Jonathan M. Harris

World agricultural futures" regional sustainability and ecological limits

There is a wide spectrum of views on possible futures for world agriculture, with a clear division between neoclassical and ecological economics approaches to the issue. An incremental approach, characteristic of neoclassical economics, focuses on steady yield increases as a result of technological progress and increased input use. In this view, there are no inherent limits to growth and therefore an optimistic view tends to be taken of future production potential. By contrast, an analysis based on the concept of carrying capacity emphasizes environmental limits to system growth. This paper reviews estimates of carrying capacity as well as trends in land use, yields, and environmental impacts of agriculture. Demand projections are made for the year 2025 based on population momentum and a slow rate of increase in per-capita consumption. The global system is seen to be approaching carrying capacity limits over the next 30 years, with more severe stresses at a regional level, and widening food deficits in developing nations. Strong yield growth in China, South Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe will be necessary to avert global shortfalls, but resource and environmental factors pose serious constraints in all these areas. The pressure to increase yields is therefore in conflict with the requirements of long-term sustainability. This indicates the need for regional models of sustainable agro-ecosystems which balance yield requirements with ecological constraints. In addition, demand-side issues of population policy, efficiency in consumption, and distributional equity become increasingly important in a world of constrained agricultural growth.

Global institutions and ecological crisis

Abstract Rapidly escalating environmental problems of the late 20th century have a common characteristic: their increasingly global nature. Damage to ecosystems, the atmosphere, oceans, forests, agricultural systems, and water supplies threatens both the stability of industrialized nations and the growth prospects of the developing world. The concepts of growth management and sustainable development have emerged as responses to the environmental crisis. If these concepts are to be applied on the scale necessary to avert ecological catastrophe, a transformation of existing national and international institutions is required. The future world economic system must be based on a kind of global ecological Keynesianism, with a significant social direction of capital flows demand management, and technological choices, to promote ecological sustainability.

World Agricultural Production: Growth Paths and Environmental Effects

Studies of the world agricultural system have generally focused on supplies of land and non-land inputs and on the role of technical progress to assess the balance between food supply and population-driven demand. In this paper these factors are integrated with a consideration of the impacts of intensive and extensive growth in agricultural production on soil quality, water supply, and agricultural ecosystems. Projections of future growth paths for world agriculture throw some doubt on the adequacy of existing models of agricultural development, and suggest some alternative