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Sustainable Agriculture Reviews
Volume 3
Series Editor
Eric Lichtfouse
For further volumes:

http://www.springer.com/series/8380
Eric Lichtfouse
Editor
Sociology, Organic Farming,

Climate Change and Soil
Science
Editor
Dr. Eric Lichtfouse
INRA-CMSE-PME
17 rue Sully
21000 Dijon
France
[email protected]
ISBN 978-90-481-3332-1 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3333-8

DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3333-8
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009941465
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written per-
mission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of
being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Cover illustration: Market in Uzbekistan. Cover picture was kindly provided by Dominique Millot,
Dijon, France. Copyright: Dominique Millot 2009.
Printed on acid-free paper
Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Contents
1 Society Issues, Painkiller Solutions, Dependence

and Sustainable Agriculture...................................................................... 1
Eric Lichtfouse
2 Sociology of Sustainable Agriculture....................................................... 19

Ezatollah Karami and Marzieh Keshavarz
3 Sustainable Versus Organic Agriculture.................................................. 41

Juying Wu and Vito Sardo
4 Organic Agriculture and Food Production: Ecological,

Environmental, Food Safety and Nutritional Quality Issues................. 77
Reza Ghorbani, Alireza Koocheki, Kirsten Brandt,
Stephen Wilcockson, and Carlo Leifert
5 Sustainability of Energy Crop Cultivation in Central Europe.............. 109

Volkhard Scholz, Monika Heiermann, and Peter Kaulfuss
6 Phosphorus, Plant Biodiversity and Climate Change............................ 147

Nicole Wrage, Lydie Chapuis-Lardy, and Johannes Isselstein
7 Co-evolution and Migration of Bean and Rhizobia in Europe.............. 171

Paula A. Rodiño, Marta Santalla, Antonio M. De Ron,
and Jean-Jacques Drevon
8 Non-isotopic and 13C Isotopic Approaches to Calculate

Soil Organic Carbon Maintenance Requirement................................... 189
Francisco Mamani Pati, David E. Clay, Gregg Carlson,
and Sharon A. Clay
9 Soil Solarization and Sustainable Agriculture........................................ 217

Trifone D’Addabbo, Vito Miccolis, Martino Basile,
and Vincenzo Candido
v
vi Contents
10 Soil Functions and Diversity in Organic

and Conventional Farming...................................................................... 275
Supradip Saha
11 Indigenous Soil Knowledge for Sustainable Agriculture...................... 303

Iin P. Handayani and Priyono Prawito
12 Composting to Recycle Biowaste............................................................ 319

György Füleky and Szilveszter Benedek
13 Nematodes as Biocontrol Agents............................................................. 347

Tarique Hassan Askary
14 Allelopathy and Organic Farming.......................................................... 379

Jana Kalinova
15 Occurrence and Physiology of Zearalenone

as a New Plant Hormone......................................................................... 419
Jolanta Biesaga-Kościelniak and Maria Filek
16 Homestead Agroforestry: a Potential Resource in Bangladesh........... 437

M. Giashuddin Miah and M. Jahangir Hussain
Index.................................................................................................................. 465
Chapter 1
Society Issues, Painkiller Solutions,
Dependence and Sustainable Agriculture
Eric Lichtfouse
Abstract Here I tackle three major issues, climate change, financial crisis and
national security, to disclose the weak points of current remedies and propose sus-
tainable solutions. Global warming and the unexpected 2008 financial crisis will
undoubtedly impact all nations. Treating those two critical issues solely by pain-
killer solutions will fail because only adverse consequences are healed, not their
causes. Therefore, all sources of issues must be treated at the same time by enhanc-
ing collaboration between politicians and scientists. Furthermore, the adverse
consequences of globalisation of markets for energy, food and other goods have
been overlooked, thus deeply weakening the security of society structures in the
event of major breakdowns. Therefore, dependence among people, organisations
and nations must be redesigned and adapted to take into account ecological, social
and security impacts. Solving climate, financial and security issues can be done by
using tools and principles developed by agronomists because agronomy integrates
mechanisms occurring at various space and time levels. Agriculture is also a cen-
tral driver for solving most society issues because society has been founded by
agriculture, and agriculture is the activity that provides food, renewable energies
and materials to humans. I present a to-do list summarising the major practices
of sustainable agriculture based on about 100 recently published review articles.
The practices are agroforestry, allelopathy, aquaculture, beneficial microorgan-
isms and insects, biofertilisation, biofuels, biological control, biological nitrogen
fixation, breeding, carbon sequestration, conservation agriculture, crop rotation,
cover crops, decision support systems, grass strips, integrated pest management,
intercropping, irrigation, mechanical weed control, mulching, no tillage, organic
amendments, organic farming, phytoremediation, precision agriculture, seed
invigoration, sociology, soil restoration, suicidal germination, terracing, transgenic
crops, trap crops, and urban agriculture.
E. Lichtfouse (*)
INRA, Department of Environment and Agronomy, CMSE-PME, 17, rue Sully,
21000, Dijon, France
e-mail: [email protected]
E. Lichtfouse (ed.), Sociology, Organic Farming, Climate Change and Soil Science, 1
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3333-8_1,
2 E. Lichtfouse
Keywords Agriculture • Climate change • Financial crisis • National security •

Agroforestry • Allelopathy • Aquaculture • Beneficial microorganisms and insects
• Biofertilisation • Biofuels • Biological control • Biological nitrogen fixation •
Breeding • Carbon sequestration • Conservation agriculture • Crop rotation • Cover
crops • Decision support systems • Grass strips • Integrated pest management •
Intercropping • Irrigation • Mechanical weed control • Mulching • No tillage •
Organic amendments • Organic farming • Phytoremediation • Precision agriculture
• Seed invigoration • Sociology • Soil restoration • Terracing • Transgenic crops •
Trap crops • Urban agriculture
Mahatma Gandhi listed seven blunders of humanity: Wealth without work, Pleasure without
conscience, Commerce without morality, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles,
Knowledge without character, and Science without humanity.
1.1 Financial Crisis, Climate Change and the Painkiller

Solution
Society is actually experiencing an unexpected financial crisis that will undoubtedly

impact all nations (Beyond Growth 2008). It will affect in particular the poorest
countries that are already suffering from hunger and diseases. Governments are
attempting to heal this issue by injecting large amounts of money in banking systems
and major companies. At the same time, effects of climate change are accelerating
and deeply altering ecosystems (IPCC 2007). Recent alarming reports even warn
that it is already too late to stop global warming, though the forecasted value of the
warming in degree Celsius and the date at which it will occur are still debated
(Vince 2009). Given the urgency, geoengineering – the notion that to save the planet
we must artificially tweak its thermostat by, e.g., firing fine dust into the atmo-
sphere to deflect sun rays – is even gaining cause as a rapid solution to the attempt
of cooling the earth (Brahic 2009). Injecting government cash and geoengineering
are both urgent actions that may indeed temporarily heal the financial market and
the effects of climate change. Nonetheless, those two strategies suffer from the
same drawback. Both are “fireman” or “painkiller” solutions, meaning that only
adverse consequences are treated, not the cause of those effects (Lal, 2009a;
Lichtfouse 2009a).
1.2 Enhancing Politician and Scientist Collaboration
Treating solely negative effects without treating sources will undoubtedly fail in
the long run. Therefore, I strongly advice politicians and other policy makers to
treat the source of the adverse effects. This can be done by closer collaboration
1 Society Issues, Painkiller Solutions, Dependence and Sustainable Agriculture 3
with scientists. It is indeed unacceptable that almost nothing has been done to
counteract global warming before 2007, knowing that the Nobel Prize winner
Svante Arrhenius has clearly predicted in 1896 – more than a century ago – that
temperature will rise of about +5°C as a result of fossil fuel burning (see
Lichtfouse 2009b and references therein). In the next section, I discuss depen-
dence, another critical and overlooked factor, and its implication on the security
of our society.
1.3 Rethinking Society Dependence
Globalisation of the market for food, fuels and other goods has undoubtedly
induced positive effects such as lowering prices and fostering collaborations
among citizens and nation. However, it has also induced serious dependence
problems such as a sharp increase of maize prices in Mexico following the fast-
rising use of maize as biofuels in northern countries. Another striking example is
the peak of petroleum prices that has impacted almost all nations. A recent failure
of the European electricity grid resulting in thousands of home without current for
several days further illustrates the weaknesses of global dependence. We also
know that crop control with pesticides is contaminating drinking water, even many
years after the ban of those pesticides (Barth et al. 2009), and so on. As a result,
though we live at a time of outstanding technology, the excess of dependence cre-
ated by wild globalisation has strongly weakened our society. In case of major
catastrophic events, the society structures were probably more secure 100 years
ago because most people were farmers, producing and consuming locally. The
fundamental sources of our actual society issues are evidenced in the visionary
article by Dr. Rattan Lal, entitled Tragedy of the global commons: soil, water and
air (Lal, 2009b).
Though this is a very sensitive topic because dependence is the basis of most
public and private organisations, the adverse effects of dependence have been
largely overlooked because benefits such as growth and profit have predominated
until now. Environmental, social and security impacts have indeed not been taken
into account. Therefore, we should rethink dependence. More specifically, the pro-
duction of food, fuels and other goods, their transportation and their selling should
be redesigned and controlled to lower dependence among people and nations. For
instance, producing and consuming food more locally will both reduce dependence
and decrease the ecological footprint of long-range transportation. Switching partly
to renewable, locally produced energies will also produce a similar positive effect.
Of course, less dependence does not mean no dependence and no collabora-
tion among people and nations. The degree of dependence should be adapted to
the nature of goods or energy, their transportation, selling, ecological footprint,
and social impact. Some goods may be distributed globally without weakening
the nations, others may not be so. Obviously, the southern, poorest nations
4 E. Lichtfouse
should be at the same time supplied with food and helped to produce their own
food and energy. Scientists and policy makers should therefore study, assess
and enforce the relevant level of goods circulation. Here, the tools developed by
agronomists to build sustainable farming systems should be particularly useful
because agriculture is the foundation of society (Lal, 2009c; Lichtfouse et al.
2009a). Agronomists are indeed experts at deciphering mechanisms occurring
at various scales, from the molecule to the global scale, and from seconds to
centuries.
Agronomy should thus be used as a core tool to build a sustainable society.
Table 1.1 gathers the major practices of sustainable agriculture, and their main
benefits. It should thus help readers to build rapidly an overall vision of the current
innovative tools and approaches to build a sustainable world.
Table 1.1 Practices of sustainable agriculture. Most citations are review articles published in the
following books: Sustainable Agriculture (Lichtfouse et al. 2009b); Sustainable Agriculture
Reviews, vol 1 Organic farming, pest control and remediation of soil pollutants (Lichtfouse,
2009c); Sustainable Agriculture Reviews, vol 2 Climate change, intercropping, pest control and
beneficial microorganisms (Lichtfouse, 2009d); Sustainable Agriculture Reviews, vol 3 Sociology,
organic farming, climate change and soil science (Lichtfouse, 2009e, this volume)
Practices Benefits References
Agroforestry Carbon sequestration Carruba and Catalano (2009)
Homestead agroforestry Diversification Etchevers et al. (2009)
Disease control Lal (2009e)
Employment Malézieux et al. (2009)
Food security Miah and Hussein (2009)
Higher biodiversity Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Higher relative plant density Spiertz (2009)
Less soil erosion Zuazo and Pleguezuelo
Mitigate climate change (2009)
Nutrient recycling
Pest control
Water quality
Allelopathy Adaptation to climate change Aroca and Ruiz-Lozano
Biofumigation Decreasing costs (2009)
Biopesticides Drought tolerance Biesaga-Kocielniak and
Hormones Food security Filek (2009)
Plant growth regulators and Increase water uptake Farooq et al. (2009a, b)
other biochemicals Less pesticides Kalinova (2009)
Weed control Khan et al. (2009b)
Martínez-Ballesta et al.
(2009)
Runyon et al. (2009)
Wu et al. (2009)
Aquaculture Diversification Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Food security
Recycling farm wastes
(continued)
Table 1.1 (continued)

