Chapter 27 - An Evolutionary Perspective on Industrial and Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Industrial agriculture has had great success in producing abundant, low-cost food. World hunger has been declining for decades, and food production per capita has increased sharply since the 1960s. But this success has come with costs that raise questions about the sustainability and the unintended effects of the global “rationalization” of food production. Environmental costs include the degradation of groundwater, surface water, soils, and biologic diversity. Social costs include a growing rural-urban divide, a worldwide obesity epidemic, and antibiotic resistance. This paper takes an evolutionary perspective to look at global agriculture as an interlocking system of technologies, belief systems, and institutions that reinforces growth and technological complexity over stability and long-run sustainability. The point is made that this system did not “naturally” evolve but is the result of accidents of history, lock-in, and path dependencies, and most importantly, the active government promotion of industrial agriculture.