Fall, 1990 (v3n1)
Editor's Note:
The UC Santa Cruz Agroecology
Program hosted a June conference aimed at broadening the concept of sustainable
agriculture to include social needs and human welfare, in addition to
environmental issues. It attracted 160 researchers, farmers, policymakers,
public interest group representatives, and consumers. The following is
a summary of an article on the conference by Debra Van Dusen,
Agroecology Program agricultural issues assistant analyst. The full
article will appear in the Summer 1990 issue of the Agroecology Program
newsletter Cultivar. A paper summarizing the findings of
the conference will be available this winter from Barbara Laurence
Agroecology Program, University of California Santa Cruz, CA 95064,
(408)459-3240.
The conference Sustainable
Agriculture: Balancing Social Environmental and Economic Concerns was
created to "make visible some of the most pressing social issues
that we confront in the food and agriculture system," said Patricia
Allen, senior analyst with the Agroecology Program and one of the
event's primary organizers. The two main themes of the conference were
redefining sustainable agriculture to explicitly include the social component,
and exploring issues which need to be resolved if social and ethical concerns
are to become an active part of agricultural sustainability.
Many meanings of sustainability center around environmentally-benign farming practices, including biological control or organic farming methods. Some emphasize land stewardship and preservation of the family farm. For many researchers, it means a systems perspective that includes not only farm practices, but the complex set of interactions that tie them to the environment and to agriculture's larger socioeconomic context. A major challenge to implementing sustainability is not only to resolve differences in how the concept is defined and consequently how its goals and policies are structured, but to recognize how social and ethical issues factor into the equation.
Social, Ethical Concerns
Although social and ethical
issues are not as frequently addressed as environmental and economic ones,
they are considered essential by a growing number of people in the food
and agriculture system. One reason is that agriculture's goal of feeding
the world's people is often confounded by social, political and ethical
factors that limit people's access to food - factors that result in poverty,
and lack of access to land and farm credit. Increasingly, agricultural
practices that perpetuate inhumane and substandard conditions for humans
and other species are seen in the same light as harmful environmental
practices. The most commonly recognized problems of agriculture, including
polluted groundwater, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and adverse
affects on rural communities, cannot be resolved solely by adopting environmentally-benign
farming practices. Too often purely technological solutions are proposed
in the name of sustainability without considering how such technology
will actually be used, who will benefit from it, and who will not.
Bill Friedland, UC Santa Cruz Social Sciences Division dean and professor of community studies and sociology, noted that sustainability is inextricably bound with forms of human organization. "It's human beings that either create, or uncreate sustainability," he said, noting that processes such as desertification and global warming are due not to the functions of the biosphere, but rather how humans organize themselves and influence those functions as a result.
Identifying Issues
Conference discussions about
defining sustainable agriculture centered around defining who and what
will be sustained, and at what levels. Most participants agreed that under
optimal conditions, all human beings (present and future) should be assured
adequate and nutritious food, obtained without degrading the earth's natural
resources and with minimal interference in natural ecosystems and other
species' life cycles. Several principles were identified:
- Respecting the lives of others and their right to a decent standard of living. Until we broaden the definition of "community," our decisions will continue to contribute to cultural destruction, poverty, and hunger in other societies.
- Respecting the biosphere. The trend toward cost accounting in managing natural resources as assets that can be depreciated is a step toward more conservation-oriented management. Natural resources must also be valued as more than economic assets.
- Understanding sustainable agriculture as an intricate system. Applied research and policymaking in sustainability must move beyond the farm level to an understanding of how sustainability operates in bioregions, nations and international food systems.
New Issues, Questions
Dick Norgaard, UC
Berkeley Energy and Resources Group, noted that the conference was "about
equity, social justice, and spreading the benefits of a sustainable agriculture
across more people. It's not simply about sustaining soil."
To achieve this goal, two
concepts are important: empowering people to take action by increasing
their access to the information and resources necessary to control the
conditions of their livelihoods; and democratizing the decision-making
process of agriculture so that the concerns of all members of society
are fairly represented when policies affecting their welfare are created.
Many ideas and questions
were offered at the conference that related to these processes. Economic
issues raised included the concentration of agriculture, government subsidies,
externalized costs, comparing sustainable and conventional methods, equal
access to foods grown with fewer pesticides, international trade relations
and rural poverty, and the free market economy and sustainability. Land
use issues discussed included land tenure, urban development, farm size,
and access to land. Research questions raised included interdisciplinary
focus, broadening the research agenda, conserving indigenous knowledge,
and recognizing the role of values in science.
Conclusions
Although questions raised
at the conference are not new, what is new are attempts by many individuals
and groups to integrate them into the research departments and policymaking
arenas where most agricultural technologies and strategies are developed
and implemented. That initiative, according to Norgaard, is increasingly
being taken not by government and public research institutions, but by
nongovernmental organizations. Yet as David Goodman, a conference
speaker from the Department of Economics, University College, London observed,
"We need to be prepared to host this more radical questioning of
the food system." There is a critical need for government and university
institutions, with their powerful resources, to be among those moving
to address these issues.
[ Back | Search | Feedback ]