Home > Programs > Genetic Engineering > Toward an Agroecological Alternative for the Peasantry

Toward an Agroecological Alternative for the Peasantry

Peter M. Rosset
Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First)
Posted: May 7, 2002

This talk was presented at a conference called "El futuro de la Investigación y el Desarrollo de la Agricultura Campesina en América Latina del Siglo XXI," October 13-15, 1997, CIAT, Palimira, Colombia.

Index

• Summary
• Introduction
• Economic and Social Dimensions of the Crisis
• Ecological Dimensions
• Roots of the Crisis
• Sustainable Agriculture: an Adequate Response to the Crisis?
• Current Practice is Alarming
• Towards An Agroecological Approach
• An Alternative Paradigm
• Cuba: Evidence the Alternative Paradigm Can Work
• Literature Cited
• Table: Characteristics of conventional, input substitution and agroecological systems

Summary

The central question posed by this essay is what is to be done to rescue "modern," industrial agriculture from its present state of crisis. To answer this question I begin by outlining the economic, social and ecological dimensions of the crisis, each of which must be addressed by an alternative paradigm in order to pull agriculture out of crisis. I then examine a persistent problem in the alternative agriculture movement: that of viewing the crisis along a single axis, such as 'environment,' without taking into account the multiple dimensions of the crisis. As an example I argue that the prevalence of input substitution, which emphasizes 'safe' alternatives to agrochemical inputs without challenging the monoculture structure and land concentration of agricultural systems, greatly diminishes the potential of sustainable agriculture. By only addressing environmental concerns, this dominant approach offers little hope of either reversing the rapid degradation of the resource base for future production or of resolving the current profit squeeze and debt trap in which the world's farmers are caught. By the same token, socialist approaches which address only socioeconomic dimensions, such as the nationalization of plantations without altering the technology or scale of production, have not permitted escape from the crisis either.

In contrast I propose a more holistic alternative paradigm which is based on the pillars of fair prices for farmers, redistribution of land, agroecological technology, and greater emphasis on local production of basic foods, including support for urban farming. The Cuban experience over the past 7 or 8 years offers evidence to support this alternative proposal.

Introduction

The central question posed by this essay is whether "sustainable agriculture" will be able to rescue both First and Third World farmers from the enduring crisis of "modern" industrial or "Green Revolution"-style farming. To answer this question, I begin by outlining the economic, social and ecological dimensions of the crisis, each of which must be addressed by an alternative paradigm in order to pull agriculture out of crisis. I then examine the concept of sustainable agriculture in the light of these dimensions, and find persistent contradictions attributable to unidimensional views of the crisis itself. In this light I highlight the dominance of an "input substitution" discourse in which agribusiness has appropriated the concept of sustainability to its own ends. I argue that the prevalence of input substitution greatly diminishes the potential of sustainable agriculture to successfully address the root causes of the socioeconomic and ecological crisis facing modern farming. The input substitution approach only emphasizes environmentally benign alternatives to agrochemical inputs, without challenging either the monoculture structure or the dependence on off-farm inputs that characterize agricultural systems. I conclude with a more holistic alternative paradigm.

Economic and Social Dimensions of the Crisis

While the crisis of modern agriculture is universal, encompassing both developed and Third World economies, it is useful to begin with the United States, arguably the birthplace of industrial farming. Figure 1 shows the steep decline in the numbers of farms in the United States during the post-war period, the first indication of crisis. It should be abundantly clear that three million farmers went out of business for economic reasons, not for primarily environmental ones, and thus alternatives that tinker with the ecological side of the equation without touching the economic side are doomed to failure. The reality is that U.S. farmers have increasingly been caught in a cost-price squeeze whereby the ballooning costs of modern farm technology have consistently swallowed any increases in farm income, as shown in Figure 2.

While food prices have long been stagnant due to overproduction, costs of manufactured inputs have soared (Wessel and Hantman, 1983; Strange, 1988; NRC, 1989; Krebs, 1991; Guither et al., 1994). Farmers have been driven into debt to cover the costs of $40,000 tractors and $100,000 harvesters, and by and large their slim profit margins have not been enough to cover debt service, thus leading to waves of bankruptcies and foreclosures. It is important to note that both overproduction and high production costs are results of the same productionist technology, which is thus responsible for both the cost and the price side of the economic squeeze affecting farmers.

A by-product of the heavy promotion of expensive inputs and equipment as the sine qua non of "competitiveness" has been the concentration of land in larger holdings throughout the world, both in the North and the South. As a result average farm sizes in almost all countries are much larger than desirable, certainly when viewed from a social perspective of equity, employment and income generation, but even when viewed from a narrow productionist perspective. In Appendix 1 I present the relationship between total farm output and farm size for many countries, clearly supporting this argument.