Beneficial microorganisms Bioremediation Aroca and Ruiz-Lozano
and insects Biosensors (2009)
Cheaper fertilisation Bonilla and Bolaños (2009)
Disease control Deguine et al (2009)
Drought tolerance Gamalero et al. (2009)
Increasing nutrient uptake Garg and Geetanjali (2009)
Increasing plant growth Ghorbani et al. (2009a)
Pest control Gregoire et al. (2009)
Phytoremediation Holb (2009)
Pollinisation Joner and Leyval (2009)
Khan et al. (2009a, b)
Latour et al. (2009)
Saha (2009)
Viebahn et al. (2009)
Wrage et al. (2009)
Yair et al. (2009)
Biofertilisation Disease resistance Bonilla and Bolaños (2009)
Biofortification Drought resistance Dordas (2009)
Foliar sprays Higher micronutrient levels Farooq et al. (2009a)
Less malnutrition Ghorbani et al. (2009a)
Improving human health Viebahn et al. (2009)
Salt resistance Wrage et al. (2009)
Zuo and Zhang (2009)
Biofuels Carbon neutral Ceotto (2009)
Higher biodiversity Lal (2009d, e)
Local source of energy Hill (2009)
Mitigate climate change Miah and Hussein (2009)
Renewable fuels Scholz et al. (2009)
Biological control Cheap control Askary (2009)
(see also beneficial Disease control Clergue et al. (2009)
organisms and insects) Higher biodiversity Deguine et al (2009)
Less or no pesticide Ferron and Deguine (2009)
Pest control Ghorbani et al. (2009b)
Wildlife conservation Holb (2009)
Latour et al. (2009)
Viebahn et al. (2009)
Yair et al. (2009)
Biological nitrogen fixation Alternative fertilisation Bonilla and Bolaños (2009)
(see also cover crops) Food security Garg and Geetanjali (2009)
Increases plant growth Khan et al. (2009b)
Increases soil N Knörzer et al. (2009)
Less, no mineral fertilisers Rodiño et al. (2009)
Local fertiliser Spiertz (2009)
Mitigate climate change
Nutrient recycling
(continued)
6 E. Lichtfouse

Breeding Adaptation to climate change Banilas et al. (2009)
Recurrent mass selection Disease resistance Carruba and Catalano
Drought resistance (2009)
Genetic diversity Hejnak et al. (2009)
Salinity resistance Marais and Botes (2009)
Martínez-Ballesta et al.
(2009)
Carbon sequestration Decreases erosion Anderson (2009b)
(see also organic Higher nutrient retention Erhart and Hartl (2009)
amendments) Higher soil biodiversity Benbi and Brar (2009)
Higher water retention Bernoux et al (2009)
Mitigate climate change Etchevers et al. (2009)
Offset CO2 emissions Füleky and Benedek (2009)
Prevent desertification Ghorbani et al. (2009b)
Lal (2009c, d, e, f)
Malézieux et al. (2009)
Nguyen (2009)
Pati et al. (2009)
Shaxson (2009)
Stagnari et al. (2009)
Conservation agriculture Air, soil and water protection Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Biodiversity conservation Stagnari et al. (2009)
Decreases erosion
Decreases pollution
Higher water retention
Improves soil structure
Mitigates climate change
Reduces farm costs
Reduces flooding
Reduces work time
Crop rotation Biofertilisation Anderson (2009a, b)
Enhances soil organic matter Dordas (2009)
Increases biodiversity Erhart and Hartl (2009)
Increases soil N Ghorbani et al. (2009a)
Increases water use efficiency Kalinova (2009)
Plant disease control Lal (2009e)
Water conservation Spiertz (2009)
Weed control Stagnari et al. (2009)
Cover crops Improves fertility Kalinova (2009)
Improves water availability Malézieux et al. (2009)
Nutrient recycling Pati et al. (2009)
Reduces costs Runyon et al. (2009)
Soil erosion and runoff Stagnari et al. (2009)
control Wu and Sardo (2009)
Weed control Zuazo and Pleguezuelo
(2009)
(continued)

Decision support systems Assess sustainability Barth et al. (2009)
Farming systems Design sustainable practices Bockstaller et al. (2009a, b)
Indicators Integrate various sciences Clergue et al. (2009)
Land husbandry Integrate space and time Debaeke et al. (2009)
Modelling levels Doré et al. (2009)
Forecast farming system Duru and Hubert (2009)
evolution Faivre et al. (2009)
Forecast impacts Handayani and Prawito
Optimise ecological benefits (2009)
Optimise performance Karami and Keshavarz
(2009)
Mir and Qadrri (2009)
Roger-Estrade et al. (2009)
Sadok et al. (2009)
Shaxson (2009)
Veldkamp et al. (2009)
Wu and Sardo (2009)
Zamykal and Everingham
(2009)
Grass strips Degrade pesticides Gregoire et al. (2009)
Buffering strips Reduce soil erosion Lacas et al. (2009)
Filtering strips Reduce water pollution Wu and Sardo (2009)
Artificial wetlands
Integrated pest management Decreases pesticide input D’Addabbo et al. (2009)
Decreases pollution Deguine et al. (2009)
Decreases cost Ferron and Deguine (2009)
Holb (2009)
Wu and Sardo (2009)
Intercropping Aesthetic value Carruba and Catalano
Alternative crops Biofortification (2009)
Diversification Deguine et al. (2009)
Decreases erosion Dordas (2009)
Increases biodiversity Etchevers et al. (2009)
Increases yield Kalinova (2009)
Increases soil nitrogen Knörzer et al. (2009)
Recycles nutrients Malézieux et al. (2009)
Pest control Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Plant disease control Spiertz (2009)
Zuo and Zhang (2009)
Irrigation Food security Hillel (2008)
Drip irrigation Saves water Lal (2009e)
Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Wu and Sardo (2009)
(continued)
8 E. Lichtfouse

Mechanical weed control Disease control Anderson (2009a)
Solarisation Food security Carruba and Catalano
Flaming Increases yield (2009)
Heating Increases plant growth Chicouene (2009)
Improves water availability D’Addabbo et al. (2009)
Increases soil nutrients Holb (2009)
Less or no herbicides
Weed control
Mulching Improves soil structure D’Addabbo et al. (2009)
(see also Organic Prevents frost damage Kalinova (2009)
amendments and Carbon Soil water conservation Lal (2009e, f)
sequestration) Soil temperature moderation Shaxson (2009)
Weed control Wu and Sardo (2009)
No tillage Disease control Anderson (2009a, b)
Reduced tillage Improves soil structure Bernoux et al. (2009)
Conservation tillage Increases biodiversity Deguine et al. (2009)
Direct seeding Increases carbon sequestration Etchevers et al. (2009)
Mitigates climate change Ghorbani et al. (2009a)
Reduces erosion Lal (2009e, f)
Reduces farm costs Pati et al. (2009)
Reduces work time Roger-Estrade et al. (2009)
Water retention Scholz et al. (2009)
Shaxson (2009)
Wu and Sardo (2009)
Organic amendments Buffer soil temperature Baize (2009)
Sewage sludge Cheap fertilisation Bernoux et al. (2009)
Manure Carbon sequestration Dordas (2009)
Organic mulch Disease control Etchevers et al. (2009)
Biochar Decreases erosion Erhart and Hartl (2009)
Biosolid Increases microbial activity Füleky and Benedek (2009)
Compost Increases yield Ghorbani et al. (2009a, b)
Crop residues Improves soil structure Gresta et al. (2009)
Wood, etc. (see also carbon Mitigates climate change Holb (2009)
sequestration) Recycles waste Kalinova (2009)
Stores soil nutrients Lal (2009e)
Water retention Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Pati et al. (2009)
Saha (2009)
Scholz et al. (2009)
Shaxson (2009)
Sigua (2009)
Spiertz (2009)
(continued)

Organic farming Carbon sequestration Erhart and Hartl (2009)
Decreases erosion Füleky and Benedek (2009)
Disease control Ghorbani et al. (2009a, b)
Food security Handayani and Prawito
Increases biodiversity (2009)
Increases fertility Holb (2009)
Increases soil carbon Kalinova (2009)
Increases soil nitrogen Lamine and Bellon (2009)
Higher soil quality Saha (2009)
Improves soil structure Spiertz (2009)
Mitigates climate change Winter and Davis (2007)
Recycles nutrients Wu and Sardo (2009)
Social improvement
Phytoremediation Aesthetic improvement Al-Najar et al. (2005)
(see also grass strips) Cleans soil, water and air Babula et al. (2009)
Decreases pollutant Baraud et al. (2005)
bioavailability Harvey et al. (2002)
Decreases pollutant toxicity Joner and Leyval (2009)
Decreases pollutant Khan et al. (2009b)
concentration Morel et al. (1999)
Degrades organic pollutants Rodriguez et al. (2005)
Extracts metals from soils Scholz et al. (2009)
Low-cost remediation Wahid et al. (2009)
Socially-acceptable
reclamation
Precision agriculture Disease control Sardo (2009)
Robotic agriculture Manages crop variability Unibots
Manages crop conditions Wu and Sardo (2009)
variability Zamykal and Everingham
Optimises fertilisation (2009)
Optimises watering
Weed control
Seed invigoration Dormancy management Farooq et al. (2009a, b)
Drought resistance
Flood resistance
Increases yield
Low temperature resistance
Salt stress resistance
Sociology Behaviour, attitude approach Handayani and Prawito
Indigenous knowledge Better adoption of practices (2009)
Eco-protection Karami and Keshavarz
Ecological modernisation (2009)
Equity Palaniappan et al. (2009)
Human dimension, traditions Wu and Sardo (2009)
Integrated, holistic approach
Integrates economic factors
Integrates people culture,
religions
Resource-conserving practices
Tackles sources of issues
(continued)
10 E. Lichtfouse

Soil restoration Decreases desertification Anderson (2009b)
Decreases poverty and hunger Baize (2009)
Decreases soil erosion Barth et al. (2009)
Disease control Bernoux et al. (2009)
Food security Changwen and Jianmin
Increases biodiversity (2009)
Increases yield Etchevers et al. (2009)
Improves water quality Erhart and Hartl (2009)
Less pollutants Ghorbani et al. (2009a, b)
Handayani and Prawito
(2009)
Knörzer et al. (2009)
Lal (2009a, b, c, d, e, f)
Pati et al. (2009)
Roger-Estrade et al. (2009)
Saha (2009)
Sigua (2009)
Shaxson (2009)
Wrage et al. (2009)
Suicidal germination Parasitic plant control Runyon et al. (2009)
Terracing Carbon sequestration Doumbia et al. (2009)
Increases yield Zuazo and Pleguezuelo
Soil erosion control (2009)
Transgenic crops Biopesticide Bonny (2009)
Drugs, vaccines Deguine et al. (2009)
Easier weed control Devos et al. (2009)
Higher income Graef (2009)
Increase yield Marvier (2009)
Insect management Sanchis and Bourguet
Less pesticide treatments (2009)
Reduced tillage Torres et al. (2009)
Trap crops Pest control Deguine et al. (2009)
Kalinova (2009)
Runyon et al. (2009)
Torres et al. (2009)
Urban agriculture Food security De Bon et al. (2009)
Local agriculture Lower prices Miah and Hussein (2009)
Less environmental footprint
Less transportation
Local production and use
Mitigates climate change
Recycles wastes
Provides employment
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Chapter 2
Sociology of Sustainable Agriculture
Ezatollah Karami and Marzieh Keshavarz
Abstract Sustainability is the core element of government policies, university

research projects, and extension organizations worldwide. Yet, the results of several
decades of attempt to achieve sustainable agriculture have not been satisfactory.
Despite some improvement conventional agriculture is still the dominant paradigm.
Pollution of water, soil, and air, degradation of environmental resources, and loss
of biodiversity are still the by-product of agricultural systems. In light of these
crises, based on review of current literature, it is argued that in promoting sustain-
able agriculture our perception should shift from a technocratic approach to a social
negotiation process that reflects the social circumstances and the power conditions.
Agriculture should be regarded as an activity of human; therefore, it is social as
much as it is agronomic and ecological. Therefore, here we explore the contribution
of sociology toward achieving agricultural sustainability. The review reveals that
agricultural sustainability can no longer ignore the human dimension and social
dynamics that are the core elements of agricultural development. Although the
agricultural and ecological sciences are vital, social sciences must play their role to
analyze the human dimension, which is central to understanding and achieving agri-
cultural sustainability. The contributions of sociology of sustainable agriculture are
exploring the relationship between farmers’ attitudes and their sustainable farming
practices, understanding the gender impact, offering different sustainability para-
digms, providing different models of predicting adoption of sustainable practices,
and finally informing decision makers regarding the social impacts of their sustain-
ability decisions. Major findings are discussed and appropriate recommendations
are provided.
Keywords Sociology • Sustainable agriculture • Climate change • Attitude •

Human dimension • Social construct • Culture • Behavior • Adoption
E. Karami (*) and M. Keshavarz

