Food for All - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 82

inputs of pesticides, fertilizers and other modern technologies. But most
farmers in developing countries are not in such a position. If they are poor,
or the country is poor, then there is no option of purchasing inputs in
order to increase productivity. This is before considering whether such
approaches might or might not cause harm to the environment or to
human health. The success of modern agriculture in recent decades has
often masked damaging externalities or side effects, and it is only recently
that large-scale environmental and health costs have come to be apprec-
iated. 4 Thus, the specific question we need to ask is: to what extent can
farmers improve food production with cheap, low-cost, locally available
technologies and inputs that do not cause harm to the environment or to
human health when used?
What, then, do we understand by sustainable agriculture? In the first
instance, a more sustainable farming seeks to make the best use of nature's
goods and services while not damaging the environment. 5 It does this by
integrating natural processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation,
soil regeneration and natural enemies of pests into food production
processes. It also minimizes the use of non-renewable inputs that damage
the environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers. It makes
use of the knowledge and skills of farmers, thereby improving their self-
reliance, and it seeks to make productive use of people's collective
capacities to work together in order to solve common management
problems, such as pest, watershed, irrigation, forest and credit management.
Sustainable agriculture is also multifunctional within landscapes and
economies. It jointly produces food and other goods for farm families and
markets; but it also contributes to a range of public goods , such as clean water,
biodiversity, carbon sequestration in soils, groundwater recharge, flood
protection, and landscape amenity value. As sustainable agriculture also
seeks to make the best use of nature, so technologies and practices must
be locally adapted. They are most likely to emerge from new configur-
ations of social relations (comprising relations of trust embodied in new
social organizations) and new horizontal and vertical partnerships
between institutions, and from human capacity (comprising leadership,
ingenuity, management skills and the capacity to innovate). Thus, agri-
cultural systems with high levels of social and human assets are more able
to innovate in the face of uncertainty.
Does Sustainable Agriculture Work?
These are all fine ideas, but can they work in practice? At the University of
Essex, we recently completed the largest survey of sustainable agriculture