornson himself who grew up on Valley View Road in St.
Louis. Peter, Minnesota, around 1970 I expect, until 1990, where his mother died in 1990.
He confirmed that the place -based community Berry said had value. But until that time
alone, after Carl married Rilla, Carl had moved out of his hometown. Carl and Rilla went on a
journey. In Stillwater, Oklahoma, they found a community that welcomed newcomers. In
Michigan, they have found a rich community life. They lived in Michigan State until Carl’s
career at university was almost over and Carl thought of changing his career toward working
for the community and sustainable agriculture. Carl and Rilla discuss, and Rilla emphasizes
the importance of living in a community for the selection of a new place they will go. There’s
a story, a lot of things happen when they move back to Carl’s hometown.
Article 3: A Sand County Almanac

What makes Aldo Leopold unique amongst a lot of environmental writers, he was an
environmental writer with practical dirt on his hand experience, he was not just walking
through nature and having fun. He redefined what we would think of as our community. For
thousands of years in certain cultures, mankind views the environment as something to
tackle to control especially in religious circles, the biblical idea of ‘this was god’s gift to man,
it was for us to control the wildlife, the evil wilderness and bring it into god’s country, get it
farmable get it controlled and all set for man’. He had definitely experienced that in his
younger life and he was someone who participated in some acts of this kind of ideology, he
was involved in the wolf culling in the United States which would eventually drive wolves
completely out of the country, he took place in that and he actually helped hunt down wolves
as part of the forest service. It is actually one of the more touching pieces from this collection
of literature; he saw firsthand just how destructive this kind of behavior was he was that the
force was dying and that the mountains were changing without wolves, he was kind of one of
those first professionals to really say ‘hey, we really screwed up here, something is not right’.
When the wolves disappeared, everything else started to disappear too. The deer are
grazing everything to the ground, we are losing our environment by removing these evil
predators that were supposedly something bad for us, well now we are seeing it as good for
us.

Comparison Article 1, 2 & 3

The similarities I find in this article are the storytelling of the couple Loyce and Owen by
Wendell Berry and the story of Carl D. Esbjornson’s family when he was a child, they lived in
the same era that had a high value in the community. The similarities between the two
articles and the Land Ethic article by Aldo Leopold in the book A Sand County Almanac
there is a brief mention of sustainable agriculture that will take consider environmental
protection measures, but only Land Ethic article only discusses the environment in greater
detail, including the wilderness, and Aldo Leopold also approached on the issue of
environmental education that is not applied in early school education.

Opinion

For me, environmental education is less emphasized and can be said to be almost non-
existent when in school from primary to secondary school, even though I entered the
university level and took the field of agriculture, learning about the natural ecosystem and its
care was given less emphasis. This thought is also shared by Aldo Leopold.
Reflection on the community

There is a positive reflection in Malaysia on the association and unity in the community in
creating a garden with organic, environmentally friendly concept that is shared together. This
can increase food security, and also vegetable products produced in community gardens are
healthier because there is less use of poison and almost no use at all. There are also
community gardens that produce protein products such as chicken meat, chicken eggs, river
fish and some also raise cows and goats. This is in line with the production of healthier food
products due to the organic concept practiced in community gardens. Food and kitchen
waste composting activities carried out in community gardens in Malaysia also contribute
towards the reduction of land clearing for waste disposal site, carbon reduction in the issue
of climate change, and also the production of cost-effective fertilizers. Suitable food waste
such as rice, cakes, vegetables can be fed to chickens and ducks and can solve the problem
of importing food for livestock. The concept of community gardens has also grown widely in
the Netherlands.