Rational Agriculture

Modern societies depend absolutely on agriculture. The transition from a hunter/gatherer existence to farming, starting around 10,000 years ago, enabled permanent settlements to be built and gave people time to pursue activities over and above pure subsistence. And yet agriculture forms a very small part of the economies of industrialised countries. In Europe, we have abundant, affordable food and have the luxury of deciding how to farm and how to manage the countryside.

Not so in many developing countries. With still about 800 million people (that's nearly twice the population of the expanded EU) undernourished in today's world, subsistence agriculture is an all-too-real fact of life. Helping to provide food security for the world's poorest is a moral imperative. This means making available all technologies which may help and allowing people to decide what is best: it's not a case of one size fits all. There is no place for doctrinare approaches.

This blog is dedicated to a discussion of all options available to farmers in both the industrialised and developing worlds. Comments are welcomed.