An alternative model will thus have to reduce drastically the reliance on expensive off-farm inputs to help farmers out of this crisis, and to recreate the conditions for an agriculture based on a more equitable, distributive and truly productive small farm model.

Ecological Dimensions

The clearest demonstration of ecological crisis is the leveling-off of yield increases in the U.S. (see Figures 3a-d). In many places yields are actually in decline (Hewitt and Smith, 1995), such as in the long-term Green Revolution plots maintained at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines (see figure 5 in Cassman et al., 1995). There are different views as to the underlying causes of this phenomenon. Some believe that yields are leveling off because the maximum yield potential of current varieties is being approached, and thus genetic engineering must be applied to the task of "re-designing" crop species (Tribe, 1994). Agroecologists, on the other hand, believe that the leveling-off is due to the steady erosion of the productive base of agriculture through unsustainable practices (Hewitt and Smith, 1995; Altieri and Rosset, 1995; etc.). Mechanisms explaining this process include land degradation though soil erosion, compaction, decline in organic matter and associated soil biodiversity, salinization, depletion of groundwater, deforestation, and desertification, and pest outbreaks due to widespread monoculture, genetic uniformity, the elimination of natural enemies and the resistance of insects, weeds and crop diseases to pesticides (Altieri, 1995; Carroll et al., 1990; Goering et al., 1993; Hewitt and Smith, 1995). The declining efficacy of agrochemicals is symptomatic of these problems. In the first thirty years of the post-war period, pesticide use in the U.S. increased ten-fold, yet percentage crop losses due to insects doubled (Botrell, 1979). A similar pattern is observed with chemical fertilizers, whereby much larger doses must now be applied to obtain the yield increases that were once possible with much less use of chemical inputs (McGuinness, 1993).

Roots of the Crisis

The roots of these problems can be found in the socioeconomic context in which much of modern industrial agriculture was born. From the very beginning, U.S. agricultural science was oriented toward maximizing the productivity of the most limiting factor of production in the North American economy: labor. Thus, early mechanization of agricultural practices led inexorably toward monoculture, despite its lowered efficiency or productivity of land. Agronomic science focused on varieties and planting densities for monoculture, and then on chemical fertilizers to replace labor-intensive, fertility-maintenance practices (manuring, crop rotations, etc.) with a simple chemical fix. Fertilizers permitted specialization - the separation in space of livestock and crops - which was further reinforced by the enormous investment in machinery needed to harvest a single crop. Extensive monoculture, with plants pumped up on nutrient solutions, then begat pest outbreaks, which were soon dealt with through labor-saving synthetic pesticides (Perelman, 1977; Buttel, 1990; Carroll et al., 1990; Goering et al., 1993; Altieri, 1995). Extensive monoculture and mechanization has locked the system into a distorted distribution of farm sizes, which actually works to limit potential productivity per unit area (see Appendix 1), and guarantees little employment or income distribution per unit of production.

The very nature of the social and economic forces that drove the generation of technology, then, has brought us to the present crisis. The costs of machinery, farm chemicals and other inputs have favored large farm size, specialized production, crop monocultures and mechanization. As farmers were integrated into international economies, imperatives to diversify disappeared as monocultures were rewarded by the economies of scale associated with mechanization, and many went bankrupt because stagnant farm prices, even with subsidies, were insufficient to cover debt service. In turn, lack of rotation and diversification took away self-regulating mechanisms, turning monocultures into highly vulnerable agroecosystems dependent on heavy use of chemical inputs (Altieri, 1995).

The same technology, when exported to the Third World, has been even more catastrophic in its effects. Designed to maximize the productivity of a single resource that is scarce in the First World - labor - this technology has proven to be wasteful of land and capital. When exported to countries with chronic unemployment and little capital, it rapidly led to enormous rural-urban migration, social problems, and the penetration of agriculture by foreign capital (Perelman, 1977; Wright, 1990; Goodman and Redclift, 1991; Shiva, 1991; Vandermeer and Perfecto, 1995; Altieri, 1995). Furthermore, when monocultural production systems were transferred to the tropics at the expense of polycultural agroecosystems, the year-round growing season made pest and pesticide problems spiral rapidly out of control (Altieri, 1995; Conroy et al., 1996). The monoculture/large farm trap is also an underlying cause of low productivity in the Tropics, in that large farms almost always display much lower productivity per unit area than smaller farms (see Appendix 1).

