1
The Environmental and Social Costs of
Improvement
Jules Pretty
But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the one it came from. The
heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated
iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty
miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is
dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of the
work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of the land and the working of it,
and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation.John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 1939The General Costs of Improvement
The pursuit of increased productivity and conserved natural resources in the course
of rural modernization has produced benefits in the form of improved food pro-
duction and some improvements in resource conservation. The increases in food
production have been significant. Despite the world population more than dou-
bling in the past 50 years to some 5.6 billion, food production per capita has been
able to keep pace. Over the same period, the amount of land conserved or pro-
tected has also increased. In the tropics alone, the land devoted to national parks
and protected areas has grown from 58 to 174 million ha.
These improvements look so good that it is easy to be tempted to forget: ‘What
is the cost of this improvement?’ ‘Who benefits and who loses out?’ Many would
argue that the ends surely justify any reasonable means. Yet it is increasingly being
recognized that the social and environmental costs of agricultural modernization cut
deep into the fabric of society. Modernization in the urban environment has been
characterized by alienation and conflict, increased individualism and a breakdown of
Reprinted from Pretty J. 1995. The environmental and social costs of improvement. In Pretty J. Regen-
erating Agriculture. Earthscan, London.