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Agroecological Approaches to Agricultural Development

J. Pretty

Published 2006 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

This background study stresses that the interest in the sustainability of agricultural and food systems can be traced to environmental concerns that began to appear in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, concerns about sustainability centre on the need to develop agricultural technologies and practices that: i) do not have adverse effects on the environment (partly because the environment is an important asset for farming); ii) are accessible to and effective for farmers, and lead both to improvements in food productivity and have positive side-effects on environmental goods and services. Sustainability in agricultural systems incorporates concepts of both resilience (the capacity of systems to buffer shocks and stresses) and persistence (the capacity of systems to continue over long periods), and addresses many wider economic, social and environmental outcomes. The study explains that agricultural systems in all parts of the world will have to make improvements. In many, the challenge is to increase food production to solve immediate problems of hunger. In others, the focus will be more on adjustments that maintain food production whilst increasing the flow of environmental goods and services. Further changes in environments and markets will bring substantial challenges to agricultural systems. The most significant is likely to be climate change. It is also predicted that energy prices will have a substantial impact as markets for bio-fuels and demand for cereal and oil products changes dramatically. Finally, consumer behavior will affect whole supply chains, as people increasingly choose food products that are labeled as having come from agricultural systems that can claim they are sustainable.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2006

  • Venue

    Unknown venue

  • Publication date

    2006-11-01

  • Fields of study

    Agricultural and Food Sciences, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1596/9044
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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