A key feature that emerges from an analysis of conventional agriculture and its crisis is the extent to which it has been penetrated by capital, and how that penetration serves to further intensify both the socioeconomic and environmental dimensions of the crisis (Buttel, 1990; Lewontin, 1982; Lewontin and Berlan, 1986; de Janvry, 1983; Goodman and Redclift, 1991; Hamilton, 1994). Historically capital has proceeded to "appropriate" elements of the productive process, replacing natural pest control with pesticides, natural soil fertility with chemical fertilizers, and so forth (Goodman and Redclift, 1991). The inevitable result is vested interests: big money is at stake in maintaining the capital-intensive nature of 'modern' farming, which makes countries and farmers dependent on suppliers of inputs. Clearly, immense profits would be lost if a move to alternatives and indigenous development paths were to lead to lowered dependence of farmers on off-farm inputs (van den Bosch, 1978; Perelman, 1977). This potential profit loss makes the entire agrarian system very resistant to change (Hamilton, 1994).

Sustainable Agriculture: an Adequate Response to the Crisis?

The crisis of agriculture then, has both ecological and socioeconomic dimensions, which are interrelated and derive from the historic conditions of U.S. agriculture and the penetration of capital, serving both to deepen the crisis and inhibit fundamental change. Any alternative paradigm that is to offer any hope of pulling agriculture out of crisis must address ecological, social and economic forces. To focus exclusively on ameliorating environmental impacts, for example, without addressing either the grim social reality that farmers face or the economic forces that perpetuate the crisis, is doomed to fail. This is precisely the concern that I raise with regard to sustainable agriculture. [Certainly an exclusive focus of the socioeconomic dimension is little better, as with, for example, the expropriation of plantations by socialist governments, without changing the technological basis of production, which as has inevitably led to crises almost identical to those of capitalist agriculture.]

The concept of sustainable agriculture is a relatively recent response to the decline in the quality of the natural resource or productive base associated with modern agriculture (Altieri, 1995). The question of agricultural production has evolved from a purely technical basis to a more complex one characterized by social, cultural, political and economic dimensions. The concept of sustainability has, however, been controversial and diffuse because of conflicting agendas, definitions and interpretations of its meaning (Lélé, 1991; Allen and Van Dusen, 1990; Allen, 1993).

This concept has prompted much discussion, in turn generating diverse proposals for major adjustments in conventional agriculture to make it more environmentally, socially and economically viable. The main focus has been to substitute less noxious inputs for the agrochemicals that are blamed for so many of the problems associated with conventional agriculture. Emphasis is now placed on purchased biological inputs such as Bacillus thuringiensis, a microbial pesticide which is now widely applied in place of chemical insecticides, and is marketed by major chemical companies under brand names like Dipel™ and Javelin™. This type of technology pertains to a dominant technical approach called input substitution. The thrust is highly technological, with the 'limiting factor' mentality that has driven conventional agricultural research in the past. Agronomists and other agricultural scientists have for generations been taught the 'law of the minimum' as a central dogma. According to this dogma, at any given moment there is a single factor limiting yield increases, and that factor can be overcome with an appropriate external input. Once the hurdle of the first limiting factor has been surpassed - nitrogen deficiency, for example, with urea as the correct input - then yields may rise until another factor - pests, say - becomes limiting in turn. That factor then requires another input - pesticide in this case - and so on, perpetuating a process treating symptoms rather than the real causes that evoked the ecological unbalance.

There are several problems with this approach. It focuses on the most superficial level of integration in the agroecosystem, that of a single species, the crop, with a single limiting factor, either abiotic or biotic. It denies the rich, scientific basis provided by the science of ecology for the importance of higher levels of interaction, including synergism, antagonism and multiple-species direct and indirect interactions. From a practical standpoint, the outcome of the 'limiting factor' approach inevitably is that as a farmer 'solves' one symptom, he or she is confronted with another, 'unexpected' problem. If he or she uses urea to overcome nitrogen as a limiting factor, for example, they are all too often then confronted with an outbreak of insect pests with sucking mouth parts, whose numbers are dramatically increased by the greater availability of tree nitrogen in the plants' sap upon which they feed (McGuinness, 1993).

