Regenerating Agriculture

Author: Jules Pretty
Reviewer: Paul Terweel

This book may be seen as 'the definitive work on sustainable agriculture' for the next ten years, according to Paul ter Weel who has been reviewing it for the Monitor. The book is intended for all those who work with farmers, including development organizations, NGOs and extension agencies, in short, for anyone active in the field of rural development. A brief discussion of the book follows.

In the closing chapter of Regenerating Agriculture, Jules Pretty sums up 25 policies that are known to have a positive impact on a more sustainable agriculture. But not before the reader is again warned 'that precise and absolute definitions of sustainability and sustainable agriculture are impossible. Sustainability itself is a complex and contested concept. In any discussion of sustainability, it is important to clarify what is being sustained, for how long, for whose benefit, over what area and measured by what criteria.' The policies address the three major dimensions, which are crucial for the direction of agriculture in the future, namely:

• farm practices, which must be resource-conserving;
• social organization and the need for community action;
• reform of the external institutions (research, extension, teaching and training establishments, NGOs and their relations with the government) and professional approaches.

In opening a window on the underlying paradigm of today's universally proclaimed science and technology, we are confronted with the huge task of transforming the conventional practices in the field, in the village, in the community, in bureaucracies both large and small, and in society at large into practices that are really sustainable in the long term and that protect, conserve and regenerate resources for present and future generations. How this huge task is to be approached is splendidly formulated by the farmer, writer and poet Wendell Berry: 'One resurrected rural community would be more convincing and more encouraging than all the government and university programmes of the past 50 years. Renewal of our farm communities could be the beginning of the renewal of our country and ultimately the renewal of urban communities. But to be authentic, a true encouragement and a true beginning, this would have to be a resurrection accomplished mainly by the community itself' (page 131).

This goes to the heart of the problem of the crisis which donor agencies, national bureaucracies, and a number of formal developmental NGOs are going through. Many people and communities, from hill tribes in Northern Thailand to small farmers in Chiapas (Mexico) are eager to start working on issues they feel that they themselves know best how to solve.

The book recounts how people have rediscovered or reinvented tradition, or at least certain aspects of it. Not by 'putting the clock back', in the words of development bureaucrats who wave aside alternatives that do not fit into a particular growth-oriented framework, but rather by reinterpreting local knowledge and experiences and by optimizing local potential. In fact, this book is a most practical translation of the Brundtland Reports' definition of sustainable development**1 in the specific field of rural and agricultural development. It is particularly important in the light of the obstinacy with which the conventional order continues to reject the concept of long-term sustainability. In spite of the long list of good intentions drawn up at the Rio Environmental Summit, the present order is determined to stick to short-term financial returns, cost-benefit 'analyses' in which depletion of resources and the destruction of the social and cultural fabric are seen as externalities.

But above all, this is an interesting and important book because it describes the watershed represented by the transition from conventional modernist and basically Western norms and values and the new thinking, which is far more pluralistic and ecological, and less anthropocentric. It summarizes the last half-century of the theory and practice of the 'modernist project' in agriculture and rural development, which has replaced farm labour by external energy inputs and has resulted in an alarming depletion of natural resources, such as top soil and water, a dramatic reduction in biodiversity, and the displacement of millions of people. But it also examines the experiences of people, communities, and organizations--mainly over the last ten years--that have tried to work together, learn together and experiment together, taking into account local circumstances, local potential, local experiences and local wisdom. 'Sustainable agriculture is therefore not a simple model or package to be imposed. It is more a process for learning' (page 8).

Book info
Jules N. Pretty (1995) Regenerating agriculture: Policies and practice for sustainability and self-reliance. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd. pp. 320 ISBN 1-85383-198-0 PB œ 12.95 ISBN 1-85383-152-0 HB œ 19.95.

It can be ordered from Earthscan Publications Ltd, 120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, UK. Tel: +44-171-3882117. Fax: +44-171-3882826.

Paul ter Weel
Advisor rural development
Development Cooperation Section
The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
P.O. Box 20061
2500 EB The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax: +31-70-3486336

Reference
WCED/World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Endnote
**1 Sustainable development: development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987:8).