Socioeconomic pressure, demographic pressure, environmental loading and technological changes in agriculture

Abstract Different perspectives, related to different hierarchical levels of analysis, should be used when discussing technological changes in agriculture. In fact, technological choices are affected by: (i) the characteristics of the socioeconomic system to which the farming system belongs; (ii) the characteristics of the ecosystem managed for agricultural production; and (iii) the farmers' feelings and aspirations. This paper presents a model of biophysical analysis that can be used to establish bridges among different perspectives. The agricultural throughput per hour of labor and per hectare obtained at farm level is evaluated against two sets of indicators characterizing the constraints coming from societal and ecological sides. Economic growth pushes for increases in the intensity of the throughput ‘per hours of labor’ and ‘per hectare’ at the farm level (two indicators, namely socioeconomic and demographic pressure, are proposed to assess this effect). The need of maintaining ecological compatibility generates a contrasting pressure pushing for keeping as low as possible the intensity of throughput in the agroecosystem. A family of indicators (the ratios of ‘current environmental loading (EL)’ / ‘critical environmental loading (CEL)’) is proposed to assess such a pressure. Feelings and aspirations of farmers determine the acceptability of compromises, at the moment of technological choices, after considering the severity of these two pressures. A plan ‘productivity per hour’ and ‘productivity per hectare’ can be used to study technological changes on two hierarchical levels (societal level and farming system level). A third axis can be added to this plane to include assessments of EL. Numerical examples are given for a sample of more than 60 world countries.

[1]  Pnuma,et al.  The state of the environment , 1987, Measuring Progress: Environment and the SDGs.

[2]  Richard Lowrance,et al.  A hierarchical approach to sustainable agriculture , 1986 .

[3]  Richard C. Fluck,et al.  Energy of Human Labor , 1992 .

[4]  Peter Nijkamp,et al.  Operationalizing sustainable development: dynamic ecological economic models , 1991 .

[5]  Howard T. Odum,et al.  Environment, Power, and Society , 1972 .

[6]  Peter Nijkamp,et al.  Multicriteria evaluation in physical planning , 1990 .

[7]  Diana Liverman,et al.  Global sustainability: Toward definition , 1987 .

[8]  J. Ikerd.  The need for a system approach to sustainable agriculture , 1993 .

[9]  M. Brklacich,et al.  Review and appraisal of concept of sustainable food production systems , 1991 .

[10]  L. White,et al.  Economics and the Social Sciences: The Evolution of Culture. The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome , 1959 .

[11]  M. Giampietro,et al.  Energy analysis of agricultural ecosystem management: human return and sustainability , 1992 .

[12]  G. Conway.  The properties of agroecosystems , 1987 .

[13]  M. Giampietro.  Using hierarchy theory to explore the concept of sustainable development , 1994 .

[14]  W. Lockeretz.  Open questions in sustainable agriculture , 1988 .

[15]  Marcia Pimentel,et al.  Food, Energy, and Society , 1979 .

[16]  L. Freese.  Advances in Human Ecology , 1997 .

[17]  Neill Schaller,et al.  The concept of agricultural sustainability , 1993 .

[18]  Steven A. Wolf,et al.  Recasting alternative agriculture as a management model: The value of adept scaling , 1995 .

[19]  Gilberto C. Gallopín,et al.  Environmental and sustainability indicators and the concept of situational indicators. A systems approach , 1996 .

[20]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  EMERGENT COMPLEX SYSTEMS , 1994 .

[21]  G. Munda,et al.  Qualitative multicriteria evaluation for environmental management , 1994 .

[22]  Mario Giampietro,et al.  Sustainability and technological development in agriculture , 1994 .

[23]  Mario Giampietro,et al.  Labor productivity: A biophysical definition and assessment , 1993 .

[24]  Sister Mechtraud join,et al.  Energy and Society , 1956 .

[25]  Y. Hayami,et al.  Agricultural Development: An International Perspective. , 1972 .

[26]  K. Bailey.  Social Entropy Theory , 1990 .

[27]  Richard N. Adams,et al.  The Eighth Day: Social Evolution as the Self-Organization of Energy , 1988 .

[28]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science , 1994 .

[29]  Patricia Allen,et al.  Expanding the Definition of Sustainable Agriculture , 1991 .