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Sustainability and Policy Choices



        Agriculture is not sustainable if the productivity of the resource
base rises slower than the demands placed on it; if farmers and the food
production system is squeezed to the point it has to live off its capital
(people's lives and standard of living; machines, the land; libraries); or
if there is an unraveling in the genetics that is the foundation of
agricultural productivity.
        Some age-less threats to sustainability are well known and progress
is being made in many places of the world -- erosion, preserving germplasm,
etc.  By "progress" I mean the rate of slippage has slowed.  I still do not
think we have turned the corner as a global community on even these most
well known threats to sustainability.
        The genetics area is the scariest in many ways.  This is the realm
where chaos theory thrives and can pack a punch that can bring half a
continent to its knees.  Within this realm I would include a host of
modern-day problems from potato late blight and Karnal brunt, to pesticide
resistance and the collapse of cotton production in many regions (and maybe
soon in the US), to narrowness of gene pools and nutrition, BSE, to loss of
microbial biocontrol and the general, unmistakeable emergence of "super
pests" created by years of excessive pesticide use, which now must be
brought back under control through biological based interventions, some of
which are yet to be discovered.  The "well" of genes and life forms we have
to draw upon in doing so is, like over-pumped aquifers, receding.  
        When Dennis and I debate we will agree on many things -- including
the need for higher yield agricultural production systems.  We disagree and
will debate the best way to get there.  I think its building soil quality,
multi-cropping, diverse systems that use land more intensively over time and
space, and which fundamentally rely on humans enhancing the biological
processes and interactions that give us food; Dennis believes in
conventional ag systems buttressed by higher prices, more chemicals (used
more carefully), and biotech.  These are very different visions which lead
to profoundly different research, agricultural and regulatory
agendas/policies.  For now Dennis and his followers clearly are in solid
control of all the policies/institutions that shape agriculture.  I see my
challenge, as do many on SANET, as proposing a plausible alternative and
convincing society that it should also pursue this different strategy more
than a tiny slice of its investment resources, to hedge its bet just in case
biology really is the basis for productive and sustainable ag systems.  But
let's not understate the stakes -- if the world misses the exit ramp and
invests a generation's resources (and time) poorly in the name of food
security, hundreds of millions of innocent people will suffer the
consequences.  Will the World Food Summit in Rome in November, 1996 be a
trade show for irrigation systems, big tractors, and ammonium plants, or a
historic turning point after which the World Bank and UN agencies start
acting on their sustainability rhetoric?
        To place the choices in a contemporary US context, the Congress, in
its wisdom, re-authorized the ag research title for only 2 years, which
means there will need to be a mini-farmbill next year.  I think it is time
for the environmental and consumer communities, ag researchers, and general
public to seriously challenge, and hopefully change system-wide priorities
and policies.  This effort will unfold at a time when markets are screaming
for production and agri-input industries and trade associations will be
feeling their oats and flush with record profits. This period of prosperity
for the food and ag system opens up new investment opportunities.  Which
direction will they go?  Will erosion increase and depletion of aquifers
accelerate, or will more be invested in lessening compaction, efficient
manure management and closing leaky nutrient loops?  Without major changes
in policy, I bet the former will prevail with a vengeance.  I hope I am wrong.
        




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