While classical agronomy focuses on these 'limiting factors,' in the new science of agroecology we may think of them as symptoms that mask the underlying illness of an agroecosystem. In the hypothetical case of a nitrogen deficiency, rather than think of it as a limiting factor we may see it as symptomatic of an underlying systemic malaise such as a failure in the overall nutrient cycling mechanisms. In the case of land under long-term conventional management, often the real problem is a dead, sterile, chemically poisoned soil with little organic matter. Such a soil offers little in the way of nitrogen from either decaying organic matter or biological fixation, and its low porosity and compacted nature lead to the rapid surface runoff of externally applied chemical sources of nitrogen. In contrast, a healthy, biologically rich soil with ample organic matter and a diversity of microorganisms would include within its biota free-living, nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying bacteria that mineralize nitrogen from the abundant organic matter. Rather than applying urea, then, one should initiate a program designed to rebuild soil structure and organic matter, with an actively restored, healthy biotic community (Magdoff, 1993). Thus 'agroecology' is an alternative approach which goes beyond the use of alternative inputs to develop integrated agroecosystems with minimal dependence on external, off-farm inputs. The emphasis is on the design of complex agricultural systems in which ecological interactions and synergisms between biological components replace inputs to provide the mechanisms for sponsoring soil fertility, productivity and crop protection (Altieri, 1995).

Current Practice is Alarming

In this context, I find the prevalence of input substitution in alternative or 'sustainable' agriculture to be alarming. Essentially, the capital-intensive, monoculture-based system of conventional agriculture is left intact. All changes are relatively minor. A toxic pesticide is removed and a biological product is substituted. Instead of, or in addition to urea, manure or expensive commercial compost is trucked in. While these changes may suggest a more environmentally benign direction, they leave in place the key forces that are driving the agricultural crisis: extensive monoculture, excessive use of machinery, input control by agribusiness dependence on fossil fuels, and very high capital requirements. This approach neither addresses the debt trap that farmers are caught in because of high costs of machinery and inputs, nor the ecological basis of declining yields - the reduction of functional biodiversity of agroecosystems.

Evidence for the increasing dominance of this faux-sustainable approach is everywhere. Organic farming, commonly viewed as a holistic concept, is now heavily commodified and embraced by capital. Publications directed at organic farmers are filled with advertisements for expensive biological pesticides, commercial compost, insectary-produced natural enemies, botanical extracts, microbial and other soil amendments, etc. Natural food stores are now filled with almost as much processed food as Safeway is, except that the ingredients are "natural" or 'organic,' and less fiber has been discarded during processing. And while integrated pest management (IPM) was initially fought by the agrochemical companies (van den Bosch, 1978), it is now heavily promoted by those who were once its detractors (Moore, 1995; Western Crop Protection Association, 1995). Why? Because corporate planners have come to realize that larger profits can be made from alternative practices than from conventional agriculture, while keeping farmers hooked on biologically based technologies.

Pesticides are a case in point. The conventional broad-spectrum poisons that were once the mainstays of an industry are rapidly being lost from the market, due to resistance of pests to them, and, increasingly, the original patents are running out as the costs mandated by government regulation to introduce new chemical products becomes prohibitively high. For companies concerned about liability in the post-Bhopal world, biologicals and other new generation pesticides offer a convenient way out, as well as the chance to market themselves as good corporate citizens. As one industry group recently explained in a white paper on IPM (Western Crop Protection Association, 1995, p. 9, 20-21): IPM is not a formula to eliminate or reduce pesticide use... All aspects of agriculture have responded to the demand for minimal risk pesticides... Farmers have become more conscious about environmental matters and have improved farming techniques... As a result pesticide manufacturers have also responded by investing billions of dollars into research and by developing and marketing newer, more pest-specific and environmentally benign products... There is a virtual revolution in pesticide research and development occurring today that will deliver even better pest management options to growers. The challenge facing regulators is to recognize and reward minimal risk pesticides... [emphasis in original] Eastern European and Third World factories now make methyl parathion (the leading culprit in insecticide-poisoning of farmers and farmworkers worldwide), whose patent has run out, and it is available in Central America, for example, at a cost of about US $7 per liter. As it is extremely dangerous to use and has lost much of its efficacy over time, internationally funded IPM programs, government extension agents, and commercial sales representatives now urge farmers to use new, safe and effective biologicals, like Javelin™, which may cost as much as $150 a liter, or even Avermec™, which may cost more than $400. These products are indeed safer, and in many cases more effective, than methyl parathion. Nevertheless, a question must be asked. In its crudest form this question is, "What is more injurious to the health of a farm family whose annual income may be well under $1000 per year - exposure to the occasional whiff of methyl parathion or having to pay an additional $393 for an essential production input?" More generally, if alternative products raise production costs for First and Third World farmers already caught in a cost/price squeeze, and increase their already excessive dependence on off-farm suppliers of inputs, then biopesticides do not offer a way out of crisis.

