Agricultural Sustainability and Technology Adoption: Issues and Policies for Developing Countries

Abstract

“Sustainable agriculture ” is a concept that is both ambitious and ambiguous. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations posits that sustainable agriculture (SA) has five major attributes: it is resource conserving (of land, water, plant, and genetic resources), environmen-tally non-degrading, technically appropriate, and economically and socially acceptable (FAO). Integrated natural resource manage-ment (NRM)—a closely related concept—is conceived by the Consultative Group on In-ternational Agricultural Research as aimed at jointly improving human livelihoods, agroe-cosystem resilience, agricultural productivity, and environmental services (CGIAR). Al-ternative conceptions emphasize profitability and economic feasibility (Kuyvenhoven and Ruben), social equity (Conway), community building and local participation (Chambers), social learning (Pretty and Uphoff), and other dimensions. These various objectives, crite-ria, and characteristics may or may not be consistent. There are several further complications. First, for most developing countries, genuine sustainability must include addressing broad food security and income generation needs for a rapidly growing population. A simple focus on meeting long-run sustainability cri-teria at the individual farm or household level is inadequate when the problems of poverty and malnutrition are immediate and require solution. Indeed, one of the solu-tions to food security can be increased food imports, which primarily requires adequate