364 Ecological Restoration and Design
invested in their operation, the more vulnerable they become to shifts that benefit
consumers at the expense of producers. Cultivating robust soil systems that can better
withstand the effects of drought and flooding, through better water-holding capacities
and better aggregation, will become more and more relevant to commercial agricultur-
ists, whose large capital investments and debt hold them hostage to climatic stresses.
More immediately, environmental and health considerations are likely to begin
shifting current calculations as regulations constrain the timing, amounts and kind
of inorganic fertilization that can be used, and the application of pesticides. Con-
sumers’ concerns about their exposure to agrochemicals and residues have made
organic agriculture the fastest growing part of the agricultural sector. Worldwide
demand for organic products is rising approximately 20 per cent per annum, as
reported in Nature (22 April 2004). While scientific evidence on the health bene-
fits of organic food products is still mixed and thus contested, the main uncer-
tainty is over whether benefits are as great as proponents claim, with no support
for the converse conclusion that food grown with synthetic inputs is better for
human health than that produced ‘organically’. As long as there is rising consumer
demand and it is profitable to move toward sustainable agriculture practices – as
some large commercial producers such as Dole and Unilever have begun to do –
the appeal of more biologically based agriculture will continue to grow.
3.3 Some constraints to be addressed
Labour intensity
One limitation on many biologically based practices has been their relative labour-
intensity, although some like direct seeding through permanent vegetative cover
and green manures and cover crops are labour-saving from the start. Mechanized,
energy-intensive agriculture was developed to enhance farm profitability by reduc-
ing labour requirements. The cost of labour is rising around the world; but so are
the prices for fuel and agrochemical inputs. The low prices for petroleum that sup-
ported agricultural as well as industrial expansion in the latter part of the 20th
century are probably now ‘history’.
The economic logic of technical change charted by Hayami and Ruttan (1985)
will sooner or later begin reflecting the greater relative scarcity of productive land
and the rising costs of fossil fuel-based inputs, and their transportation, even as
labour costs continue to rise. Especially in developing countries, the relative avail-
ability of labour will continue to influence factor markets.
By expanding units of production in the past, profits could be enhanced by
economies of size, not just of scale. (Economies of size derive from economic
advantages that are due to greater bargaining power in the market; economies of
scale reflect gains from more efficient resource use.) Indeed, the productivity of
land usually declines in larger-scale operations as soil systems are less carefully
managed, as labour and capital are applied across larger areas.
In this century, as population continues to grow, even if the rate of growth is
slowing, previous strategies that use land profligately will become less viable as the