Clearly the agrichemical industry knows which way the wind is blowing. Though actual figures are a closely guarded trade secret, it is widely believed that more than half of all research and development spending in the pesticide industry now goes toward biologicals. As new products, their patents are fresh, so that monopoly prices may be charged and windfall profits reaped, and there is a ready-made marketing hook, given the movement toward IPM and other alternatives. It may seem easy to take a laissez-faire approach towards this development, based on the notion that it is better that the industry make profits from safe, environmentally sound products, than from poisoning the environment. I, too, might share this feeling, were it not for the fact that farmers can ill afford further increases in production costs. Furthermore, input-substitution technology does not offer a solution to the ecological underpinnings of the crisis. Finally, a better approach, agroecology, is available to us.

Towards An Agroecological Approach

Agroecology has emerged as the discipline that provides the basic ecological principles for how to study, design and manage alternative agroecosystems that address not just environmental/ecological aspects of the crisis of modern agriculture, but the economic, social, and cultural ones as well (Altieri, 1995). Agroecology goes beyond a one-dimensional view of agroecosystems - their genetics, agronomy, edaphology, etc. - to embrace an understanding of ecological and social levels of co-evolution, structure and function. Instead of focusing on one particular component of the agroecosystem, agroecology emphasizes the interrelatedness of all agroecosystem components and the complex dynamics of ecological processes. Current tendencies in agroecology encourage us to tap into the knowledge and skills and farmers, and identify the potential for assembling biodiversity to create beneficial synergisms that provide the ability to remain at or return to a relatively stable state.

A closer look at ethnoscience (the knowledge system of an ethnic group that has originated locally and naturally) has revealed that local people's knowledge about the environment, vegetation, animals, and soils can be very detailed (Altieri, 1995). Peasant knowledge about ecosystems usually results in multidimensional, productive land-use strategies, which generate, within certain ecological and technical limits, the food self-sufficiency of communities in particular regions. By understanding ecological features of traditional agriculture - such as the ability to bear risk, production efficiencies of symbiotic crop mixtures, recycling of materials, reliance on local resources and germplasm, exploitation of full range of micro-environments, etc.- it is possible to obtain important information that may be used for developing appropriate agricultural strategies tailored to the needs, preferences and resource base of specific farmer groups and regional agroecosystems.

In essence, the behavior of agroecosystems depends on the interactions between the various biotic and abiotic components. By assembling a functional biodiversity it is possible to initiate synergisms, which subsidize agroecosystem processes by providing ecological services such as the activation of soil biology, the recycling of nutrients, the enhancement of beneficial arthropods and antagonists, etc. Agroecological technologies do not emphasize boosting yields under optimal conditions as Green Revolution technologies do, but rather they assure constancy of production under a whole range of soil and climatic conditions and most especially under marginal conditions which usually prevail in small farm agriculture. What is important, however, is not to focus on particular technologies, but on an assemblage of technologies that incorporate crop diversity, legumes-based rotations, the integration of animals, recycling, and the use of biomass and residue management. Table 1 shows the advantages of an agroecological approach when compared to both conventional and input substitution models of production.

An agroecological production system must: (1) diversify biologically in time and space; (2) reduce nutrient losses by effectively containing leaching, runoff, and erosion and improve nutrient recycling through the use of legumes, organic manure and compost and other effective recycling mechanisms; (3) encourage local production of food items adapted to the natural and socioeconomic setting; (4) sustain desired net output by preserving the natural resources (by minimizing soil degradation); and (5) reduce costs and increase the efficiency and economic viability of small and medium-sized farms, thereby promoting a diverse, potentially resilient agricultural system (Altieri, 1995).

The basic components of sustainable agroecosystem include: (1) vegetative cover as an effective soil- and water-conserving measure, met through the use of no-till practices, mulch farming, use of cover crops, etc., (2) a regular supply of organic matter through the regular addition of organic matter (manure, compost and the promotion of soil biotic activity); (3) nutrient recycling mechanisms through the use of crop rotations, crop/livestock systems based on legumes, etc., (4) pest regulation assured through enhanced activity of biological control agents, achieved by introducing and/or conserving natural enemies, (5) the restoration of diversity to the system through intercropping, rotations, agroforestry and the integration of crops and livestock (Altieri and Rosset, 1995; Pretty, 1995). The universal higher productivity per unit area on smaller farms, seen in Appendix 1, is due in part to the greater diversity and integration found in small farm agriculture (as well as to the larger proportion of their land that small farmers actually plant and the greater amount of labor that they apply per unit area).

