Subject: Re: Historical Sources on Sustainability of Agriculture

From: [email-masked] (Chris Overton)
Date: 10 Feb 93 16:56:57 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jonathan David Haskett) writes:

   I am examining what makes some agricultural systems sustainable
   and others not so. In this regard I am interested in historical references
   which deal with certain examples.

If this a scientific study, then you had better come up with a precise
definition of what it means to be `sustainable' (the cynic in me says there is
no such thing as a sustainable agricultural system).  If this is merely an
historical analysis, then of course feel free to define `sustainable' in
whatever way conforms to your current bias.

Chris Overton

---

From: [email-masked] (Jonathon D. Haskett)
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 16:02:15 GMT

In a strict thermodynamic sense no agricultural system is
sustainable, neither is any energy consuming system. The 
universe itself tends toward entropy. However, it is possible 
to assign a scientifically meaningful definition to sustainable 
agriculture, as simply an agricultural system which under a 
given set of boundary conditions can produce food 
indefinitely, relative to a human time scale (thousands rather 
than millions of years). It is reasonable to assign this scale, 
since time scales are frequently assigned in many ecosystem 
studies. Using this criteria it is possible to specific which 
agricultural systems appear to be sustainable and which do 
not. For example paddy-rice agriculture in some areas has 
been practiced for >4000 years and would appear to be 
sustainable. The irrigation based agriculture of Mesopotamia 
was apparently not sustainable, since salinization eventually
destroyed the productivity of the soil resource base.  Systems 
can also shift from sustainable to unsustainable if certain key 
features change. For example many slash and burn 
agricultural systems appear to have persisted for long periods 
and if correctly practiced appear to have the possibility of 
persisting indefinitely, however where the periodicity of 
these systems has accelerated (that is were the interval 
between burns on a given location has been reduced), these 
systems have begun to undercut their resource base, and are 
no longer sustainable. 

It should be noted that sustainability as an attribute of 
an agricultural system is not determinant of many other
features of the system which may be deemed desirable or
detrimental. For example a sustainable agricultural system
may be extremely destructive of wildlife habitat and species
diversity. Such a system can require large inputs of energy
in the form of human labor, and engender a highly 
inequitable social system. Thus sustainability needs to 
narrowly defined and evaluated in its own right, leaving the
assessment of these other features of an agricultural system
to other research efforts. 

As the application of this definition to these examples 
indicates, it should be possible to do rigorous research to 
determine which features of an agricultural system ensure 
its sustainability and which features undermine that 
sustainability. Sufficient historical and contemporary data 
exist for coherent research. Indeed, it is vital for our 
continued survival, that we be able to assess and ensure 
the sustainabiltiy of our agricultural system. Thus the 
scientific and historical studies are linked and probably
complementary to each other in an essential way, and 
there is no particular reason that both facets should not 
proceed in a rigorous and meaningful way. 

---------------------------------------------------
* Jonathan Haskett
* [email-masked]
---------------------------------------------------

---

From: [email-masked] (Jonathon D. Haskett)
Date: 16 Feb 93 21:47:31 GMT

I would like to post some corrections and clarifications to 
my previous post. I stated that I wasn't aware of an SCS
effort to quantify soil loss nationally. I have since found
out that there is such an effort which is called the
National Resource Inventory and includes quantitative 
estimates of soil loss nationally as well as areal assessments
of  how much soil is experienceing excessive rates of soil
loss. I would also like to say that bad Cliometrics is
sometimes practiced by historians who try to use biological
or statistical tools which they do not fully understand. I
did not mean to imply that all social scientists are perfect,
(or imperfect).

RE:Thomas Bjorkman's post of Feb 15 on adoption of new 
agricultural methods.

A professor of mine in graduate school recounted his work 
in South America trying to get local farmers to adopt a
new grain variety. At first the extension workers made
the rounds of the villages with a flip-chart, touting
the benefis of the new variety. The farmers all listened
attentively, nodded politely and went planting the old
variety. So another approach was tried. Demonstration
plots were planted around the experiment station, with
the old and new varieties planted in adjacent rows. 
Then a "Field day - open house" was announced. The visiting
farmers were taken on tours around the station. The
grain plants were mature and the new variety was
visibly better (more and larger grain or whatever).
By prearrangement, when the tour stopped in front
of the old and new variety rows, the guide would
be suddenly "called to the phone" and disappear
into the building. There to watch through the
blinds as the farmers ripped the heads of grain off
the new variety, and stuffed it in their pocketts.
I understand that the introduction of
the potato in Germany followed a similar 
methodology.