College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
20 E. Karami and M. Keshavarz
2.1 Introduction
Even though agriculture has made great progress in feeding the ever-increasing
population, still it faces serious problems and challenges. Some of these challenges
such as food production to feed the undernourished and increasing demand for
poverty alleviation have been with us for a long time and will continue to be in
foreseeable future. Food production will have to increase, and this will have to
come mainly from existing farmland. Many predictions are gloomy indicating that
gap between demand and production will grow. Population growth, urbanization,
and income growth in developing countries are fueling a massive global increase in
demand for food.
Sustainability, climate change, and replacing fossil fuels with renewable
energy are relatively new challenges for agriculture. Overuse and inappropriate
use of agrochemicals have led to contamination of water, loss of genetic diversity,
and deterioration of soil quality (Rasul and Thapa 2003). Sustainability is not
only a challenge in itself, but also a new worldview, a paradigm, which has
changed our understanding of agriculture. This new paradigm seriously questions
our conventional ways of solving agricultural problems and challenges. High
external input or “modern agriculture,” which once was the promising approach
to agricultural production, is now considered to be unsustainable. There is con-
sensus that modern agriculture has diminished the importance of farming as a
way of life, and creates certain problems such as ecological degradation (Alhamidi
et al. 2003). There is also a growing skepticism about the ability of modern agri-
culture to increase productivity in order to meet future demand. Sustainable
agriculture as a concept has emerged to address the challenges that are facing
modern agriculture (Karami 1995).
Some researchers define sustainable agriculture primarily as a technical process.
Altieri (1989) defined sustainable agriculture as a system, which should aim to
maintain production in the long run without degrading the resources base, by using
low-input technologies that improve soil fertility, by maximizing recycling, enhanc-
ing biological pest control, diversifying production, and so on. The technological
and to a lesser extent economic dimensions of sustainable agriculture have tended
to be privileged while the social dimension has been neglected. As a result sustain-
able agricultural has suffered from limited adoption. This paper argues that the way
out of current crisis of promoting sustainable agriculture is to shift our perception
from a technocratic approach to a social negotiation process that reflects the social
circumstances and the power conditions in a specific region at a specific time
(Blaschke et al. 2004). If one accepts the argument that the concept of sustainability
is a “social construct” (Webster 1999) and is yet to be made operational (Webster
1997; Rasul and Thapa 2003), then sociology has a great deal to offer toward
achieving agricultural sustainability. Understanding what agriculture and sustain-
able agriculture are, is a prerequisite to understand the sociology of sustainable
agriculture.
2 Sociology of Sustainable Agriculture 21
2.2 Definition of Agriculture
The first point to clarify is: “What is agriculture?,” of course, there is general
agreement about the sorts of things, people, plants, and animals that can be called
agricultural, but this is not good enough if we are seriously interested in topics
such as the role of science in agriculture, the role and importance of agriculture
in the world, and how agricultural efficiency can be improved (Speeding 1988).
Not many attempts have been made to be more precise and it is quite difficult to
arrive at a definition that is both useful and specific. One of the useful definitions
is phrased by Speeding (1988, 1996) as follows: “agriculture is an activity of
Man, carried out primarily to produce food, fiber and fuel, as well as many other
materials by the deliberate and controlled use of mainly terrestrial plants and
animals.”
The terms “agriculture” and “ agricultural system” are used widely to encom-
pass various aspects of the production of plant and animal material of food, fiber,
and other uses. For analysts with a narrow vision, these terms are limited to the
cultivation of soil and growth of plants. But for others, the terms also include
financing, processing, marketing, and distribution of agricultural products; farm
production supply and service industries; and related economic, sociological,
political, environmental, and cultural characteristics of the food and fiber system
(CAESS 1988). Since agriculture involves economics, technology, politics, sociol-
ogy, international relations and trade, and environmental problems, in addition to
biology it can be concluded that agriculture is social as much as agronomic and
ecological. Taking a broad interpretation, agriculture is a system of processes that
take place within a threefold environmental framework, biophysical environment,
socio-political environment, and economic and technological environment.
Together, these three sets of factors set the broad constraints within which indi-
viduals, groups, and governments engage in production, distribution, and con-
sumption components of agriculture. These three sets of constraints for agriculture
also provide a means of assessing conditions for sustainable agriculture (Yunlong
and Smith 1994).
Agricultural sciences can no longer ignore the human intentionality and social
dynamics that are the roots of our predicament. Although the natural sciences,
and especially the earth and life sciences, remain of vital importance, not least to
monitor and analyze the dynamics of “nature” so as to inform normative frame-
works for sustained land use (De Groot 1992), social sciences must play their role
among the agricultural sciences to analyze human activity as emergent from
intentionality and greed, economic systems, human learning, and agreement
(Roling 1997). We acknowledge that agricultural systems are human systems, so
that “what is sustainable” will also be value laden. Agricultural systems are dis-
tinctive in those changes in values and attitudes of farmers, managers, and other
stakeholders, and externally imposed risk, e.g., climate interaction (Karami and
Mansoorabadi 2008).
2.3 The Human Dimension of Agricultural Sustainability
The human element is not one third of sustainability; it is central to its implementation
(Pearson 2003). The challenge of sustainability is neither wholly technical nor rational.
It is one of the change in attitude and behavior. Sustainability therefore must include the
social discourse where the fundamental issues are explored collaboratively within the
groups or community concerned. We do not do that very well, partly because of increas-
ing populations, complexity, distractions, and mobility, but more because of certain
characteristics of the dominant paradigm that are seen as desirable (Fricker 2001).
Social constructionists and philosophers have shown that we can never truly
“know” nature, as our understandings of nature are shaped by the social and
cultural lenses through which we see the world. This is not to argue that “there is
no real nature out there,” but instead that our knowledge of nature will always be,
at least partly, social (see Cronon1996; Escobar 1996). In opening nature to public
attention specialists have relinquished their authority over the constitution and
meanings of nature and allowed nature to be contested by a much wider variety of
stakeholders (McGregor 2004). After all, the construct of a sustainable future may
look very different to cultures and individuals with a tradition of a “be all you can
be” philosophy as compared with those who ascribe to a “live and let live” philosophy
(Goggin and Waggoner 2005). Environmental imaginaries are highly contested and
can be thought of as the ways in which a society collectively constructs, interprets,
and communicates nature (McGregor 2004).
It is clear that rural sustainability is being undermined by agriculture, particularly
as agriculture is the dominant user of rural land. However, in discussing sustainable
agriculture, the ecological dimension has tended to be privileged while the social
dimension has been neglected. The current economic and ecological crisis for
agriculture has, therefore, opened up the space for a discussion of what sustainable
agriculture might be, and how it might be operationalized. Social sustainability in
much of rural areas is still to be sought through productivity agriculture. Thus, there
continues to be a trade-off between ecological priority areas and the productivity
pressures of the agricultural treadmill (Ogaji 2005).
Many research works underlined the importance of social and institutional
factors for facilitating and achieving sustainable agriculture. Pretty (1995) had
considered that local institutions’ support and groups dynamics are one of the three
conditions for sustainable agriculture. Roling (1994) has used the concept of
platforms to emphasize the role of collective decision-making process in the
ecosystems sustainability. Sustainable agriculture must be socially constructed on
the basis of different perspectives and through stakeholders’ interaction. As Roling
and Jiggins (1998) observed, “ecologically sound agriculture requires change not
only at the farm household, but also at the level of the institutions in which it is
embedded” (Gafsi et al. 2006).
It is culture, which ultimately reproduces the heterogeneous pattern of farming
and the meaning and shape of locality. There is a tendency to assume that as long
as the proposed systems benefit the environment and are profitable, sustainability
will be achieved and the whole of society will be benefited. However, what is
produced, how, and for whom, are important questions that must also be considered
if a socially sustainable agriculture is to emerge (Ogaji 2005).
Ikerd et al. (1998) explained that most farmers have not integrated the economic,
ecological, and social aspects of sustainability into a holistic concept of sustainable
agriculture. For den Biggelaar and Suvedi (2000), farmers may have a lack of infor-
mation and awareness about sustainable agriculture and its multiple-dimensions
(Gafsi et al. 2006).
The social dimension of sustainability addresses the continued satisfaction of
basic human needs, food, and shelter, as well as higher-level social and cultural
necessities such as security, equity, freedom, education, employment, and recreation
(Altieri 1992). The provision of adequate and secure agricultural products (especially
food), supplied on a continual basis to meet demands, is a major objective for sustain-
able agriculture (Altieri 1989). In the case of developing countries, more imperative
demands are often basic household or community needs in the short term in order
to avoid hunger. This is known as food sufficiency or carrying capacity problem.
In developed countries, meeting demands more often means providing both a sufficient
quantity and variety of food to satisfy current consumer demands and preferences,
and to assure a safe and secure supply of food (Yunlong and Smith 1994).
The social definition of sustainability commonly includes the notion of equity,
including intragenerational and intergenerational equity (Brklacich et al. 1991).
The former refers to the affair and equitable distribution of benefits from resource
use and agricultural activity among and between countries, regions, or social groups
(Altieri 1989). The latter refers to the protection of the rights and opportunities of
future generations to derive benefits from resources which are in use today (Crosson
1986). Agricultural production systems, which contribute to environmental deterio-
ration are not considered to be sustainable as they pass on to future generations
increases in production costs, together with reductions in income or food security.
The two types of equity are sometimes related. For example, many subsistence
farmers are forced to employ farming practices that provide immediate rewards, but
also degrade the environment and thereby impair future generations’ opportunities
for sustainability (Yunlong and Smith 1994).
2.4 Achieving Sustainable Agriculture: Role of Sociology
Sociologists and other social scientists have played a significant role in the emer-
gence, institutionalization, and design of sustainable agriculture. Sociologists and
other social scientists have done particularly significant research on the adoption of
resource-conserving practices. They have also made major contributions through
their research into identifying user needs and implementation strategies relating to
sustainable agriculture technology (Buttel 1993). For many scholars, sustainable
agriculture lies at the heart of a new social contract between agriculture and society
(Gafsi et al. 2006).
This paper argues that sociology and the other social sciences play an equally
important and constructive role in understanding and achieving agricultural sustain-
ability. Buttel (1993) suggests that this kind of application of sociology may be
referred to as the sociology of agricultural sustainability. The major contribution of
the environment-development debate is the realization that in addition to or in con-
junction with these ecological conditions, there are social conditions that influence
the ecological sustainability or unsustainability of the people–nature interaction
(Lele 1991). Sometimes, however, sustainability is used with fundamentally social
connotations. For instance, Barbier (1987) defines social sustainability as “the abil-
ity to maintain desired social values, traditions, institutions, cultures, or other social
characteristics.” This usage is not very common, and it needs to be carefully distin-
guished from the more common context in which social scientists talk about sus-
tainability, viz., and the social aspects of ecological sustainability.
Sustainability as a social vision is, on the one hand, not only potentially accept-
able, but does, in fact, meet with correspondingly broad approval across all societal
groups and political positions, nationally and internationally. On the other hand, sus-
tainability’s conflict potential cannot be overlooked. As soon as relatively concrete
goals or even strategies of societal action for attaining sustainability are put on the
agenda – at the latest – it becomes obvious that the usual antagonistic societal values
and interests are lurking behind the programmatic consensus (Grunwald 2004).
Despite the diversity in conceptualizing sustainable agriculture, there is a consensus
on three basic features of sustainable agriculture: (i) maintenance of environmental
quality, (ii) stable plant and animal productivity, and (iii) social acceptability.
Consistent with this, Yunlong and Smith (1994) have also suggested that agricultural
sustainability should be assessed from ecological soundness, social acceptability,
and economic viability perspectives. “Ecological soundness” refers to the preservation
and improvement of the natural environment, “economic viability” to maintenance of
yields and productivity of crops and livestock, and “social acceptability” to self-reliance,
equality, and improved quality of life (Rasul and Thapa 2003). Sociology of
sustainable agriculture deals with the following issues:
Paradigms used to interpret sustainability
Sociological models developed to explain attitudes and behaviors toward
sustainability
Adoption of sustainable agriculture practices
Gender and sustainable agriculture
Social impact assessment and sustainable agriculture
These issues will be briefly dealt with in the following sections.
2.4.1 Sustainable Agricultural Paradigms
There are many different schools of thought about how to interpret sustainability
(Colby 1989). Sustainable development incorporates the idea of transformations of
relationships among people and between people and nature. Batie, however, believes
that considerable tension exists between those schools of sustainable development

thought that draw their strength from the ecological science paradigm and those
from an economic science paradigm (Batie 1991). In her view the assumptions of
the two main paradigms have the following differences. First, economic and ecological
paradigms differ in their assumption as to relative scarcity. Economics incorporates
a belief in almost unlimited possibility of substitution of human-made capital for
natural resource capital, while ecologists tend to incorporate the idea of absolute
scarcity and hence real limits to economic growth as a key assumption in their
respective paradigms. The second major difference between the two paradigms
stems from their perspectives of the economic and natural system (Karami 1995).
Another major school of thought can be termed “eco-protection” and is preser-
vationist in nature, that is, it has an objective, the maintenance of the resource base,
and it draws heavily from the ecological sciences (Batie 1991). In contrast to
the economics of the driving paradigm of “resource management” that works with the
world and its values as they are found, the eco-protectionists strive to change the world
to be what they desire. Thus, within this perspective there is heavy emphasis
on changing people’s values, limiting population growth, and on redistribution of
society’s income and wealth. While the resource managers’ goal may be to lift the
poor closer to the rich through the adoption of nonpolluting, efficiency-enhancing
technology, the eco-protectionist is more likely to advocate pulling the rich toward
the poor through land tenure reform, redistribution of income, and adoption of
appropriate small-scale technology (Batie 1991; Karami 1995).
Across all literatures, two broad paradigms of sustainability are identifiable: one
supporting a systems-level reconstruction of agricultural practice to enhance
biological activity, and the other adopting a technological fix, in which new tech-
nologies inserted into existing systems can improve sustainability outcomes
(Fairweather and Campbell 2003).
Rezaei-Moghaddam et al. (2006) analyzed Ecological Modernization theory and
the De-Modernization theory to provide a conceptual framework for sustainable agri-
cultural development. They argue that Ecological Modernization and De-Modernization
theories could be used to develop conceptual frameworks for sustainable agricultural
development. The two approaches reviewed provided very different explanations of
environmental change and they point in very different directions. The conceptual path
based on De-Modernization theory has great concern for environmental protection
and less attention to increased production. Agricultural development theory based on
Ecological Modernization breaks with the idea that environmental needs are in con-
flict with agricultural production. It argues instead that agricultural productivity and
growth and resolution of ecological problems can, in principle, be reconciled. Thus,
it assumes that the way out of the negative environmental consequences of agriculture
is only by going into the process of further modernizing agriculture. Evans et al.
(2002) state that observed trends in agriculture could be viewed as part of a move
toward Ecological Modernization and many of the trends with regard to food quality
and safety and environmental management fit well into the Ecological Modernization.
Contrary to conventional agriculture, an Ecological Modernization agricultural devel-
opment theory emphasizes on introducing ecological criteria into the production and
consumption process. It assigns an important role to science in the production
process. Clean technology or what is known as “precision agriculture” is the