An Alternative Paradigm

Any alternative paradigm will be doomed to failure if it addresses only one dimension of the crisis of modern agriculture - as in the cases of input substitution in big farm agriculture in the West, or large state farms in socialist countries. In that context I feel that the following are the absolutely essential pillars upon which to construct a paradigm that truly offers a way out of the crisis:

• Agroecological technology: As I have argued in this essay, only a truly agroecological approach offers the possibility of reversing the pervasive decline of the ability of soils and agroecosystems to support future production, while reducing the vulnerability of farming to pest, climatic and price shocks, and cutting the all-important costs of production by substituting ecosystem functions for external inputs (Altieri, 1995; Pretty, 1995). This means eliminating hidden biases and subsidies for external-input technology from the entire apparatus of education, research, extension, credit and communications media, replacing it with an emphasis on agroecology and local participation in the generation of technologies.

• Fair Prices for Farmers: The other half of the cost/price squeeze in which the world's farmers are caught is the price they receive for what they produce. With a world food market dominated by Northern trading cartels and transnational corporations, farmers face artificially low prices and consumers pay artificially high ones. In the case of countries in the South this translates into the dumping of Northern surpluses into local economies at prices below the cost of production, driving local farmers our of business and into the cities, even as local food processing and distribution facilities are concentrated in ever fewer hands and city dwellers pay more for their food. To break the cycle of destruction of rural economies by a global food system out of control, we must begin by insulating farmers from the monster. That means a retreat from extreme trade liberalization, with a step toward [at least] selective protection for [at least] domestic food production in each country as a matter of national security (Rosset, 1997; Rosset et al., 1994).

• Redistribution of Land: In order to break the cycle of growing inequity and poverty as a product of growing land concentration, and to provide the conditions for the fruitful employment of agroecological technology, we must place land reform squarely back onto the agenda from which it was displaced during the late 1980s and early 90s. As the example of Kerala state in India demonstrates, land reform can provide the basis for equitable development (Franke and Chasin, 1994), and as the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil and the Zapatistas in Chiapas are showing us, land reform is possible in the nineties, even it must be directed 'from below' (Langevin, forthcoming; Rosset, 1994). Sobhan has made a lucidly argued case for a renewed emphasis on agrarian reform as the basis for social transformation. One might also add the evidence from Appendix 1 which shows the enormous potential for productivity increases to be gained as a result of reducing average farm size. When technocrats argue for enormous investments in bioengineered crop varieties, to take an example, they speak of hoped-for yield increases on the order of 10%, 15%, or in the most extreme cases 100% (Tribe, 1994). Yet we can respond by pointing to the often 500% or even 900% greater total productivity per unit area of small farms compared to large farms (Appendix 1)!

• Greater Emphasis on Local Production: People should not have to depend on the vagaries of prices in the world economy, long distance transportation and super-power 'goodwill' for their next meal. Locally and regionally produced food offers greater security, as well as synergistic linkages to promote local economic development. Furthermore such production is more ecologically sound, as the energy spent on international transport is wasteful and environmentally unsustainable. Policies should be redirected to favor local production, including in urban areas. By promoting urban farming, cities and their surrounding areas can be made virtually self-sufficient in perishable foods, be beautified and have greater employment opportunities. Despite negative government policies in most countries, cities already produce nearly one seventh of the world's food (UNDP. 1996). Only Cuba gives a hint of what the figure might be if government policies where to actually favor urban farmers.

Cuba: Evidence the Alternative Paradigm Can Work

Recent changes in Cuba, since the collapse of trade with the former socialist bloc, provide evidence that the alternative approach proposed herein can work. Before 1989 Cuba was a model of a conventional industrial farm economy. Cuban agriculture was based on enormous production units, using vast quantities of imported chemicals and machinery to basically produce export crops, while over half of the island's food was imported (Rosset and Benjamin, 1994). Although the government's commitment to equity, as well as favorable terms of trade offered by Eastern Europe, meant that Cuban's ate well, the underlying vulnerability of this style of farming was exposed when the collapse of the socialist bloc was added to the already existing and soon to be tightened U.S. trade embargo. Cuba was plunged into the worst food crisis in its history, with consumption of calories and protein dropping by perhaps as much as 30%. Nevertheless today, in 1997, Cubans are eating almost as well as they did before 1989, yet comparatively little food and agrochemicals are being imported (Rosset, 1997). What happened?

