Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
of both crop varieties, and livestok breeds and their agro-ecological and agronomic
management.
The pioneering rice breeder, Peter Jennings (2007), who led early advancements
in high yielding rice varieties during the first green revolution, has argued for an
'agronomic revolution': 'It is now widely recognized that rice yield gaps result from
agronomic failings, and that future yield increases depend heavily on this science.
Agronomy's time has come to lift farm productivity out of stagnancy'. Agronomy
refers to the management of crops and livestok in their speciic circumstances, and
mathes with the emergence of the term agro-ecology to indicate that there is a need
to invest in science and practice that gives farmers a combination of the best possible
seeds and breeds and their management in local ecological contexts.
This suggests that sustainable intensification will very often involve more com-
plex mixes of domesticated plant and animal species and associated management
tehniques, requiring greater skills and knowledge by farmers. To increase produc-
tion efficiently and sustainably, farmers need to understand under what conditions
agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers and pesticides) can either complement or con-
tradict biological processes and ecosystem services that inherently support agricul-
ture (Royal Society, 2009; Setle and Hama Garba, 2011). In all cases farmers need
to see for themselves that added complexity and increased efforts can result in sub-
stantial net benefits to productivity, but they need also to be assured that increas-
ing production actually leads to increases in income. Too many successful efforts in
raising production yields have ended in failure when farmers were unable to mar-
ket the increased outputs. Understanding how to access rural credit, or how to de-
velop warehouse receipt systems, and especially how to sell any increased output,
becomes as important as learning how to maximize input efficiencies or build fertile
soils. Equally, the creation of a social infrastructure of relations of trust, connections
and norms is critical to effect and spread innovation.
New forms of social infrastructure
Social capital is used as a term to describe the importance of social relationships in
cultural and economic life. he term includes suh concepts as the trust and solid-
arity that exists between people who work in groups and networks, and the use of
reciprocity and exhange to build relationships in order to ahieve collective and mu-
tually beneficial outcomes. Norms of behaviour, coupled to sanctions, help to shape