key to achieve sustainable agricultural development. In contradiction with the
De-Modernization agricultural development perspective, sustainable agricultural
development under the Ecological Modernization perspective does not mean having
less agricultural growth and production.
Rezaei-Moghaddam et al. (2006) emphasize that there is a growing consensus
over the need for a shift in paradigm if sustainable agriculture is to be realized.
A paradigm shift in agriculture is a change from one way of thinking about agriculture
to another. It is a revolution, a transformation, and a sort of metamorphosis in the
soft side of agriculture, which eventually will result in changes and the transforma-
tion of hard side of agriculture. Ecologically sound agriculture is a complex system,
not only in terms of complex interactions among soils, crops, animals, and farming
practices (hard system), but also in terms of human knowledge and learning,
institutions, and policies (soft system).
2.4.2 Attitudes, Behaviors, and Sustainable Agriculture
Attitudes are defined as a disposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to an

object, person, institution, or event. An attitude is (a) directed toward an object,
person, institution, or event; (b) has evaluative, positive or negative, elements; (c)
is based on cognitive sustainable agricultural attitudes and behaviors beliefs toward
the attitude object (i.e., the balancing between positive and negative attributes of an
object leads to an attitude); and (d) has consequences for behavior when confronted
with the attitude object (Bergevoet et al. 2004; Karami and Mansoorabadi 2008).
Attitude is a predisposition to act in a certain way. It is the state of readiness that
influences a person to act in a given manner (Rahman et al. 1999). Therefore, attitude
surveys in agriculture could lead to a more adequate explanation and prediction of
farmers’ economic behavior and have been used on conservation and environmen-
tally related issues focusing on the influence of attitude variables as predictors of
conservation behavior (Dimara and Skuras 1999). Dimara and Skuras (1999)
concluded from their research that a significant relationship was found between
behavior and the goals and intentions of farmers. This relationship is even stronger
when statements on attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control are
included (Bergevoet et al. 2004)
Calls for the study of farmers’ behavior and what motivates that behavior are not
new (Gasson 1973). However, the number of studies that have considered farmers’
attitudes toward conservation (MacDonald 1984) is small. Fewer still have studied
farmers’ conservation actions. Potter (1986) points out that a very limited number
have tried to link farmers’ actions to their underlying motivations, notwithstanding
the discourses on the conservation issues in the countryside (Beedell and Rehman
2000). Almost all studies related to the motivational elements of behavior have
stressed that the decision to act in a certain way is affected by a “balancing” or weigh-
ing of a number of influences. Lemon and Park (1993) concluded that farmers, when
trying to achieve “good practice” on their farms, balance environmental, physical, and
commercial factors in their decisions about their farming system. Clark (1989)
suggested that farmers’ decisions about whether to take advice about conservation
were affected by three distinct dimensions: the policy environment facing farmers, the
advisory structures in place, and the personality of the farmer.
Discussions of the value to be attributed to the preservation of a natural system
invoke two distinct sources of value: extrinsic and intrinsic values. Extrinsic value
arises from the fact that the environment increases the satisfaction or utility of
humans. In this utilitarian philosophy, nature has value insofar as it is useful or
agreeable to humans. The intrinsic value of a natural system exists irrespective of
its usefulness or amenity to humans. This view explicitly grants rights to exist to
nonhuman species or to the environment as a whole. The intrinsic value approach
may thus require decision makers to make decisions knowingly counter to their
own present on future interests (Pannell and Schilizzi 1999).
Potter (1986) finds any change in the countryside to be, “both ‘determined’ by
policy, institutional, and family influences and ‘intentioned’ by the farmer acting as a
problem-solving individual.” This study differs from most previous studies of farm-
ers’ conservation behavior as it does not explicitly consider farmers’ investment in
conservation (Potter 1986); instead, it is concerned with how and why farmers man-
age the existing features on their farms (hedges, field margins, woods, and trees). This
difference is crucial as there is considerable evidence (Potter 1986; Pieda 1993) to
suggest that most farmers have a “creative” rather than “preservative” view of conser-
vation. Most of the previous research shows that advice on tree planting, pond cre-
ation, and woodlands is most commonly sought, and that leaving seminatural areas
undisturbed is not seen as conservation (Beedell and Rehman 2000). Newby et al.
(1977) found that farm size alone could not explain farmers’ attitudes toward conser-
vation as larger farmers were both more hostile (agri-businessmen) and more sympa-
thetic (gentleman farmers) to conservation than farmers in general. This finding has
led further investigations on the topic to consider both a farmer’s interest in conserva-
tion and his financial constraints as factors that determine his attitude to conservation
(Gasson and Potter 1988). In studying voluntary land diversion schemes, Gasson and
Potter (1988) found that the financially least constrained and most conservation ori-
entated farmers were the most receptive to the schemes, asked for below average
compensation for the land diverted and offered the most acres.
The way farming is presently practiced across the world and the impact of agri-
culture on wetlands is determined, to a great extent, by the levels of environmental
awareness, knowledge and attitudes of farmers, and stockbreeders (Oakley 1991).
A stronger “utilitarian” attitude to the natural environment has been found among
farmers owing vulnerable ecosystems compared to other population groups (Wilson
1992; Pyrovetsi and Daoutopoulos 1999). Gigerenzer (1996) pointed out that social
context of behavior, such as values and motivations, play an important role in the
rationality in peoples’ decisions. Thus attitudes have causal predominance over
behaviors (Heong et al. 2002).
There is consistent evidence in the literature indicating a relationship between
farmers’ attitudes toward environment and their farming practices (Fairweather and
Religious and
Quality of life
spritual values
Access to Personal Attitudes of

information characteristics reference group
Farmers Attitudes Female

toward Sustainable
Male
Agriculture
Feasibility of
Behavioral
sustainable agricultural Access to resources
practices Control
Household
Sustainable Agricultural
Behaviors
Fig. 2.1 Theoretical framework of factors influencing farmers’ sustainable agricultural attitudes
and behaviors (From Karami and Mansoorabadi 2008). According to this theoretical framework,
farmers’ action is guided by two kinds of considerations: attitude toward sustainable agriculture
and presence of factors that may further or hinder performance of the behavior
Campbell 2003; Rezaei-Moghaddam et al. 2005; Karami and Mansoorabadi 2008).

Karami and Mansoorabadi (2008) developed a theoretical framework to explain the
relationship between sustainable agricultural attitudes and behaviors. A schematic
representation of the theoretical framework of this study is shown in Fig. 2.1.
Briefly, according to this theoretical framework, farmers’ action is guided by two
kinds of considerations:
Attitude toward sustainable agriculture: Religious and spiritual values, quality
of life, access to information, personal characteristics, and attitudes of reference
group are the factors, which influence farmers’ belief system and contribute toward
formation of sustainable agricultural beliefs. The framework assumes that religious
and spiritual beliefs contribute to farmers’ attitudes toward sustainability, or
more specifically that spirituality can be a resource in maintaining environment.

Furthermore, a correlation between farmers’ quality of life and attitudes toward
sustainable agriculture is assumed. Farmers who enjoy a better quality of life are
expected to possess more positive attitudes toward sustainable agriculture. One
feature of this framework is that access to information and type of information
received is a fundamental contributor toward attitude formation. Knowledge and
information bring confidence, skills, ability, and experience. If farmers believe that
it is easy for them to perform, then they are likely to engage in the behavior.
Personal characteristics such as farming experience and education are strong deter-
minants of attitudes. Finally, farmers beliefs about the normative expectations of
significant others (attitudes of reference group) is a major determinant of attitudes.
The view that women are closer to nature because of their nurturing and caring role,
leads the model toward assuming that women, due to gender-based division of
labor, and their role in attending to the everyday needs of the household, posses an
intimate knowledge of the environment. Therefore, even under similar conditions
women may develop different attitudes than men regarding sustainable agriculture.
Control factors: These are beliefs about the presence of factors that may further
or hinder performance of the behavior (access to resources and feasibility of sus-
tainable agricultural practices). The framework assumes that behaviors are not
within a farmer’s control. In their respective aggregates, determinants of attitudes
result in perceived social pressure or subjective norms; and control factors give rise
to perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior. In combination, attitude
toward the behavior, subjective norm, and perception of behavioral control lead to
the practice of a sustainable agricultural behavior. As a general rule, the more favor-
able the attitude and subjective norm, and given a sufficient degree of actual control
over the behavior, farmers are expected to carry out sustainable agricultural behaviors
when the opportunity arises. However, because many behaviors pose difficulties of
execution that may limit volitional control, it is useful to consider control factors.
To the extent that people are realistic in their judgments of a behavior’s difficulty, a
measure of perceived behavioral control can serve as a proxy for actual control and
can contribute to the prediction of the behavior in question. Farmers, who believe
that they have neither the resources nor the opportunity to perform sustainable
agricultural practices, are unlikely to form strong behavioral intentions to engage in
it even if they hold favorable attitudes and believe that important others would
approve of their performing the behavior. We would thus expect an association
between perceived behavioral control and actual behavior that is not mediated by
attitude and subjective norm. Economic factors, access to resources, and feasibility of
sustainable agricultural practices significantly affect sustainable agricultural behaviors.
2.4.3 Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices
While many more farmers now seem to have a better awareness of the negative
environmental and social consequences of conventional and social consequences on
conventional agricultural systems, this has not translated into a major shift toward
the adoption of sustainable practices (Alonge and Martine 1995).
As farmers increasingly confront declining per capita return arisen from minia-
turizing land holdings caused by steadily growing population, they are required to
make additional efforts to increase agricultural production. They will thus adopt an
agricultural system only when it is both economically and environmentally suitable
(Rasul and Thapa 2003).
The adoption of sustainable agriculture strategies/technologies has received
frequent attention in recent years, both by producers and consumers. Despite
economic and noneconomic disadvantages of conventional agriculture, farmers have
been slow to adopt these practices, and adoption appears to vary widely by region
and crops (Musser et al. 1986).
Attempts to explain the low adoption rate have been many and varied (Alonge
and Martine 1995). Lovejoy and Napier (1986), for instance, blamed the little success
achieved by past efforts to encourage farmers’ adoption of sustainable agricultural
innovations on what they termed the American penchant for attempting a techno-
logical fix for every problem. They contended that past efforts have concentrated
on telling farmers of the negative environmental impact of their production systems
in the hope of engendering attitudinal change and as a consequence the adoption of
Best Management Practices. They pointed to the futility of such an approach,
observing that findings of past research showed that farmers continued to use prac-
tices that degraded the environment even when they: (1) were aware of the negative
environmental impact of their agricultural practices; (2) believed they had a social
responsibility to protect the environment; and (3) had favorable attitudes toward
soil and water conservation (Alonge and Martine 1995).
Much of the research effort in adoption of sustainable agriculture has been
fragmented, with little coordination and integration. Several issues have not been
adequately treated in previous studies. While research on sustainable agriculture
systems has produced information on several alternative practices, little substantive
research has investigated the structure of belief and motivation that drive farmers’
decisions about sustainable agriculture systems adoption (Comer et al. 1999).
Such findings have raised questions about the relevance of the traditional diffus-
ing model for explaining the adoption of conservation technologies. Critics argued
that while the study of the adoption and diffusion of technologies under the rubric
of the classical adoption–diffusion model have contributed immensely to the under-
standing of the adoption process as they relate to commercial farm technologies and
practices, the model may not provide full explanation of the adoption process when
applied to sustainable agricultural practices (Alonge and Martine 1995).
Hence, the need for new perspectives has been called for in the study of the
adoption and diffusion of sustainable agriculture, with focus on access to, and quality
of information (Lovejoy and Napier 1986), the perception of innovations, and the
institutional and economic factors related to adoption (Alonge and Martine 1995).
Some studies have concluded that it is likely that the successful adoption of conser-
vation practices would be influenced more by a farmers’ attitude and perception,
than any other factor (Alonge and Martine 1995).
According to classical technology adoption theory, technology adoption in agri-

