Rethinking Agriculture for New Opportunities 417people depend for much of their sustenance. Or perhaps it reflects a lack of interest
in innovations that do not come from the scientific community.
Smallholding farmers around the world at present are probably exploiting less
than 50 per cent of the existing genetic potential of various crops due to less than
optimal management. In many cases this is because the returns to labour are not
high enough to justify intensification, but often it is a matter of not knowing how
to capitalize on synergies that could raise these returns. Reducing the yield variabil-
ity of traditional varieties and taking fuller advantage of their genetic potential
through nutrient cycling and better soil and water management within complex
farming systems could, we think, be a cost-effective strategy that complements
longer-run and higher-cost biotechnological efforts being undertaken to produce
new and better varieties. Increased production of other food sources, including
fish culture, small animals and various indigenous plants, can augment in non-
competing ways whatever nutrients are provided by staples.
Even if these alternative methods by themselves cannot achieve a doubling of
world food production, they could contribute substantially to this, making up the
difference that is unlikely to be produced by more modern means that are heavily
dependent on inputs of energy, chemicals and water. Capitalizing on ‘non-modern’
opportunities will require reorientation of socioeconomic as well as biophysical
thinking. It necessitates looking beyond the farm and its fields, and beyond par-
ticular crop cultivars, animal species and cultivation practices, to institutions and
policies.^19
Utilizing these Productive Opportunities
Doing ‘more of the same’ in either the so-called modern or traditional sectors of
agriculture is not likely to be sufficient for meeting food needs in the decades
ahead. Researchers, extensionists and policy makers who wish to assist households
around the world to become more food-secure, healthy and well-off need to con-
sider how to make broadly based improvements in output through evolving sys-
tems that are more intensive and more complex. These will resemble but improve
upon present practices that are not fully or sustainably utilizing soil, biological and
other resources.
Traditional farmers are for the most part quite resource-constrained. The tech-
nologies offered by extension services were usually developed for larger, simpler
production systems that are not appropriate for the kinds of systems that the
majority of farmers in the world are managing. There are wide variations in pro-
ductivity within and across farming communities, with some producers tapping
production potentials better than others. We look towards ‘hybrid’ strategies to
raise production, combining the best of farmers’ current practices with insights
derivable from modern science to tap the power of plant and animal germplasm
nurtured under optimal conditions.