Agriculture

1.7.5.1 The concepts of agriculture

Basically, agriculture is concerned with the production of crops and rearing of animals for food, fibre and other uses (Yunlong & Smit, 1994). However, the broader concept of agriculture encompasses the financing, processing, marketing, distribution of products, farm production supply and service industries, health, nutrition, and food consumption; the use and conservation of land and water resources; and related economic, sociological, political, environmental and cultural characteristics of the food and fibre system. A three-fold environmental framework of agriculture is shown below (Figure 1.2), and is useful to contextualize agriculture.

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The above diagram (Figure 1.2) depicts the context in which agriculture takes place. The biophysical component provides the natural resources that are used in agriculture: some of these are renewable (plants and animals, for example), while others such as mineral fuels are not. Others such as rain, water and wind are variable and unpredictable. The key concern is to keep and possibly enhance the productive potential of the biophysical environment. This context of agriculture is important for understanding sustainability from an ecological perspective. The socio-political environment influences agriculture because it is the needs of the human populations, their policies, cultures, beliefs and traditions that shape the manner in which agriculture is pursued (Yunlong & Smit, 1994). The techno-economic environment is concerned about and affects the feasibility and viability of agricultural activities: costs of inputs, labour, transport and technology, prices of agricultural commodities: “The techno- economic environment combines with the socio-political environment to influence the distribution of benefits and incomes among farmer operators and others in society” (Yunlong & Smit, 1994, p. 302). Socio-political Techno- economic Biophysical Inputs Outputs Technologies Transport Markets Prices Landforms Soil Water Climate Plants Animals Ecosystems Populations Customs Attitudes Cultures Politics Institutions Agriculture

29 1.7.5.2 History of agriculture in brief

a. Traditional agriculture

As a practice, agriculture has evolved over thousands of years, beginning with the domestication of plants and animals. Traditional agriculture, which is still being practised in most parts of Africa uses low external inputs, for example, seed is saved, shared or traded and multiplied locally; animals graze pastures, following natural rhythms of abundance of grass; and soil is fertilized by local organic matter. Traditional shifting cultivation, with long fallow periods, could sustain up to eight people per square kilometre and this density was reached in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Swaziland in the 1930s (Whiteside, 1998, p. 12). In southern Africa, traditional farming was characterized by shifting cultivation and livestock keeping (Harry, 1938; Brundy, 1988; Isichei, 1997). Traditional agriculture satisfied subsistence needs and helped communities to obtain ecological services. Its main advantage is that it uses local resources and therefore tends to protect farmer independence and interdependence rather than encourage dependence on outsiders. There is evidence to suggest that traditional agriculture in southern Africa used to meet and exceed the needs of the populations (Mudenge, 1988 in Chenje & Johnson, 1994). One of its strategies is to minimize risk by planting several species and varieties of crops, which stabilize yields over the long term, promote diet diversity and maximize returns with low levels of technology and limited resources (Hardwood, 1979). In one survey of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), as many as 100 varieties of subsidiary crops were identified in an agro-ecosystem (Harry, 1938).

Traditional multiple cropping systems provide between 15 and 20 % of the world food supply (Francis, 1985). Traditional agricultural knowledge was based on acute observation as well as trial and error experimentation. This is evident in the selection of seed varieties suited to specific environments, and implicit in the testing of new cultivation methods to overcome specific biological or socio economic limitations. Chambers (1983) in Altieri (undated) notes that farmers often achieve a richness of observation and a fineness of discrimination that would be accessible to western scientists only through long and detailed measurement and computation. He further asserts that the finest discrimination tends to come from communities where the environments have broad/wide physical and/or biological diversity and those with low biodiversity. Some of the challenges of traditional agriculture are that it cannot meet the demands of growing populations and of raw materials for industry. Traditional agriculture was regarded as backward by colonial settlers in the region who undermined it using various means. It generally produces less food per unit area than modern agriculture. However, it is still being practised by some farming communities in the region. In spite of its limitations, there are some aspects of traditional agriculture that merit consideration for building sustainability into agricultural learning and practices.

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b. Modern agriculture

The introduction of commercial export crops among the indigenous people, in the early part of the 19th _{century through colonisation and industrialisation (Harry, 1938) led to intensive}

crop production. It curtailed shifting cultivation and promoted cash crops. Modern agriculture was developed in order to address increased food needs of growing populations and land degradation (Pretty, 1995). It encourages the adoption of modern varieties of crops and animal hybrids together with associated packages of external inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, machinery and credit facilities. Modern agriculture promotes mono- cropping and mono-animal enterprises geared for sale (Pretty, 1995). Wilson (1999, p. 11) argued that modern agriculture is pursued primarily for economic goals and largely ignores the social and ecological dimensions of life, which is fostered by the belief in a mechanistic/reductionist approach where planning and management deal with things in isolation (Whiteside, 1998). Modern agriculture, which gave rise to the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s thrives where there are rich soils, good water supply as well as access to petroleum based products and modern crop varieties. It has also produced technologies such as irrigation techniques and equipment, improved seed varieties and greenhouse technologies that have boosted production and productivity. Specialisation in such areas as agronomy, animal breeding, seed breeding, climate, entomology and related agricultural subjects helped to provide concentrated but compartmentalised intellectual capital for modern agriculture, which propelled it forward on one hand and created problems of a mechanistic approach to living systems on the other. In much of southern Africa, modern agriculture has been unsuccessful since about 70% of the people in the region are small scale farmers who cannot afford the agricultural inputs (Booth, 1994, p. 107), and live in low and unreliable areas where the soils are generally poor. One of the „bads‟ of modern agriculture is that use of chemical fertilizers has led to eutrophication of water bodies, negatively affecting aquatic ecosystems and causing proliferation of aquatic weeds such as the water hyacinth and affecting the availability of clean water downstream. The use of pesticides also pollutes water resources. The International Trade Centre and Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) (2007, p. 9) argued that “global warming potential of conventional agriculture is strongly affected by the use of synthetic fertilizers and by high nitrogen concentrations in the soils”. Related to equity, Kiers et al. (2008) further noted “production increases have not consistently improved food access to the world‟s poor. Where production has been intensified, it has been generally accompanied by costs such as extensive eutrophication from fertilizer runoff, pesticide contamination and loss of local landraces”. Modern agriculture is highly dependent on fossil fuels, a resource which is both finite and set to decline. It is this external dependence of modern agriculture on external input on the farm that makes it difficult to sustain.

