418 Modern Agricultural Reforms
There is no reason to believe that the elements of ‘modern’ agriculture are
wrong, but neither is there a warrant to consider them (yet) complete. They offer
many advantages of productivity and profit for large numbers of agricultural pro-
ducers – but not for all of them, and maybe not even for a majority of farming
households around the world today. Our analysis here calls into question the pre-
sumption, whether it is argued or assumed, that mainstream approaches are the
best or the only way to advance agriculture in the future. For the sake of productiv-
ity and sustainability, it will be advisable to ‘backcross’ some of the modern var-
ieties of agriculture, which are most suitable for advantaged producers and regions,
with often more traditional methods so as to develop a more robust ‘hybrid’ agri-
culture, one that can better meet the world’s needs for food, health, employment
and security in this century.
Notes
1 This is not a statement in opposition to research on genetic modification, a controversial subject
these days. Transgenic research has some potentially valuable, legitimate and safe uses and we
would not want to see it curtailed – though more oversight and regulation and a different inter-
national property rights regime would make this enterprise more defensible and beneficial.
Improvements in pest- and drought-resistance, for example, if achieved through advanced tech-
nology, could be great benefits, particularly for the poor. Our focus on opportunities to raise
production through different, more intensive management practices aims at a diversified strategy
of agricultural development, one which will include work on genetic improvements.
2 ‘Had the cereal yields of 1961 still prevailed in 1992, China would have needed to increase its
cultivated cereal area more than three-fold and India about two-fold, to equal their 1992 harvests’
(Borlaug and Dowswell, 1994).
3 One of the pre-eminent agricultural development projects in the 1960s and 1970s, Plan Puebla
in Mexico, was set up to benefit rural smallholder households by increasing their production of
maize under rainfed conditions. Maize was considered their main crop. Yet a survey in the Puebla
area showed that animal production provided 28 per cent of households’ income, more than the
21 per cent that came from maize and almost as much as from the sale of all crops, 30 per cent.
In addition, 40 per cent of household income came from off-farm employment (Diaz Cisneros et
al, 1997, p123). The project made little progress with small farmers until it sought to improve
production of beans along with maize, as these crops, when grown together, produced more than
maize grown by itself and also contributed more to family nutrition. Farmers’ cooperation also
increased when other lines of production were assisted by the project. A more recent survey of 206
households selected randomly in four villages in the northern Philippines found that livestock
contributed almost as much to household incomes (90 per cent as much) as did their rice produc-
tion (Lund and Fafchamps, 1997).
4 In a watershed development programme in the Indian state of Rajasthan, where a participatory
approach to technology development was taken that aimed to capitalize on local knowledge, fod-
der production on rainfed common lands was increased eight- to ten-fold with corresponding
improvements in soil conservation (Krishna, 1997, pp261–262). While such areas usually face
serious physical constraints on increased production because they have been so neglected by
researchers and extension personnel, they often offer substantial opportunities, previously ignored,
for raising output.