culture is related to demographic characteristics of farmers, and occurs initially
among young, well-educated farmers who operate relatively large farms, and own
rather than rent land. However, innovations that are primarily focused on environ-
mental benefits (“environmental innovations,” e.g., integrated pest management) are
fundamentally different from traditional technologies, in that they may be complex
groupings of practices, which are not necessarily applicable to all farms, and they
may offer more benefit to society as a whole than they do to adopters. The demo-
graphic and attitudinal characteristics important in the adoption of environmental
innovations may be different than those for traditional technologies. Some studies
have found demographic and attitudinal differences between farmers practicing
conventional versus reduced-input agriculture. Others have found that farmers inter-
ested in reducing pesticide use are demographically and attitudinally similar to
mainstream farmers. Farmer support for reduced-input practices has also been
reported to be related more to attitudinal than demographic factors. The potential
impact of a given pesticide use reduction strategy will be greater if the strategy
appeals to farmers with average or typical demographics and attitudes. The adoption
of pesticide use reduction strategies can be facilitated through targeted extension if
the target group of farmers and farms can be characterized (Nazarko et al. 2003).
A basic assumption of farming systems research is that farmers are intentionally
rational in the way they manage their farming operations, including their choice of
technology. That is, they choose farming technologies in order to further their
goals, subjected to the constraints imposed by resource availability (land, labor, and
capital) and environmental conditions (biophysical and socioeconomic) (Cramb
2005). For small farmers who are struggling for food security, current needs are
more important than future needs. Even profit-seeking large farmers will not
venture into ecological agriculture unless it provides sufficient income (Rasul and
Thapa 2003).
Economic considerations are often very important in the adoption of conserva-
tion or reduced-input practices. Noneconomic factors can also be important in
farmers’ decisions to reduce agrichemical use. Also, concern about environmental
pollution is consistently positively correlated with farmer’s willingness to adopt
pesticide use reduction practices; however, economic factors often take precedence
over such concerns. Farmers’ perceptions of the economic outcome of reduced
pesticide use are critical to its adoption (Nazarko et al. 2003).
Kinnucan et al. (1990) observed that there is a relationship between age and
farmers’ adoption behavior. While younger, less experienced farmers are expected
to be more environmentally aware and more likely to adopt sustainable practices,
there is no consensus regarding the relationship between farmers’ age and environ-
mental concern.
It would therefore be expected that farmers with higher levels of education
would be more likely to implement pesticide use reduction. Despite, most compari-
sons between conventional and organic farmers do not show significant differences
in level of formal education (Nazarko et al. 2003). There is conflicting evidence
over the role of land ownership in the adoption of sustainable farming practices.
Tenancy (rather than ownership) has been found to be negatively related to the
adoption of sustainable practices. However, economic pressures may override
incentives for conservation associated with land ownership. Membership in differ-
ent types of farm organizations may be representative of, or may influence, farmers’
perceptions of acceptable farming practices and knowledge of sustainable practices
(Nazarko et al. 2003)
The sustainability debate has taught that economic, social, and environmental
problems and, more importantly, their solutions are as much cultural as technological
and institutional. Cultural diversity, therefore, offers humanity a variety of ways of
developmental interaction and avoids the difficulties associated with any monocul-
ture, namely, loss of material for new paths of economic, social, and environmental
evolution, and a danger that resistance to unforeseen problems is lowered (Jenkins
2000). In addition to culture, study of the linkage between environment poverty and
sustainable agriculture to provide a more realistic picture of the situation has been of
great interest to researchers (Karami and Rezaei-Moghaddam 1998; Karami 2001;
Karami and Hayati 2005; Rezaei-Moghaddam and Karami 2006).
2.4.4 Gender and Sustainable Agriculture
Women’s survival and that of their household and communities depend on access to
and control of natural resources, such as land, water, forest, and vegetation. They
perform the majority of the world’s agricultural work, producing food for their
families, as well as other goods that are sold in national and international markets.
Women are traditionally the prime participants in the agricultural systems. In agricul-
tural production, the relationship of workers to the production process is different
from other types of capital production because it largely flows with the rhythm of
biological processes (Meares 1997). Family-based farming adds another element to
the relationship of workers to production; that is, boundaries are significantly blurred
between the household and the enterprise. Thus, “the unit of production – the agricul-
tural enterprise – is coterminous with the unit of reproduction – the farms household.”
Such muddy waters make understanding women’s and men’s work on the farm
complex and these difficulties may render women’s work “invisible” (Meares 1997).
Women have learned to manage these resources in order to preserve them for
future generations (Atmis et al. 2007). Although, the impact of attitude and behavior
of rural men on sustainability of agriculture is often acknowledged, the importance
of women’s attitude in shaping agriculture is ignored (Karami and Mansoorabadi
2008). Because women’s different and important contributions to the farm and
family are not institutionally recognized and addressed by the sustainable agriculture
movement, the movement’s goals, vision, and activities are gender-specific, dominated
by men’s participation and contributions (Meares 1997; Karami and Mansoorabadi
2008). Government and institutional policies often fail to recognize the importance
of women’s access to natural resources. While research has shown that agricultural
productivity increases significantly when female farmers have access to land and
technology, women own less than 2% of all land. Women’s access to and control of
resources is far from guaranteed (Pearl 2003). Women suffer most from environ-
mental disasters and reduced availability of forest products. It is the women and
children who collect fuel wood, animal fodder, decayed leaves, and other forest
products. Furthermore, they are held responsible for tending sheep, goats, and other
domestic animals owned by their families (Boo and Wiersum 2002; CFAN 2005).
Some of the issues that have been addressed by sociologists with regard to
women’s impact on sustainable agriculture include the following:
• The social construct of gender makes a difference in how farmers perceive
quality of life. This social construction, in turn, affects participation in the
sustainable agriculture movement. Traditional gender roles assign different
responsibilities to women and men. This has resulted in political, cultural, and
economic barriers that restrict women’s access to natural resources. For example,
women are frequently excluded from decision making. Community leaders may
not invite women to meetings related to resource use, or expect only the men to
present their concerns. Lower levels of literacy and education among women
may further restrict their participation (Atmis et al. 2007).
• At the root of these gendered differences in quality of life is the fact that life
goals and daily experiences for male farmers within the family have changed
significantly as their involvement in the movement has intensified. Much of
what men emphasize in describing quality of life reflects the values the sustain-
able agriculture movement itself espouses: self-empowerment, social justice,
balance in economic gain and environmental health, creativity, and autonomy in
decision making and problem solving (Meares 1997).
• In many developing countries agriculture is vital for sustainable rural development
and recognized as a main means for reducing poverty and ensuring economic
growth. In this sense, reducing poverty in rural areas depends significantly on
sustainable agricultural development. However, agricultural development should
be considered not only in increasing production, but also in developing rural
society that includes women (Akpinar et al. 2004). Women seldom have direct
access to, or control of, privately held resources, therefore, they are more likely
than men to be attuned to common resources and their condition (Chiappe and
Butler 1998). Even when women do have legal ownership of land, they are less
likely than male owners to make land-use decisions. Women’s responsibilities in
the domestic sphere give them a different perspective on sustainability. Some
authors (Chiappe and Butler 1998) argue that women’s limited access to and
control over resources – financial, manufactured, human, social, and environmental
– often limits their ability to put their values into practice. Women’s concern for
quality of family is a key part of sustainability. Chiappe and Butler (1998) suggest
that not only do the women think that farming in a sustainable manner can
improve the health of their families and environment, but also claim that sustain-
able practices decrease labor time and increase free time to spend in other more
valued activities, such as vacationing with the family. Improving the health of
the family often involves using safer farming practices, in particular applying
fewer or no chemicals (Karami and Mansoorabadi 2008).
• The view that women are closer to nature because of their nurturing and caring
role (biological determinism) is another basis for assuming sustainability role
for women. On the basis of empirical evidence (Mishra 1994) it would be more
precise to say that women are closer to nature because of the gender-based division
of labor, and their role in attending to the everyday needs of the household.
Women are the primary natural resources managers, and they posses an intimate
knowledge of the environment (Karami and Mansoorabadi 2008). Others argue
about women’s spirituality and how it mediated and required their honoring of
nature. Sustainability will require reconnect with the spiritual roots of humanity
(Ikerd 2001). Often, women sensed a strong connection between alternative
agriculture and their families’ spiritual values and beliefs. Spirituality and
religion are viewed as “women’s work” in many cultures, despite men’s formal
religious leadership. Women’s understanding of harmony with nature empha-
sized spiritual elements. The transcendence of spirituality is embodied in their
active choice to work with nature rather than overcoming it. In some cases, these
values and beliefs were deeply rooted in their religious backgrounds (Karami
and Mansoorabadi 2008).
• Generally, past studies concluded that young women with high levels of income
and education and with liberal political views are the most likely to consider
environmental protection a priority (Brody et al. 2004). Most research finds slight
evidence that women are more environmentally concerned or possess stronger
environmental attitudes than men; however, gender does not appear to be as
significant a predictor of environmental concerns or attitudes as other sociodemo-
graphic variables (Brody et al. 2004; Karami and Mansoorabadi 2008).
• It is clear that farm women are not a homogenous group. Their position and role
in family farming depends on how they participate in the productive process and
is contingent on power relations in the household, on personal aspirations,
and on other individual characteristics. It is nevertheless useful to observe
the element of typological homogeneity amid the heterogeneity of groups
characterizing the female farm population. Such observation may help clarify the
differences at the level of roles and relationships, the better to interpret notable
variations in women’s behavior and predict future tendencies (Kazakopoulos
and Gidarakou 2003).
2.4.5 Social Impact Assessment and Sustainable Agriculture
Social impact assessment can be defined as the process of assessing or estimating

the social consequences that are likely to follow from specific policy actions or
project development, particularly in the context of appropriate national, state,
or provincial environmental policy legislation (Vanclay 2003; Burdge 2004).
It includes all social and cultural consequences to human populations of any public
or private actions that alter the ways in which people live, work, play, relate to one
another, organize to meet their needs, and generally cope as members of society
(Momtaz 2005). Cultural impacts involve changes to norms, values, and beliefs of
individuals that guide and rationalize their cognition of themselves and their society
(Burdge and Vanclay 1995). Some have tried hard to define social impact assess-
ment as a process. For example Vanclay (2002) believes that social impact assessment
is the process of analyzing (predicting, evaluating, and reflecting) and managing
the intended and unintended consequences on the human environment of planned
interventions (policies, programs, plans, and projects) and any social change pro-
cess invoked by those interventions so as to bring about a more sustainable and
equitable biophysical and human environment.
Social impact assessment, is an overarching framework that encompasses all
human impacts including aesthetic (landscape, development, economic and fiscal,
gender, health, indigenous rights, infrastructure, institutional), political (human
rights, governance, democratization, etc.), poverty-related, psychological, and
resource issues (access and ownership of resources) (Vanclay 2002). The value of
social impact assessment in social development, policy making and planning, public
involvement, conflict management, and sustainable development has been acknowl-
edged (Barrow 2000).
In line with the triple bottom-line approach from sustainable development
(Vanclay 2004), the social impact assessment is of particular importance in consid-
ering the social sustainability of agriculture. There is no doubt that the social impact
assessment is as important, in some cases even more important than the assessments
of biophysical and economic dimensions of sustainable agriculture (Pisani and
Sandham 2006). There have been many agricultural development projects in devel-
oping countries focusing on rural area in arid and semiarid lands in the past 3 decades.
These have faced numerous social challenges such as a growing sense of rural
households’ dissatisfaction, negative attitudes, and conflicts with the project and as
a result unsustainability (Ahmadvand and Karami 2009).
The three main goals of sustainable agriculture are economic efficiency, envi-
ronmental quality, and social responsibility (Fairweather and Campbell 2003).
Certainly, social sustainability is a core dimension of sustainable agriculture. Social
impact assessment is necessary to provide information on social sustainability of
agricultural development. It makes agricultural sector more inclusive by involving
key stakeholders. It makes agricultural projects more socially sound by minimizing
or mitigating adverse social impacts, maximizing social benefits, and ensuring that
the projects are in line with sustainable development (Becker 2001). It has consid-
erable potential to give social criteria their rightful place alongside economic and
environmental criteria in sustainable agriculture. Social impact assessment is
important in sustainable agriculture development, because it helps planners, agri-
cultural development project proponents, and the impacted population and decision
makers to understand and be able to anticipate the possible social consequences on
human populations and communities of proposed agricultural development activi-
ties or policy changes. Social impact assessment should provide a realistic appraisal
of possible social ramifications and suggestions for project alternatives and possible
mitigation measures (Burdge 2004). For sustainable agriculture development,
perhaps more than any other application, social impact assessment must integrate
with physical impact assessment (e.g., Environmental Impact Assessment), economic