Faced with the impossibility of importing either food or agrochemical inputs, Cuba turned inward to create a more self-reliant agriculture based on higher prices for farmers, locally produced, environmentally friendly inputs, smaller production units, and urban agriculture.

The combination of a trade embargo, food shortages and a change in government policy to open farmers' markets, meant that farmers began to receive much better prices for their products. Given this incentive to produce, they did so, even in the absence of Green Revolution-style inputs. They were given a huge boost by the re-orientation of government education, research and extension toward alternative methods, as well as the re-discovery of traditional farming techniques. As small farms responded by increasing production, while the large-scale state farms stagnated and faced plunging yields, the government initiated the newest phase of revolutionary land reform, parceling out the state farms to their former employees as smaller scale production units (Rosset, 1997). Finally the government mobilized support for a growing urban agriculture movement which has transformed Cuba cities and urban diets in just 2-3 years (Companioni et al., 1997).

The Cuban experience tells us that we can feed a nation's population with a small farm model based on alternative technology, and in so doing we can become more self-reliant in food production. Farmers must receive higher prices, and when they do, they will produce, with or without Green Revolution inputs. If these expensive and noxious inputs are unnecessary, then we can dispense with them. The policy lessons from Cuba that we can apply elsewhere, even under dramatically different systems and circumstances, are exactly those outlined above in the section on an alternative paradigm: agroecology, fair prices, land reform, and local production including urban agriculture. Thus, I firmly believe, Cuba is a lighthouse that illuminates the path out of crisis (SANE, 1994).

Literature Cited

Allen, Patricia, and Debra van Dusen. 1990. Sustainability in the balance: raising fundamental issues. Santa Cruz, CA: University of California at Santa Cruz, Agroecology Program.

Allen, Patricia, ed. 1993. Food for the future: conditions and contradictions of sustainability. New York: John Wiley.

Altieri, Miguel A. 1995. Agroecology: the science of sustainable agriculture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Altieri, Miguel A., and Peter Rosset. 1995. Agroecology and the conversion of large-scale conventional systems to sustainable management. In press, International Journal of Environmental Studies.

Botrell, Dale G. 1979. Integrated pest management. Washington, DC: Council on Environmental Quality.

Buttel, Frederick H. 1990. Social relations and the growth of modern agriculture. In Agroecology, eds. C.R. Carroll, J.H. Vandermeer and Peter M. Rosset, pp. 113-145. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cassman, K.G., S.K. De Datta, D.C. Olk, J.M. Alcantara, M.I. Samson, J.P. Descalsota, and M.A. Dizon. 1995. Yield decline and the nitrogen economy of long-term experiments on continuous, irrigated rice systems in the tropics. pp. 181-222 in R. Lal and B.A. Stewart (eds), Soil management: experimental basis for sustainability and environmental quality. Boca Raton: Lewis/CRC Publishers.

Carroll, C.R., John H. Vandermeer, and Peter M. Rosset, eds. 1990. Agroecology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Companioni, N., A.A. Rodríguez Nodals, Mariam Carrión, Rosa M. Alonso, Yanet Ojeda and Ana María Viscaíno. 1997. La agricultura urbana en Cuba: su participación en la seguridad alimentaria. pp. 9-13 in Asociación Cubana de Agricultura Urbana (ACAO), III Encuentro Nacional de Agricultura Orgánica 14 al 16 de mayo de 1997, Universidad Central de las Villas, Villa Clara, Cuba. Conferencias. Havana: ACAO.

Conroy, Michael E., Douglas L. Murray and Peter M. Rosset. 1996. A cautionary tale: failed U.S. development policy in Central America. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

de Janvry, Alain. 1983. Historical forces that have shaped world agriculture: a structuralist perspective. In Agriculture, Change, and Human Values, eds. R. Haynes and R. Lanier. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida.

Economic Research Service-USDA. 1990. A historical look at farm income. Herndon, VA: Economic Research Service-United States Department of Agriculture.

Economic Research Service-USDA. 1995a. Feed situation and outlook yearbook. Herndon, VA: Economic Research Service-United States Department of Agriculture.

Economic Research Service-USDA. 1995b. Rice situation and outlook yearbook. Herndon, VA: Economic Research Service-United States Department of Agriculture.

FAO-AGROSTAT. 1990-96. FAOSTAT agriculture statistics database. Rome: U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Franke, Richard W., and Barbara H. Chasin. 1994. Kerala: radical reform as development in an Indian state. Oakland: Food First Books.

Goering, Peter, Helena Norberg-Hodge and John Page. 1993. From the ground up: rethinking industrial agriculture. London: Zed Books.

