12 Policies, Processes and Institutions
rural infrastructure, research and extension services, and land and tenure reform.
The problem, though, is though a range of policies affect farm management of soil
fertility, rarely has soil-fertility management been the main target of policies. A
sustainable livelihoods approach to policy design is suggested as a way forward.
The final article in this volume is by Patricia Benjamin and colleagues and
addresses social visions of future sustainable societies. The new globalized society
is currently undergoing rapid political, economic and cultural change, and we are
going to need clear social visions, or stories, to determine possible (and hopefully
attainable) outcomes. Social sustainability, note the authors, does not mean the
continuation of existing social structures, but rather the creation and maintenance
of the conditions for creativity, empowerment, self-determination and self-actual-
ization. The article reviews past efforts to understand visions for the future – a
history of the future. Visions are stories of possible alternative futures, and the
process of forming them may be viewed as a purposeful strategic choice. But dis-
courses will need to be broad if visions are not to converge to a single model that
could result in severe environmental destruction. Stories for divergence are required,
and sustainable agricultural systems have a role to play in developing and main-
taining such alternatives.