appraisal, and other impact assessments (Barrow 2000). The need for such integra-
tion with other impact assessments arises because agriculture is being sustainable
only if complex of factors are right; if just one is inadequate, production falters and
may well fail.
2.5 Conclusion
Agricultural sustainability can no longer ignore the human dimension and social
dynamics that are the core elements of agricultural development. Although the
agricultural and ecological sciences are of vital importance, social sciences must
play their role to analyze the human dimension, which is central to understanding
and achieving agricultural sustainability. Sustainable agriculture is a philosophy
based on human goal and an understanding of the long-term impact of our activities
on the environment and other species. Sociology of sustainable agriculture has
contributed to our understanding of sustainability by the following:
• Offering different schools of thought (paradigms) about how to interpret and
achieve sustainability. There is a need for a shift in paradigm if sustainable agri-
culture is to be realized. A paradigm shift in agriculture is a change from one
way of thinking about agriculture to another. Sustainable agriculture is a complex
system, which requires changes in the hard system as well as soft system.
• Exploring the relationship between farmers’ attitudes and their sustainable farming
practices. In this regard sociologists have provided theoretical framework and
empirical models to explain the relationship between sustainable agricultural
attitudes and behaviors. These frameworks are used to guide policy makers,
development agents, and researchers on how to design and implement sustain-
able agriculture.
• Investigating the potential of diffusion and other alternative adoption models in
explaining and predicting sustainable farming practices. Although, studies have
found that cultural, economics, demographic, and attitudinal variables are impor-
tant in explaining farmers’ sustainable behaviors, the findings in this regards are
not conclusive and further investigations are needed to develop more robust
models with greater validity.
• Raising awareness regarding women’s role in sustainable agriculture. The neglect
of women’s role is due in part to the assumption of separation of family and
work. While in family farms the workplace and the family are often indistin-
guishable. Women concern for quality of family is a key part of sustainability.
It is clear that farm women are not a homogenous group. Their position and role
in sustainability is determined by their level of participation in the production
process. There is a general agreement that women’s actions from local to the
global policy-making arenas are a driving force for sustainability of agriculture.
Sociologists have explored how women advance sustainable agriculture and
made the role of women visible. It can be concluded that there is support for the
thesis that women play an essential role in advancing sustainable agriculture.
• Informing practitioners, researchers, and decision makers regarding the value of
social impact assessment in achieving agricultural sustainability. Social impact
assessment suggests what social changes are likely and what measures may be
needed to establish supportive social institutions crucial for promoting and sus-
taining sustainable agriculture.
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Chapter 3
Sustainable Versus Organic Agriculture
Juying Wu and Vito Sardo
Abstract Awareness and concern for problems related to environmental quality are
growing at a steady pace: climate change, biodiversity, soil fertility decay and above
all food quality and pollution are everyday subjects for debates and discussions. The
complexity of the problems and the uncertainty about many basic data quite often
make discussions inconclusive; even indications issued by scientific authorities are
sometimes misleading, and the problems are exacerbated by the frequent influence of
ideological positions. In an endeavour to contribute to clarify agriculture-related
environmental issues, a review is made here of the principles of sustainable agricul-
ture and of the ways to deal with them. The need is emphasized for a system approach
which is able to reconcile economic-productive, environmental and social aspects,
the three ‘pillars’ of sustainability, permitting to consider simultaneously the numer-
ous factors concurring to determine the most appropriate production strategy, and the
necessary flexibility in selecting and combining such factors is also outlined. A criti-
cal overview is made of the possible options for improving the sustainability of the
four principal groups of agricultural operations: cultivation, fertilization, irrigation
and pest control. For each of them, the sustainability level of various possible courses
of action is estimated as resulting from their expected impact on the three ‘pillars’ of
sustainability and indications are given to avoid risks deriving to agricultural sustain-
ability from misconceptions of non-scientific approaches, including some typical of
organic farming. For cultivation, the adoption of some form of conservation tillage is
suggested and the various possible options are critically examined. The conclusions
for fertilization are that generally the best solution is a blending of organic and min-
eral fertilizers and that food quality is not influenced by the origin of the fertilizer.
Criteria for optimizing irrigation system design and management are illustrated, with
reference to energy input, soil protection against erosion and salinity build-up, and reduc-
tion in production risks. For pest control, integrated pest management approaches
J. Wu
Beijing Research Center for Grass and Environment
V. Sardo (*)
Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Catania, via Santa Sofia 100,
95123, Catania, Italy
42 J. Wu and V. Sardo
including proactive activities and the parallel reduction to the possible extent of syn-
thetic pesticide applications result in the most sustainable solution. Emphasis is given
to those aspects of sustainability, such as soil and water conservation, energy savings,
CO2 balance, which are often overlooked, yet are an important component of sustain-
ability. It is argued that an effective, long-term sustainability of agriculture must pri-
marily gain farmers acceptance and therefore selected solutions must guarantee profit
levels and productivity while not increasing risks. It is concluded that since the con-
cept of sustainability is fundamentally dynamic, site- and time-specific, proposed
solutions are expected to be flexible, custom-tailored for the single farms and open to
technological and scientific progress, avoiding any pre-concocted paradigm and dog-
matism; as a consequence, it is evidenced that some rigid principles typical of organic
farming are not compatible with sustainable agriculture.
Keywords Cultivation • Fertilization • Indicators • Integrated pest management •

Irrigation • Land conservation • Organic farming • Pest control • Sustainable agriculture
Abbreviations
ATTRA National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, USA

CTIC Conservation Technology Information Centre, USA
DRC Desert Research Center, Egypt
EISA European Initiative for Sustainable Development in Agriculture
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
EIQ Environmental Impact Quotient
GJ GigaJoule
IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
IPM Integrated Pest Management
IRRI International Rice Research Institute
LD50 Lethal Dose 50% (dose killing 50% of tested population)
MJ MegaJoule
SARE Sustainable Agriculture Research and Development, USDA
SAREP Sustainable Agriculture Research and Development Program, USDA
USDA United States Department of Agriculture
WHO World Health Organization
3.1 Introduction
3.1.1 The Problem
In spite of some optimistic or not-so-pessimistic views (e.g. Penning de Vries et al.

1995; Avery 1999; Lomborg 2001), little doubt exists that conventional, high-input
agriculture is on the whole unsustainable and that steps must be taken to curb the
3 Sustainable Versus Organic Agriculture 43
environmental decay. Although food quality is sufficiently protected, at least in

theory, through the existing laws, and indeed no evidence is found in the scientific
literature supporting or rejecting a worse quality or taste of conventional food as
compared to the ‘organic’ food, yet the damage to the ‘natural capital’, not to men-
tion the social aspects very much stressed by Ikerd (1996, 2001a, b, 2008), is cer-
tainly high.
It has been reported that in the UK the ‘external costs’ of agriculture in 1996
amounted to a staggering 89% of the average net farm income (Pretty et al. 2000),
that annual damage by pesticides and fertilizers to water quality is suspected to range
in the billions of dollars (Doran et al. 1996) and that annual off-site damages from
soil erosion by water in the USA are over US$7 billion (Pimentel et al. 1993).
Many alternative, more or less fanciful approaches have been suggested to
conventional agriculture, all aiming to reduce the input of non-renewable resources
and all claiming to permit the achievement of sustainable agriculture, such as
integrated farming, ecological farming, permaculture, organic farming, alternative
agriculture, biodynamic farming and many others. Of all the above groups, only
organic farming can boast an established set of officially coded rules and stan-
dards, with minor differences among different countries (European Commission
2000, 2007; FAO/WHO 2001; Australia, Haas 2006; USDA 2007), and enjoys
substantial funding; nevertheless, many sound principles deserving full consider-
ation, sometimes more rational than those of organic farming, are suggested by
other systems, which can be usefully adopted in the quest for enhanced, more
sustainable agro-ecosystems. Conversely some principles of organic farming are
potentially hindering the progress towards sustainability, hence the need to objec-
tively evaluate all the possible combinations of cultural practices and then select
the optimized strategy for every single farm.
Integrated farming, for instance, developed by the EISA, a group of six
European organizations, is based on a set of sound, sensible rules judiciously
adopting some principles of organic farming, integrating them when they are
insufficiently restrictive, e.g. when the need to save energy or protecting the soil
is not sufficiently considered, and relaxing them when unreasonably restrictive,
e.g. when they totally ban synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. EISA released a
Common Codex for Integrated Farming which considers aspects of food pro-
duction, economic viability, producer and consumer safety, social responsibility
and conservation of the environment in a well-balanced manner (EISA 2000).
Later, it also released a European Integrated Farming Framework (EISA 2006)
which gives guidelines to progress beyond the National Codes of Good
Agricultural Practices.
The intention here is not to debate whether intensive, high-input farming
systems perform better or worse than alternative systems – it is out of discussion
that they must be actually improved; the point is rather to search procedures for
finding out the best combination of seriously based principles and strategies to
‘sustain sustainable agriculture’. It is important in fact to work out really sound
strategies able to gain a widespread and durable acceptance by farmers and opera-
tors, and therefore secure their long-term application, since really convinced farm-
ers can eventually become ‘the guardians of sustainability’.
44 J. Wu and V. Sardo
Strategies for determining sustainability in agriculture were analyzed, among

others, by Noell (2002), who compared four different approaches, ‘conventional
agriculture’, ‘integrated farming’, ‘ecological farming’ and ‘biodynamic farming’,
concluding that [n]either the optimistic basic assumptions of neoclassical economics
with regard to the unlimited substitutability of natural capital nor the pessimistic
assumptions of the ecological theory on the conservation of natural capital for
future human generations (inter-generational fairness) can be scientifically proved.
The “mixing ratio” of both positions in the agricultural production models and in
their sustainability strategies is therefore an expression of very reasonable subjective
risk attitudes in this respect.
Ekins et al. (2003) report and comment that the four kinds of sustainability proposed
by Turner (1993), ranging from ‘very weak’ to ‘very strong’, suggest that the more
reasonable are the intermediate categories, ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustainability. Their
position is balanced, refusing the two extreme positions of totally neglecting natural
capital and absurdly protecting it beyond any reason: the problem is to find a trade-off
within the two intermediate categories.
3.1.2 The Required System Approach
We are presently going through a critical phase of conversion in agriculture requiring

solutions for reconciling widely differing dimensions, namely, agricultural produc-
tivity, farm economic sustainability, environmental protection and social aspects.
The need to consider many dimensions simultaneously in a holistic approach
was acknowledged at least as early as 1984 (Douglass 1984) and later universally
accepted (e.g. Sands and Podmore 2000; Cornelissen et al. 2001; Sulser et al. 2001;
Noell 2002) since, as Smith et al. (2000) put it, agricultural practices that are eco-
logically sustainable may not be profitable, thereby being economically unsustain-
able. Measuring crop productivity or animal production alone also is not a
sufficient indicator of agroecosystem status because practices that achieve high
yields may not be ecologically or socioeconomically sustainable.
In a SAREP (1997) statement, [a] system perspective is essential to understand-
ing sustainability. The system is envisioned in its broadest sense, from the individual
farm, to the local ecosystem, and to communities affected by this farming system
both locally and globally. … A system approach gives us the tools to explore the
interconnections between farming and other aspects of our environment.
Such a need for integrated approaches in agronomic research (integrated in
space and time, as opposed to the traditional approach, directed to the exploration
of single segments in single moments, such as dose–effect relations in plant nutri-
tion, irrigation or pest protection) led to adopt system methods, indispensable to
support the required dynamic and holistic approach: [T]he systems approach
can be described as the systematic and quantitative analysis of agricultural
systems, and the synthesis of comprehensive, functional concepts of them. The system
approach uses many specific techniques, such as simulation modeling, expert systems,
3 Sustainable Versus Organic Agriculture 45
data bases, linear programming and geographic information systems (GIS) (Kropff
et al. 2001).
The four points listed by FAO in the Framework for the Evaluation of
Sustainable Land Management (FESLM) (Smyth and Dumanski 1993) to assess
sustainability in land management are: (1) production should be maintained; (2)
risks should not increase; (3) quality of soil and water should be maintained and
(4) systems should be economically feasible and socially acceptable. They are
reasonable and generally accepted, with the only caveat that in view of the fore-
cast of increase in world population from 6 to 10 billions, by 2050 production
should not only be maintained (point 1) but increased accordingly, while of
course eliminating to the possible extent any areas of undernourishment.
Commenting them, Tisdell wrote: It appears to be important from an ecological
and economic point of view not to have preconceived ideas about the most appro-
priate agricultural system to achieve sustainability. However it would seem that
if FESLM is adopted, it would often be a system requiring external inputs but not
necessarily at a high level (Tisdell 1996).
3.1.3 The Need for Indicators
Since the problem of objectively and effectively assessing agro-ecosystems quality

has been impending on scientists for decades, quite a number of indicators have
been suggested: indicators are tools for aggregating and simplifying information
of a diverse nature into a useful and more advantageous form (Sands and Podmore
2000).
Janet Riley, in the preface to a special issue of Agriculture, Ecosystems and
Environment on indicator quality, highlights the lack of consistency in definitions
and the non-comparability of scale, concluding that the international challenge
then is to identify common indicators having consistent definitions across sectors,
themes and countries. … More social and political indicators need to be created
and tested so that the transfer across different domains or cultures can be validated
(Riley 2001a), and elsewhere she judiciously adds: There is little problem with finding
an indicator; the problem is to find an appropriate one (Riley 2001b).
Doran comments that the use of simple indicators of soil quality and health
which have meaning to farmers and other land managers will likely be the most
fruitful means of linking science with practice in assessing the sustainability of
management practices (Doran 2002). Prato (2007) suggests the use of fuzzy logic
for assessing and ranking ecosystem sustainability and management, also highlighting
its possible shortcomings, and his approach addressing protected area ecosystems
can be also used, within limits, to obtain indicators for agricultural systems.
Since indicators for energy balance have been less explored than the others,
some consideration will be devoted to them: Spedding et al. (1981) stated that the
single most important aspect of agricultural efficiency in the future is likely to be
that of energy use.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Death of a
mutant
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Death of a mutant
Author: Charles V. De Vet
Illustrator: Ed Emshwiller
Release date: April 19, 2024 [eBook #73431]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Headline Publications, Inc, 1956
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH OF A

