Can Economic Sustalnability be Ecologically Sustainable?
Since ecologists fear the infeasibility of extending the current high levels of per capita energy use in developed countries to developing countries on grounds of global sustainability, the controversial question about the so-called "alternative agriculture" is now worth exploring. Alternative agriculture is a phrase often used to describe low input and presumably high output agriculture involving the whole farm (or the farming systems) approach compared to the denigrated conventional high input/high output commodity based agriculture. The prestigious National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences published a report in 1989 on alternative agriculture suggesting that widespread adoption of proven alternative systems would result "in even greater" economic benefits to farmers. A former member of the CGIAR's equally prestigious Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has, however, called it a highly controversial report because "it is based on little more than anecdotal evidence involving whole farm experiences" (York). The NRC Report acknowledges that "the data bases and economic research on the profitability of alternative systems are minimal. The Committee's case studies and reviews of available data illustrate that the sample is too small and unrepresentative to justify conclusions about the precise economic effects of widespread adoption of specific practices or systems." A reputable natural resource research organization, Resources for the Future, has argued that the NRC report "gives an inaccurate and too optimistic view of both the environmental and economic benefits of alternative agriculture" (as quoted in York). The Potash and Phosphate Institute severely criticized the report arguing that "it was biased, misleading, filled with contradictions and generally unscientific" (York). There are others who concur with these criticisms. Moreover, a recent report by two reputed agricultural economists on the research of the 16