Rethinking Agriculture for New Opportunities 407Developing an adequate knowledge base for more productive and sustainable
agriculture should start with explicit acknowledgement that agriculture involves
much more than fields and field crops. To be sure, fields are commonly the main
component of most farm production strategies. Staple foods are, after all, what their
name implies – essential for food security. The world in general needs more, rather
than less, of them, especially for the 800 million people who are currently under-
nourished. But other sources of calories are also important – potatoes, cassava,
yams, sorghum, millet, sweet potatoes, taro, fish, meat, milk and so on – and these
have been given much less support than rice, wheat and maize.^5 Calories, while
necessary for survival, are not sufficient for human health. To achieve balanced
diets, including essential micronutrients, the whole complex of flora and fauna
that rural households manage to achieve food security and maintain their living
standards should be better understood and utilized.
Not only should fixation on individual crops be avoided, but a broader
understanding of the biophysical unit for agriculture is needed. A narrow focus
on fields is giving way to a broader focus on landscapes and/or watersheds, within
which fields function as interdependent units, especially as we gain a better agro-
ecological understanding of agriculture (Carrol et al, 1990; Altieri, 1995; Con-
way, 1997).
Assumptions Associated with Field-centred Agriculture
Several limitations arise from this long-standing concept of agriculture. In differ-
ent ways, each works against strategies for intensified and sustainable agricultural
development that use the full set of local resources most productively.
The time dimension of agriculture: A cyclical view
In lore and literature, agriculture is described and celebrated as ‘the cycle of the
seasons’. How is agriculture practised with its field-based definition? By plough-
ing, planting, weeding, protecting and finally harvesting. Farmers then wait until
the next growing season to plough, plant, weed, protect and harvest again, and
wait once more for the next planting time. Planting defines agriculture in our
minds as does the activity of harvesting. Yet if one looks beyond this standardized
seasonal conception of agriculture, one finds trees that keep their leaves year-
round, sheep that lamb twice a year, and microbes that continuously decompose
soil organic matter with generation intervals measured in hours or minutes. These
different time frames all affect agricultural performance.
Fixation on an annual cycle of agriculture has arisen from its practice in tem-
perate climates, where most modern scientific advances have been made. There,
summer and winter seasons are the central fact of agricultural life. The year-round
agriculture of tropical zones seems somehow irregular, almost unnatural, since it