Editorial Introduction to Volume I
Jules Pretty
Agricultural Modernization and Interactions with Nature
Agriculture has had many ‘revolutions’ throughout history, from its advent some
8–10,000 years ago to the renowned 17th–19th-century agricultural revolution in
Europe. In the past century, rural environments in most parts of the world have
also undergone massive transformations. In some senses, these have been the most
extraordinary in their speed of spread of new technologies and the far-reaching
nature of their impacts upon social, economic and ecological systems.
Two guiding themes have dominated this period of agricultural and rural
development. One has been the need for increased food production to meet the
needs of growing populations. Governments have intervened to transform tradi-
tional agricultural systems by encouraging the adoption of modern varieties of
crops and modern breeds of livestock, together with associated packages of exter-
nal inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, credit, machinery) necessary
to make these productive. In addition, they have supported new infrastructure,
such as irrigation schemes, roads and markets, guaranteed prices and markets for
agricultural produce, as well as a range of other policies. The other theme has been
the desire to prevent the degradation of natural resources, perceived to be largely
caused by growing populations and their bad practices. To conserve natural
resources, governments have encouraged the adoption of soil and water conserva-
tion measures to control soil erosion. They have established grazing management
schemes to control rangeland degradation. They have excluded people from forests
and other sites of high biodiversity to protect wildlife and plants.
According to just these two themes, it would appear that agricultural and rural
development has been remarkably successful. Both food production and the
amount of land conserved have increased dramatically. Although often seen as
mutually exclusive, both have been achieved with largely the same process of mod-
ernization. The approach is firmly rooted in and driven by the enlightenment
tradition of positivist science (Harvey, 1989; Kurokawa, 1991). External actors
identify the problem that needs solving, in these cases too little food or too much
degradation. Their concern is to intervene so as to encourage rural people to change