Beyond the Green Revolution: The Ecology and Politics of Global Agricultural Development

ISBN-13: 9781461329121 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 256 str.

Kenneth Dahlberg

Opis

This book, which is the result of an intellectual odyssey, began as an attempt to explore and map the environmental and cross-cultural dimensions of the continuing spread of the green revolution-that package of high-yielding varieties of grain, fertilizers, irrigation, and pesticides that constitutes the core of modern industrial agriculture. In the process of traversing the terrain of several intellectual traditions and cutting through various disciplinary forests and thickets, a number of striking observations were made-all leading to two sober ing conclusions. First, most intellectual maps dealing with agriculture fail to recognize it as the basic interface between human societies and their environment. Because of this, they are little better than the "flat earth" maps of earlier centuries in helping to understand global realities. Second, when agriculture is analyzed from a global perspec tive that takes evolution seriously, one sees that the ecological risks as well as the energy and social costs of modern industrial agriculture make it largely inappropriate for developing countries. Beyond that, one can see a great need within industrialized countries to develop less costly, less risky, and more sustainable agricultural alternatives. Early in the journey it became clear that conventional disciplinary approaches were inadequate to comprehend the scope and diversity of global agriculture and that a new multilevel approach was needed. It also became clear that any new approach would have to try to correct certain Western biases and blind spots."

Spis treści

1 On the Ecology of Theories.- The Growth of Current Theories.- Toward a Theory of Contextual Analysis.- Summary.- 2 Historical Seedbeds.- The Evolutionary Theater.- Developmental Plays.- 1492–1660.- 1660–1838.- 1838–1972.- Summary.- 3 The “New” Seeds and the Logic of Their Growth (or Jack and the Beanstalk Revisited).- Résumé of the Development of the “New” Seeds.- Role of the Foundations.- Expansion and Elaboration of Foundation Research Programs.- National and International Aid Programs.- The Logic of Growth.- Physical Requirements.- Economic and Administrative Requirements.- Levels of Logic and Learning.- The Costs, Benefits, and Risks of the Green Revolution.- The Policy Time-Frame.- The Developmental Time-Frame.- The Evolutionary Time-Frame.- Summary.- 4 The Momentum of Structures, Institutions, and Current Policies.- The Decision-Making Context of National Elites.- Cultural Influences.- Political-Administrative Influences.- Elite Relations.- New Dependency Relationships.- The Role of Agribusiness Multinationals.- Sectoral Variation.- International Development Programs.- Agricultural Aid.- The World Food Conference.- Summary.- 5 New Approaches to the Future.- Evolutionary Parameters, Limitations, and Goals.- The Hydrologic Cycle.- Maintaining the Diversity of the Global Ecosystem.- Developmental Parameters, Limitations, and Goals.- Structural Changes Needed in Industrial Countries.- International Implications.- 6 Agricultural Strategies and Policies for the Future.- Strategic Considerations.- The Need for Alternative Data Systems.- Choosing Appropriate Scales of Production.- Centralization versus Diversity.- Policy Considerations.- Conservation of Natural Resources.- How to Integrate Policy at the Local Level.- Going Beyond Rural Development.- Small-Scale Attempts: The Comilla and Puebla Projects.- Medium-Scale Attempts: Japan and Taiwan.- A Large-Scale Attempt: China.- Lessons for Planners and Policy Makers.- 7 Hindsight, Insight, and Foresight.- References.