Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
has many benefits, it also has many negative consequences
for agricultural sustainability. A major problem is that
global production and distribution of food requires large
amounts of energy for transportation. Perhaps more sig-
nificant, however, is that a global food system may help
create the ideal conditions for exacerbation of the problem
of inequity and may help erode sustainable traditional
agroecosystems around the world.
In a globalizing food system, producers of inputs such
as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery are able to
expand their influence on agroecosystems, and farmers
become increasingly dependent on them and their prod-
ucts and knowledge. Agricultural land becomes more
highly valued for its ability to produce for export than for
local food needs. Human labor is increasingly replaced
with mechanization. The overall consequences are greater
integration of agroecosystems into technology- and input-
based conventional agriculture, less autonomy, a dimin-
ished ability to grow food for local needs, and destruction
of traditional and agricultural communities.
But globalization may also have the potential to
counter these effects if it can be used instead to promote
and support local control of land, the use of local
knowledge, direct human involvement in agricultural
production, and economic independence. These impor-
tant aspects of ecologically based farm management
may be key parts of designing a sustainable future
(Figure 24.9).
enhance the ecological health of the agro-
ecosystem and economic health of the local
community.
•
Agroecological principles require that manage-
ment be based as much on practical knowledge
of what works in the field as on theoretical
knowledge. This requirement valorizes the
practical knowledge of farmers and farmwork-
ers, giving them greater power in demanding
equitable treatment.
•
The agroecological focus on knowledge of local
conditions, local ecosystems, and locally adapted
crop plants encourages a bioregional approach to
agriculture and gives those who own and work
the land more of a personal stake in the long-term
ecological integrity of the agroecosystem.
•
Agroecological management demands the
farmer take a long-term view, which balances
the need to prioritize annual yields and profit.
•
Agroecological principles are best applied at a
relatively small scale. This encourages produc-
tion for regional consumption instead of for
export; it is also more consistent with equitable
land ownership and economic benefits than
with concentration of farmland in the hands of
a few.
•
Agroecology recognizes the value of traditional
systems that have proven to be stable in both
ecological and social terms, and thus supports
the social and economic structures and commu-
nities that make them possible.
L
INKS
B
ETWEEN
A
GROECOLOGY
AND
C
HANGES
IN
THE
S
OCIAL
C
ONTEXT
OF
A
GRICULTURE
•
Agroecological management is best accom-
plished through intensification of human labor
rather than intensification of the use of
machinery. Because this labor requires a high
degree of knowledge, judgment, and technical
skill, agroecologically managed farming can
provide many people with dignified and satis-
fying livelihoods.
Even though the science of agroecology is focused on the
ecological aspects of agroecosystems, the principles it
seeks to apply can encourage positive changes in the
social aspects and contexts of agroecosystems as well. At
one level, agroecology is based on a variety of principles
that have application in the social realm. Important eco-
logical concepts such as interaction, networks, integra-
tion, mutualisms, feedbacks, cycles, relationships, and
stability can all have parallels in social interaction and
the structures of social institutions. Ecology is also fun-
damentally antireductionist, encouraging whole-systems
thinking and long-time-span planning. At a more concrete
level, when agroecological principles are applied in actual
farming practice, opportunities arise for creating more-
sustainable social relations and economic structures.
Below are some examples of this connection.
The linkages described above demonstrate that
changes in farming practices and techniques go hand-
in-hand with changes in the overall social context of agri-
culture. Neither can happen entirely independently of the
other, and agroecology has a role to play in both.
M
AKING
C
HANGE
H
APPEN
Problems in agriculture create the pressures for changes
that will support a sustainable agriculture. But it is one
thing to express the need for sustainability, and another to
bring about the changes that are required. Change must
happen at many different levels, and in many different
institutions, but ultimately all these aspects of the transi-
tion to sustainability are linked.
•
The drastic reduction in external inputs
involved in agroecological management
decreases a system's dependence on external
economic forces and makes it less vulnerable
to increases in the price of inputs. The farmer
can benefit economically, and simultaneously
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