404 Modern Agricultural Reforms
methods can be very productive with now-better-understood scientific bases.
Where economically justifiable, these methods use available resources more effi-
ciently than do high-input approaches.
The potential of non-mainstream methods cannot be known until agro-
ecological approaches are taken more seriously and evaluated systematically. Gains
made through genetic improvement and use of external capital and chemical
inputs over the last four decades have been substantial, and the first Green Revolu-
tion, despite the shortcomings some critics have pointed to, was one of the major
accomplishments of the century.^2 But what will agricultural science do for an
encore? While biotechnology holds out many promises, most of its benefits con-
tinue to be anticipated more than realized. Access to and widespread distribution
of biotechnology’s prospective benefits remain uncertain. The widely publicized
‘golden rice’ is still years from production in farmers’ fields.
The challenge facing agriculture worldwide involves more than just achieving
higher production, justifiable as that goal has been for previous scientific innovation
when serious food deficits were an ominous possibility. Valid ecological and social
considerations now make it imperative that further advances be environmentally
friendly as well as economically sustainable and socially equitable. Also, more than
increased food supply is needed; we should aim to ensure balanced and adequate
supplies of nutrients that people can afford. In particular, adverse environmental and
health externalities that result from modern agricultural methods – soil erosion,
chemical hazards, soil and water pollution – are things that nobody would like to see
increased, let alone doubled, as we seek to double the production of food.
Should resources for agricultural research be devoted, for example, to develop-
ing genetically engineered rice with high levels of vitamin A, assuming that cereal
grain monoculture will continue to predominate? Or should we strive to incorpor-
ate nitrogen-fixing and nutrient-rich legumes and livestock into farming systems
to better meet people’s nutritional requirements with diversified diets – while
simultaneously maintaining soil fertility? Such questions need to be addressed.
The next Green Revolution will depend at least in part on enlarging upon and
diversifying the ideas that have guided past development efforts. The paradigms
that presently organize and direct agricultural research and extension have been
helpful for planning activities and producing theoretical explanations. But they
have also created certain blind spots. The task of meeting world food needs will be
more difficult if our vision of what is possible is limited by constraining conceptions
of how best to raise agricultural output in effective, efficient and sustainable ways.
Agriculture as Field-culture: An Etymological Perspective
The very concept of agriculture as it has been understood and practised in the West
has been shaped by its semantic origins, coming from the Latin word ager, ‘field’.
Agriculture is mostly understood as the growing of plants in fields. (Similarly, in