Goodman, David, and Michael Redclift. 1991. Refashioning nature: food, ecology and culture. London: Routledge.

Guither, Harold D., Harry S. Baumes and William H. Meyers. 1994. Farm prices, income, stability, and distribution. In Food, agriculture and rural policy into the 21st century: issues and trade-offs, eds. Milton Hallberg and Robert Spitze, pp. 223-236. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Hamilton, Neil D. 1994. Agriculture without farmers? Is Industrialization restructuring American food production and threatening the future of sustainable agriculture? Northern Illinois University Law Review 14(3):613-657.

Hewitt, Tracy Irwin, and Katherine R. Smith. 1995. Intensive agriculture and environmental quality: examining the newest agricultural myth. Greenbelt, MD: Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture.

Holmes, Steven A. 1994. Farm count at lowest point since 1850: just 1.9 million. The New York Times, November 10, 1994.

Krebs, A.V. 1991. The corporate reapers: the book of agribusiness. Washington, DC: Essential Books.

Langevin, Mark. Forthcoming. Land reform from below: the landless workers' movement in Brazil. Food First Backgrounder.

Lélé, Sharachchandra M. 1991. Sustainable development: a critical review. World Development 19(6):607-621.

Lewontin, R.C. 1982. Agricultural research and the penetration of capital. Science for the People 14:12-17.

Lewontin, R.C., and J.P. Berlan. 1986. Technology, research and the penetration of capital: the case of U.S. agriculture. Monthly Review 38(3):21-34.

Magdoff, F. R. 1993. Building soils for better crops: organic matter management. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Moore, Monica. 1995. Redefining integrated pest management: farmer empowerment and pesticide use reduction in the context of sustainable agriculture. San Francisco: Pesticide Action Network.

National Research Council (NRC), 1989. Alternative agriculture. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

McGuinness, Hugh. 1993. Living soils: sustainable alternatives to chemical fertilizers for developing countries. Yonkers, NY: Consumer Policy Institute.

Perelman, Michael. 1977. Farming for profit in a hungry world: capital and the crisis in agriculture. Totowa, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.

Rosset, Peter. 1994. Insurgent Mexico and the global South: a new kind of guerrilla movement? Food First News & Views 16(53):2-3.

Rosset, Peter. 1997. Alternative agriculture and crisis in Cuba. Technology and Society 16(2):19-25

Rosset, Peter. 1997. Overseas rural development. pp. 53-56 in T. Barry and M. Honey (eds), Global focus: a new foreign policy agenda 1997-1998. Albuquerque, New Mexico: Interhemispheric Resource Center Press.

Rosset, Peter, and Medea Benjamin. 1994. The greening of the revolution: Cuba's experiment with organic agriculture. Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.

Rosset, Peter, John Gershman, Shea Cunningham and Marilyn Borchardt. 1994. Myths and root causes: hunger, population, and development. Food First Backgrounder, Winter 1994.

Pretty, J.N. 1995. Regenerating agriculture. London: Earthscan.

SANE. 1994. Creating agroecological lighthouses around the world: a strategic plan to promote capacity building in sustainable agriculture. Sustainable Agriculture Networking and Extension, UNDP-INT/93/201), 17 pp.

Shiva, Vandana. 1991. The violence of the Green Revolution: Third World agriculture, ecology and politics. Penang, Malaysia: Third World Netwrok.

Sobhan, Rehman. 1993. Agrarian reform and social transformation. London: Zed Books.

Strange, Marty. 1988. Family farming: a new economic vision. San Francisco: Food First Books.

Tribe, Derek. 1994. Feeding and greening the world: the role of international agricultural research. Wallingford, England: CAB International.

UNDP. 1996. Urban agriculture: food, jobs and sustainable cities. New York: United Nations Development Program.

van den Bosch, Robert. 1978. The pesticide conspiracy. New York: Doubleday.

Vandermeer, John, and Ivette Perfecto. 1995. Breakfast of biodiversity: the truth about rain forest destruction. Oakland: Food First Books.

Vogeler, I. 1981. The myth of the family farm: agribusiness dominance of U.S. agriculture. Boulder: Westview Press.

Wessel, James, with Mort Hantman. 1983. Trading the future: farm exports and the concentration of economic power in our food system. San Francisco: Food First Books.

Western Crop Protection Association. 1995. IPM: the quiet revolution. Sacramento: Western Crop Protection Association.

Wright, Angus. 1990. The death of Ramón González: the modern agricultural dilemma. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Table 1: Characteristics of conventional, input substitution and agroecological systems.