MUTANT ***
DEATH OF A MUTANT
By CHARLES V. De VET
illustrated by EMSH
He was born with strange and wonderful powers. But the

world was not yet ready to accept the benefit of those
powers.—The world kills what it does not understand!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Super-Science Fiction February 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The boy stood on the low hill with his head tipped back and his
throat exposed to the early morning chill. He was dressed in faded
trousers—from which most of the tan coloring had long since been
washed away—and a coarse blue-denim work shirt.
The wind swept his blond hair back in loose flat waves, and with soft
insistence tugged at his slack-limbed body. He spread his legs wide,
and breathed the morning air deep into his lungs. When he expelled
the breath his shoulders relaxed, and his arms dropped to his sides,
without strength.
Slowly, with an effort of will, he brought his attention back to his
surroundings. Below him a dog began an excited barking. The
barking changed abruptly to a yelp, and stopped.
The boy straightened and drew back a step. Down below a figure
darted suddenly from a low patch of brush and ran to another,
kicking up splashes of red sand. To his right a man's voice sounded a
sharp cry of warning.
The boy shivered. Somewhere below him a bird repeated,
monotonously, a brief ripple of song.
After a few minutes a block-chested man stepped into view. His
shoulders were hunched in a black leather jacket. He looked
apprehensively up at the boy. When nothing happened, he called,
"I'm coming up. Keep your hands in plain sight." He started up the
hill, measuring his steps purposefully. Once he paused and pulled at
his broad-brimmed hat, then came on resolutely.
There was a day's growth of whiskers on the man's chin and jowls,
and despite the cold a shiny film of perspiration glistened on his
cheeks. He drew a pistol from a chest holster as he approached.
Two paces away, the man halted. "I'm Sheriff Derwin," he said in a
stilted, unnormal voice. "I'm placing you under arrest. Do not resist.
We have you surrounded."
The boy made no reply, but continued to watch the man, blinking
several times, as though considering what had been said. After a
minute he spread his hands wide in a weary motion of acquiescence.
"Good." Derwin gestured. Three men left their places in the brush
and began to move cautiously up the hill.
"I'll have to search him," Derwin said over his shoulder. His voice
was too loud in the morning air. "Keep him covered. Remember, he's
a killer." He holstered his own gun and moved unwillingly closer to
the boy. "Raise your hands." The boy did as he was told; Derwin
patted him quickly about the chest and hips.
The examination was only barely adequate. "When we take him in,"
Derwin said, "careful not to get too near him. He can kill you, just
with his hands. Stay out of reach."
Derwin put his prisoner in one of the three cells in White Bear Lake's
jail. The boy offered no resistance. He stood with his head resting
wearily against one of the steel bars and watched without apparent
interest as his cell door was locked. But when Derwin made as
though to leave, he straightened and his features livened. His
expression became one not quite of pleading, and not quite a
question; but rather of hopeful expectation—as though he had some
deep need which he expected Derwin to recognize.
The sheriff stood for a minute, meeting the boy's intent gaze, then
shrugged and went on toward his office. He limped a little. An old
knee cap injury had been aggravated by his chase of the boy, and
now it was swollen and stiff.
The boy was lying on the floor of his cell asleep when the sheriff
came back with a platter of food. Derwin unlocked the door quietly,
brought the food in and set it on a table in one corner of the cell. As
quietly, he let himself out again. Standing in the corridor, with the
locked door again between them, he called, "Wake up!"
The boy's body did not move, but his eyes opened wide. With their
instant awareness they were like the eyes of a big cat in a zoo, but
without the cat's easy hatred. "Your dinner's on the table," Derwin
said.
The boy rose swiftly to his feet and looked around him. He saw the
food, went over and began eating. He used his hands, eating the
meat first, in great wolfing bites. When the meat was gone he ate
the potatoes. He tasted the moist cabbage salad, but did not eat it.
Derwin watched him for the few minutes it took. "I guess they never
taught you to use a knife and fork," he murmured, half to himself.
The boy came to the cell door and grasped the bars in his big hands.
He looked at Derwin, and his expression was the same expectant
one that had been so disturbing earlier.
The sheriff had stepped back, out of reach, as the boy approached.
"Did you want something?" he asked.
The boy made no reply.
"Can you understand what I say?" Derwin asked.
After a brief, puzzled pause the boy nodded.
"You can?" Derwin asked doubtfully. "I know you mutants had some
way of communicating with each other, without speaking, but I
thought the profs at the University decided you couldn't understand
us." He seemed to make a sudden decision. "I'll be right back," he
said.
Derwin returned to his office and picked up his desk chair, carried it
to the corridor opposite the boy's cell and sat down. "If you do
understand what I say, maybe we can have some kind of confab.
Can you speak?"
The boy made no reply.
"No, I guess you can't," Derwin said. "Or they'd have found out
about it before this." He considered a moment. "How about us
setting up some kind of code," he suggested. "I'll ask questions, and
you nod if I'm right, and shake your head if I'm wrong?"
The boy made no answer except for his continued expectant gaze.
Derwin shrugged. "O.K. If you can't, you can't. The profs had a
theory that you couldn't understand what they said, but that you got
some of the meaning of the words from the sound and the
inflections."
Still there was no response.
"Maybe you can read my mind?" Derwin waited a moment. "You're a

strange one, whatever the answers might be. When you eight
mutants were found in the lost islands area of the Lake of the
Woods the doctor who had brought you there—evidently when you
were very young—had been dead for years. He had been a famous
genetics specialist, and had probably cared for you from birth. The
profs even believe he must have influenced your development before
birth. Anyway, there was no doubt that you were all geniuses of a
high order. But there was a screw loose somewhere. When you were
brought to the University of Minnesota you soon turned into a pack
of murderers.
"And you were brilliant enough to get by with it for months before
the authorities learned what you were doing. The other seven were
killed, either fighting or trying to get away. You're the last one left
now. Wouldn't you like to make your peace—before it's too late for
you, too?"
There was no suggestion of truculence or stubbornness in the boy's
lack of response. It was as though Derwin's statements had not
merited answers, or that the answers had been too obvious to need
saying.
Derwin leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his
stomach. "All right," he said. "If you aren't interested in that, let's
get back to your immediate problem. You know what you were
arrested for?" He did not wait for an answer. "You're accused of
killing at least thirty people," he said. "And they have plenty of proof
—enough to hang you. I'd say your only defense would be that you
didn't know what you were doing."
Derwin made an impatient motion to rise. "Oh, there's no use going
on," he said. "Either you can't understand me, or you know all this
already."
Abruptly the boy was nodding his head: nodding it vigorously.
Derwin remained sitting. "Why are you doing that?" he asked.
The boy blinked his eyes, pressing the lids tightly together, and
opened them again.
"What's that mean? Do you want help of some kind?" Derwin
paused. "I'd like to do what I can, but if you don't tell me, or show
me—how can I help you? If you have any way of communicating,
use it now, or we'll never get anywhere."
The boy's forehead creased with lines of effort. His mouth opened—
but no sound came out.
Derwin ran his fingers along the stubble of his jaw line. "I suppose if
the profs and psychiatrists at the U couldn't find a way to talk with
you, I can't. I understand when they couldn't learn how you mutants
read minds—or even if you did—they tried to teach you to speak,
and to live like human beings. You couldn't, or wouldn't, learn either.
You wouldn't work, and nothing seemed to interest you. Until toward
the end you turned surly, and scratched and even bit people who
annoyed you." Derwin paused again. "Have I touched on what's
troubling you yet?"
The boy moistened his lips and nodded, his face eager.
With a puzzled shake of his head Derwin tried again. "All right. The
first person your group killed, I've read, might have been the doctor
who raised you. Though personally I don't believe that. But there's
no doubt that you did kill others."
Derwin frowned. A smile had come to the boy's face as he listened—
as though he were recalling something pleasant.
The sheriff cocked his head to one side and shifted his position. He
spoke with less enthusiasm now. "After the others were killed, they
lost all trace of you until the day you visited Anchor Hospital in St.
Paul. The attendants there didn't recognize you, and assumed you
were just another visitor. But when you left, twenty-seven patients
were dead!"
A small shiver ran through the muscles of Derwin's back. The smile
had returned to the boy's pink cheeks: a smile almost of delight.
Derwin leaned forward, making no effort to hide his annoyance as
he spoke. "You'll hang for those killings!" he said. "We still don't
know how you do it, but the other patients in some of those wards
saw you put your hands on the people who died, and saw them go
limp. They didn't realize at the time that you had killed them."
The smile on the boy's face was as tranquil as the smile of a cherub.
A flow of angry blood crept into Derwin's face. "Just in case they
can't pin any of those murders on you," he said, "we sure as hell can
convict you of the three here in White Bear Lake." Derwin pulled
himself to his feet. "I'll do my best to see that you hang for them,"
he said deliberately. His voice was low and flat. He limped away,
dragging his chair at his side.
The boy's expression of urgent request changed to one of reproach
when he realized that Derwin was leaving; disappointment showed
bleakly on his face. It was as though he had expected something
more from Derwin.
The next morning Derwin drove in the last car in a funeral
procession and waited at the fringe of the crowd as the coffin was
lowered into the ground. The deceased had been the last victim of
the boy killer.
The mourners filed out quickly after the services, and Derwin found
no opportunity, that would not have involved an awkward intrusion,
to talk with any of them. However, as he walked slowly back to his
car, a young man of about twenty-five drove up in an old automobile
and parked at the edge of the grave. He got out from behind the
wheel of the vehicle and went around to the back. From the trunk
he removed a shovel and carried it to the grave. He nodded to the
sheriff and began pushing dirt from the edge into the hole.
Derwin strolled over and stood across the open grave from the
shoveler. Neither spoke until the young man stopped to wipe his
forehead. "You're the sheriff, aren't you?" he asked Derwin.
Derwin nodded.
"I understand you think that the wild boy killed Carl?" The young
man inclined his head toward the grave.
"Was Carl his first name?" Derwin answered noncommittally.
"Yes. Carl van Sistine. He was a good friend of mine. When we were
kids we used to play here, right in this graveyard. We hunted rabbits
with sling shots. I don't remember that we ever killed any. We were
always going to make a fire and roast the rabbits we shot, but as I
said, we never got any."
Derwin waited.
"The wild boy didn't kill him."
"What makes you think not?" Derwin asked. "No one saw him do it,
but two witnesses did see him run out of the house, and they found
Carl dead right after."
"I know that." The young man rolled his shirt sleeves up over hairy
forearms. "But did you know that Carl had something wrong with his
head—a tumor or something? He'd had it ever since he was a little
boy. Sometimes we'd be playing and all at once he'd stop dead still.
If there was a chair, or anything that moved around, he'd grab it and
holler for me to hold onto the other end. I'd hold it and he'd pull,
until he couldn't hang on anymore. Then he'd fall over backwards.
He'd lay there with his eyes rolled back until all I could see were the
whites. His face would be pale, and screwed-up looking, and sweat
would come out all over his body. His clothes would be wet with it.
All the time he'd be groaning and crying."
The young man took off his striped workman's cap and ran his
fingers through wavy brown hair. "The last few years he couldn't
leave the house. I used to visit him at first, but at last he didn't even
recognize me. And when his attacks came on he'd holler with pain,
and finally I couldn't stand to hear him anymore. That's what he
died from—the tumor in his head—and not the wild boy killing him."
"The doctors said it shouldn't have killed him—yet," Derwin
demurred.
"I know. But the doctors were wrong." The young man began
shoveling dirt into the hole again.
The sun was directly overhead when Derwin climbed out of his car,
pushing his game leg stiffly ahead of him. He went up the flight of
steps at the front of a large, white house and pressed the button
beside the door. He rang three times without an answer.
On the way back down the steps he heard the sound of iron on iron
coming from the back of the house. He walked around and found an
old man with stooped shoulders throwing horseshoes at a peg set in
the ground.
"Good afternoon," Derwin said.
The old man paused in his throwing and nodded in reply.
"I'd like to talk to you again about your sister's death," Derwin said.
"I presume you heard that we caught her killer?"
The old man sighted a shoe carefully and threw at a farther peg.
"Will you tell me again just what happened?" Derwin asked.
"I was sitting with her when he came in." The old man had a red
face and neck, with a border of white just above the collar line. "He
hadn't knocked. At least I didn't hear him. Just all at once he was
standing by the bed, smiling. I was going to say something, but he
looked at my sister, then at me, and he seemed so young, and kind
of fresh-looking, that I just smiled back. Then he sat on the bed
alongside Louise, and put his hand on her chest, and she closed her
eyes, and her moaning stopped—for the first time in almost a week.
I didn't know until after he'd gone that she was dead."
"How did it happen you didn't report her death to my office? We only
learned about it from the doctor."
The old man's attention seemed absorbed by something on the roof
of a neighboring house. He stood for several minutes, then slowly
looked down at his hand in mild surprise. He had been gripping, and
twisting an iron shoe in his hand so hard that a corner had cut a
ragged gash in the meaty forepart of his thumb. Blood flowed from
the cut down the end of the shoe and dripped sluggishly to the
ground.
Irritably the old man tossed the shoe aside and took a handkerchief
from a rear pocket of his trousers and wrapped it around the injured
thumb. "I was glad she died," he said half-defiantly.
Derwin's eyebrows raised questioningly.
"That may sound heartless." The old man's voice was mild now. "But
it isn't. My sister had cancer—had it bad. She was dying from it. And
she was suffering horribly. Even drugs gave her no relief toward the
last. During her periods of consciousness she begged the doctor to
give her something so she could die, but he wouldn't. I asked him to
put her out of her misery, too. But he wouldn't listen to me either.
"Mr. Derwin...." The old man brought his face closer to Derwin's.
"Every human being should have the right to die. When the time
comes that medicine can't help them any more, and they have
nothing to look forward to, except suffering, they should be allowed
to die if they want to." Abruptly he turned his back and walked into
the house.
Dusk was edging into darkness when Derwin reached the home of
the boy's third victim. The family lived in an upper duplex
apartment. A large wreath hung on the apartment door. The woman
who answered his knock was middle-aged, with dark hair and dark
eyes, and quick, nervous hands. "Come in," she invited listlessly, as
she recognized the sheriff.
Derwin followed her to a chair in the front room and sat down. "Can
you give me any details of your husband's death that you might not
have remembered when I was here before?" he asked.
"You've got to see that that maniac pays for his killings," the woman
spoke rapidly, excitedly, ignoring the sheriff's question. "If you don't,
I'll...." Her voice broke and she began to cry. After a few minutes
she wiped her eyes with a square of tissue which she took from her
apron pocket. "I'm all right now," she said. "What do you want to
know?"
"Anything you remember. You might tell me first what time of day it
happened."
"About the same time in the evening as now," the woman answered.
"We had already finished eating. George was lying here on the
davenport and I...."
"Pardon me a minute," Derwin interrupted. "How ill was your
husband?"
"He was too sick to work, though he could still get around a little. He
had silicosis of the lungs, you know."
Derwin nodded. "Go on, please."
The woman needed no urging. Apparently she enjoyed talking.
"Where was I? Oh, yes. I heard something scratching at the door—it
sounded like a cat—and I went to see what it was. The boy was
standing there, smiling. I didn't know who he was then. He looked
so young, and so sweet-like, that I didn't ask what he wanted; I just
let him come in.
"When George saw him I thought, at first, that he knew him,
because he sat up straight and spoke to the boy. He said something
like, 'So you've come?' He looked glad, as though he was happy.
Then he changed and looked scared. But he didn't say anything
more, and neither did the boy. Finally he sort of relaxed, and sighed,
and let himself ease back on the davenport. He asked me to make a
pot of coffee, and I left and went into the kitchen."
The woman stopped and blew her nose. "That's all, except that the
boy was gone when I came back—and George was dead."
Derwin looked down at the hat on his lap and searched for a way to
express what he wanted to say. At last he looked up. "Some people
believe the mutants killed only people who were very sick—people
who had no chance to live anyway, and probably wanted to die
quickly?" His voice rose doubtfully as he finished.
"That's not true." There was no expression in the woman's flat voice.
"I read where they killed some that weren't sick at all. And how
would they know how sick the others were? Or if they wanted to
die?"
"How about your husband?"
"George did suffer quite a bit. But I'm certain he never wanted to
die."
"Was there any chance that he might have recovered from his
particular illness?"
"The doctors said not, but what right did that boy have to play God
and kill him? And how do any of us know that there won't be a new
treatment or a new drug discovered, maybe next week or next
month, that could have saved George? What justification can you
have for a cold-blooded murderer like that?"
Derwin looked down again at his hat and shifted his feet
uncomfortably.
The woman said, "George had a pension that supported us. But it
stopped when he died. How am I going to live now? Who's going to
support my children—or take care of them while I work?" There was
still no emotion in the woman's voice, but tears which she
disregarded ran down her cheeks.
Derwin stood up. "I don't know," he said. "I was just wondering if
what seems wrong to us might not seem right to him," he
apologized.
The next morning Derwin stopped in at a store on Mahtomedi