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The other concern about modern agriculture is that it takes away the farmers‟ power to experiment in activities such as animal and crop breeding and undermines the use of local resources. Scientists are the producers of knowledge, extension workers the bearers, and farmers the consumers. More recently concerns have been raised about the dispossessions caused by privatisation of land and water resources. This undermines the self-reliance of the farmer and the farming community. When natural disasters such as droughts and floods occur, farmers are left less able to adapt since their resilience is undermined. Modern agriculture has brought more food onto the table and fed the agro-based industry, addressing some of the shortcomings of traditional agriculture. However, it has created new problems especially in the social and ecological spheres, which need to be addressed. It was with the intention of addressing these gaps that the different forms of sustainable agriculture have been developed, mainly over the last 20-30 years.

c. Sustainable agriculture practices

“Economic practices are concerned with transformation of natural raw materials into things which humans find useful, or, in the capitalist case, exchangeable/usable. Political practices are concerned with the reproduction/transformation of social relations”, according to Dean (2006, p. 139). This study is concerned with sustainability practices in agriculture which are discussed below. Sustainable agriculture arose in response to the shortcomings of modern agriculture. It draws on the strengths of both traditional agriculture and modern/conventional agriculture as Pretty (1995) noted:

Sustainable agriculture does not imply a rejection of conventional practices, but an incorporation of the recent innovations that may originate with scientists, farmers or both. It is common for sustainable agriculture farmers to use recently developed equipment and technology; complex rotation patterns; the latest innovations in reduced input strategies; new technologies for animal feeding and housing; and detailed ecological knowledge for pest and predator management. (p. 13)

Sustainable agriculture is internal input ecological agriculture relying on resources available on the farm: energy labour, seed, fertilizer and knowledge (Shiva & Pandey, 2006). Pretty (1999) defined sustainable agriculture as farming that makes the best use of nature‟s goods and services whilst not damaging the environment by integrating natural processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration and natural enemies of pests, into food production processes, minimizing the use of non-renewable inputs and chemicals that damage the environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers (pp. 259-261). Sustainable agriculture taps into the knowledge and skills of farmers, thus improving their self-reliance and capacities (Pretty, 1999). It is multi-functional, producing non-food functions such as on- farm biodiversity; urban to rural migration; and social cohesion, thus contributing to ecological and social sustainability (Yunlong & Smit, 1994). Yunlong and Smit (1994)

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outlined three categories of sustainability in agriculture based on Brown‟s work: ecological, social and economic sustainability. The ecological dimension involves maintaining the productive potential of the resource base; sustained crop yields; preservation of the hydrology of surface and ground water; and the protection of genetic resources and biological diversity. Social sustainability is the continued satisfaction of basic human needs such as food, shelter and higher level social and cultural necessities. Food self-sufficiency is an important part of social sustainability so that concerned societies are not vulnerable to uncertain food supply and price movements. Economic sustainability is concerned with the long-term benefits that accrue to agricultural producers, for example, sustaining certain yield levels, productivity and viability of farming. Sustainable agriculture practices in southern Africa include Permaculture; Organic Farming; the Machobane Farming System; Agro-forestry and Conservation Farming (Wilson, 1999; Mukute, 2001). As mentioned in Section 1.3, I am particularly interested in the first three because of their relative prevalence in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Lesotho respectively.

The fact that sustainable agriculture seeks to build on modern and traditional agriculture and to address the competing interests of economy, equity and ecology requires a dialectical approach to manage the contradictions and construct new solutions. Farmer participation in knowledge sharing and creation alongside other actors in development calls for learning through work (praxis) which should be accompanied by the continuous development of new ways of knowing, that is, reflexivity.

Sustainable agriculture is multi-functional within the landscapes and economies – it produces food and other goods for farm families and markets, but it also contributes to a range of public goods, such as clean water, wildlife, carbon sequestration1 _{in soils, flood protection,}

landscape quality. It delivers many non-food functions that cannot be produced by other sectors (e.g. on-farm biodiversity, urban to rural migration, social cohesion). Douglas (1984) developed a three-fold definition of sustainable agriculture which includes stewardship, food security, and community, and which resonates well with Brown, Hanson and Meredith‟s (1987) three categories of ecological, economic and social sustainability respectively, and with the definition of Pretty above.