and farming (OF). Organic farming is based on the principles of health, ecology, fairness and care (IFOAM, 2005), emphasizing animal welfare, which in the 1990s raised wide concern in the society (see Chapter 2). By the mid-1980s organic farming was an established alternative to conventional farming and during the 1990s its share of field area increased considerably in NAE. In Europe the area under organic farming increased from <0.1 million ha in 1985 to 7 million ha in 2006, representing about 3.2% of the European field area (and 4% of that in the EU) (Institute Rural Sciences, 2007). Another example is Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) (also known as Integrated Crop Management). The objectives of IFS approach are a holistic pattern of land use which integrates natural regulation processes into farming activities to achieve maximum replace of off-farm inputs and to sustain farm income (El Titi, 1992; Wibberley, 1995; IOBC, 1999; Morris and Winter, 1999). Research on various aspects relating to OF and IFS has been taking place in NAE since the late 1970s in response to the environmental side effects of intensive farming practices (see Chapter 2).
The inherent conflicts that occur among environmental, economic and social costs and benefits of agriculture (ACRE, 2006) were increasingly understood. Approaches taking into account the whole food chain started to be developed in the 1980s. In the 1990s food systems approaches emerged, particularly within NAE, in an interaction with the emergence of alternative food systems initiatives (see Chapter 2). These approaches aimed not only to take into account environmental, economic and social aspects but also covered the whole food chain, from inputs to waste management and to support systems related to food, including institutions such as values and norms (see e.g., Dahlberg, 1993; Tansey and Worsley, 1995). Proceeding simultaneously on all the dimensions of sustainability remains a challenge.
The concern for rural communities and their vitality received increasing attention, which was reflected in EU policy schemes and attempts to integrate agricultural and rural policy (Figure 4-2 [in Annex H]). Abandonment of farm land, e.g., in the Mediterranean region, not only had negative social and economic consequences but often also undesirable effects on a range of environmental parameters (MacDonald et al., 2000; Suarez-Seone et al., 2002), illustrating again the multifunctionality of agriculture.
Farm animal welfare became a concern in Western Europe and North America as animal production intensified and the population became more affluent and less in touch with farming. Voices questioning whether welfare concerns are compatible with animal husbandry or meat eating increased and in the 1990s radicalism proliferated within the animal welfare movement (Buller and Morris, 2003). The farm animal welfare debate has gradually penetrated farm policy within the EU and is becoming increasingly institutionalized as a result of EU and national legislation (Buller and Morris, 2003). In parallel, renewed academic interest developed in human-animal relations, fuelled by a re-examination of society-nature relationships (Buller and Morris, 2003).
The central role of AKST as a driver of industrialization and structural change, especially but not solely of agriculture, has raised debate about whether even publicly funded agricultural research is equally accessible to all users and |
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Box 4-2. An introduction to the evolution of the ecosystem approach.
The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. It is based on the application of appropriate scientific methodologies focused on levels of biological organization, which encompass the essential processes, functions and interactions among organisms and their environment. It recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity, are an integral component of ecosystems. Therefore, the ecosystem approach is a crucial step towards acknowledging, conserving and relying on the ecosystem functions and structure in the development of agri-food systems, compared to the earlier approach of sustainable use, which takes nature as a source of resources and sink of wastes for agriculture and calls for stewardship (Douglass, 1984). An even more narrow approach is that of food sufficiency, which lacks long-term perspective or consideration of environmental and social impacts of food production. The environmental, social and economic consequences of the latter approach, which has dominated the development of agri-food systems for the first decades after the WWII, are described in Chapter 3.
The ecosystem approach has its critics. Wood and Lenne (2005), for example, used the CBD as a framework to reject the three "received wisdoms" in the agri-environmental policy over the past ten years: the ecosystem approach, the premise that agricultural expansion damages wild biodiversity and the premise that agricultural biodiversity ensures agricultural sustainability (c.f. MA, 2005). They proposed development of intensive agriculture to save off-farm biodiversity. Other recent contributors to this longstanding debate about intensive vs extensive agriculture include e.g., Green et al. (2005), Balm-ford et al. (2005) and Vandermeer and Perfecto (2005). One argument is that intensification (through increased yield per hectare), although causing declines of biodiversity on agricultural land, may help reduce the need for habitat reduction elsewhere (including natural pristine habitats). Pretty et al. (2006) suggest to exploit win-win situations that can be achieved in combining high productivity and ecosystem services. Another factor to be considered is that intensive agriculture often relies on inputs from beyond national borders (the so called "hidden hectares") to produce, e.g., feed (Deutsch, 2004; Johansson, 2005). Another view is that although the ecosystem approach may be appropriate in Europe, developing countries need the development of more intensive, highly productive agriculture, even if it has to rely on external inputs.
whether it is targeted to the full range of user and citizens' groups (BANR, 2002).
Over the past thirty years the agricultural component of developmental economics has declined in academia in parts of NAE, such as the US, rather than increased in response to continuing food security problems (Falcon and Naylor, |