Avenue and bought a pair of trousers, a shirt, a set of underwear,
and a pair of socks. Two doors down he stopped in at another store
and bought a pair of shoes.
He drove to the jail and shoved the clothing through the bars to the
boy. "Here's something better for you to wear," he said and walked
on to his office.
The boy carried his bundle to the rear of the cell and began
changing. He was buttoning his shirt when he glanced through the
small barred window in the wall and saw Derwin crossing the street
toward a corner lunch room. A flush of excitement appeared on his
cheeks and he finished dressing hurriedly.
Moving to the front of the cell he spread out his right hand and
flexed the fingers several times. His face assumed an expression of
deep abstraction.
A faint haze began to waver along the edges of the hand, and its
flesh appeared to move in small ripples. The boy pressed the hand
against the door lock—and it passed through the metal. The lock
gave a muted metallic click. The door swung open.
The boy's hand returned to its normal appearance as he withdrew it,

but it hung limp and pale. He massaged it vigorously as he stepped
out into the jail corridor. He was careful not to let himself be seen
when he left the jail.
An hour later he had left White Bear Lake.
When Derwin returned to the jail and found the boy gone he was
not much surprised. He walked slowly to his office and picked up the
phone. "Let me speak to the sheriff," he said.... "Gibbons?" ... "This
is Derwin, out at White Bear Lake." ... "Fine." ... "The wild boy
escaped about an hour ago. He's sprung his cell lock someway." ...
"No, I don't know which way he went, but I figured he might head
back to St. Paul." ... "O. K." ... "I wish you'd do me a favor. Ask your
men—and the police—not to shoot him. I'm sure he won't resist
when you arrest him." ... "I know." ... "I know." He sighed. "That's
right. You have to do what you think best." He hung up.
The boy went directly from the jail to the railroad tracks, nearly a
mile past the depot. He hid in the weeds along the track until a slow
freight passed, then climbed into the open door of a boxcar.
The string of freight cars was cut out of the train in the St. Paul
yards. The boy stayed inside his car until several hours after dark,
when he left his hiding place and went along the Mississippi, past
Carlson's Landing, and up to the post office. There he stopped and
seemed to be deciding what he should do next.
A half block away a policeman was checking the tires of parked cars.
The boy saw him and began walking rapidly in the opposite
direction. He hesitated at the street corner, then walked boldly out
into the lighted area of the intersection. He had nearly reached the
opposite sidewalk when he heard a shout behind him. He began to
run. A police whistle sounded shrilly.
When the boy entered the park he appeared to wander casually,
with his interest centered on no particular person or place, but his
steps took him down a diagonal walk that led to the young mother
and the carriage. The child of about six inside the carriage had a
large head that wobbled spasmodically above its thin frame.
The boy walked past the mother without attracting her attention,
and bent toward the child.
A terrified scream at his side jerked him erect.
"The beast!" The woman screamed with all the power in her lungs.
She sprang at the boy, still screaming, and dug clawed fingers into
his cheeks. "Get away from him, you beast! You horrible beast!"
Fear blossomed up into the boy's face at the woman's scream. He
pushed her aside and glared wildly about him.
The nearest exit from the park was just ahead. Swiftly he put his
head down and scurried through the exit. Once in the street he
increased his speed and ran for six blocks, past the auditorium, and
across Seven Corners, until the breath whistled in his throat. As he
staggered to a stop a police siren sounded behind him.
The boy forced his tired legs to move again and sprinted down an
alley that opened to his left. Halfway through the alley he heard the
screech of tires behind him—and the police siren was at his back. He
came to a low fence bordering the alley, between an apartment
building and an older, private, home. Without pausing he rested a
hand on the fence railing and vaulted over.
Beneath him as he hung suspended he saw a child's large sand box.
His right foot, with his weight behind it, landed on the handle of a
toy wagon, and his ankle twisted painfully under him. He sprawled
forward, ripping the skin of his forearm on the side of the sand box
as he fell.
As quickly as he was able he pulled himself to his feet and limped
across the yard, past the small house, and out into the street. The
police siren still sounded behind him, and now another started up in
the block ahead.
He turned to the right and ran with all the speed he could command.
A block ahead loomed the Mississippi. With his last remaining
strength he stumbled toward it.
A police car arrived just as he dived into the murky water.
Two policemen scrambled from the car and ran toward the river
bank. Sergeant Robert Kirk pulled his pistol from its holster as the
boy's head reappeared above the water.
"Halt!" he shouted. "Halt or I'll shoot!"
The boy never paused.
Kirk brought the gun up and sighted along the barrel. The boy's
head came in line with the small v of the sight. "For the last time,
halt!"
The boy's head turned up. His wet blond hair shone in the sunlight.
Kirk squeezed the trigger.
Simultaneously with the report, the boy's hair sprang upward in
startled protest; his arms gave one reflective jerk, and his face
turned toward the sky.
Slowly, slowly, the white features sank beneath the water.
THE END
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Science and Technology of Organic Farming 2nd Edition

Profitable Organic Farming Second Edition Jon Newton

Ecology of Climate Change The Importance of Biotic

Climate Change Science and Policy 1st Edition Stephen

Cities and Climate Change Oecd

Advancing the Science of Climate Change 1st Edition

JADAM Organic Farming The Way to Ultra Low Cost

The science and politics of global climate change a

For further volumes:

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ISBN 978-90-481-3332-1 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3333-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009941465

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

1 Society Issues, Painkiller Solutions, Dependence

2 Sociology of Sustainable Agriculture....................................................... 19

3 Sustainable Versus Organic Agriculture.................................................. 41

4 Organic Agriculture and Food Production: Ecological,

5 Sustainability of Energy Crop Cultivation in Central Europe.............. 109

6 Phosphorus, Plant Biodiversity and Climate Change............................ 147

7 Co-evolution and Migration of Bean and Rhizobia in Europe.............. 171

8 Non-isotopic and 13C Isotopic Approaches to Calculate

9 Soil Solarization and Sustainable Agriculture........................................ 217

10 Soil Functions and Diversity in Organic

11 Indigenous Soil Knowledge for Sustainable Agriculture...................... 303

12 Composting to Recycle Biowaste............................................................ 319

13 Nematodes as Biocontrol Agents............................................................. 347

14 Allelopathy and Organic Farming.......................................................... 379

15 Occurrence and Physiology of Zearalenone

16 Homestead Agroforestry: a Potential Resource in Bangladesh........... 437

Keywords Agriculture • Climate change • Financial crisis • National security •

1.1 Financial Crisis, Climate Change and the Painkiller

Society is actually experiencing an unexpected financial crisis that will undoubtedly

1.2 Enhancing Politician and Scientist Collaboration

1.3 Rethinking Society Dependence

Table 1.1 (continued)

Table 1.1 (continued)

Table 1.1 (continued)

Table 1.1 (continued)

Table 1.1 (continued)

Table 1.1 (continued)

Al-Najar H, Schulz R, Römheld V (2005) Phytoremediation of thallium contaminated soils by

E, Navarrete M, Debaeke P, Souchere V, Alberola C (eds) Sustainable agriculture. Springer,

Doumbia M, Jarju A, Sène M, Traoré K, Yost R, Kablan R, Brannan K, Berthe A, Yamoah C,

Alberola C (eds) Sustainable agriculture. Springer, pp 355–376. DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-

Ezatollah Karami and Marzieh Keshavarz

Abstract Sustainability is the core element of government policies, university

Keywords Sociology • Sustainable agriculture • Climate change • Attitude •

E. Karami (*) and M. Keshavarz

2.3 The Human Dimension of Agricultural Sustainability

2.4 Achieving Sustainable Agriculture: Role of Sociology

2.4.1 Sustainable Agricultural Paradigms

that considerable tension exists between those schools of sustainable development

process. Clean technology or what is known as “precision agriculture” is the

2.4.2 Attitudes, Behaviors, and Sustainable Agriculture

1.1 Financial Crisis, Climate Change and the Painkiller

1.2 Enhancing Politician and Scientist Collaboration

1.3 Rethinking Society Dependence

2.3 The Human Dimension of Agricultural Sustainability

2.4 Achieving Sustainable Agriculture: Role of Sociology

2.4.1 Sustainable Agricultural Paradigms

2.4.2 Attitudes, Behaviors, and Sustainable Agriculture

2.4.3 Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices

2.4.4 Gender and Sustainable Agriculture

2.4.5 Social Impact Assessment and Sustainable Agriculture

3.1.2 The Required System Approach

3.1.3 The Need for Indicators