The term 'sustainable intensification
' (SI) has entered academic and policy discourse in recent years, including in debates about what to do about agriculture in
Zimbabwe.
I have been intrigued for some while to find out what it actually
means. Is this yet another contradictory hyphenation of two words for
political ends, or does it have some substance? Who is driving this
debate, and what does it mean for
Africa?
A
flurry of publications have been produced in the past year or two that
use the term, and they provide a good route to finding out a bit more. A
high profile
article in Science
from 2013 offered a definition of SI: "to increase food production from
existing farmland in ways that place far less pressure on the
environment and that do not undermine our capacity to continue producing
food in the future". The major
Montpellier Panel
report offer a similar one, defining SI as "producing more outputs with
more efficient use of all inputs on a durable basis, while reducing
environmental damage and building resilience, natural capital and the
flow of environmental services". Other similar formulations appear in a
recent
Royal Society collection of papers.
No one could disagree with these it seems. Is SI then just what we used
to call sustainable agriculture, or is there something more to it?
To
answer this, we have to probe a bit further and ask what analytical
frameworks underpin the concept and its definition, and what policy
narratives flow from it? The Science article, and
the Oxford Martin School report which preceded it,
situate the challenge in terms of the familiar argument about resource
scarcity – of land, water, and resources – in relation to a growing
population of 9 billion needing to be fed. This justifies a 'crisis
narrative' argument that pushes towards a productivist response: more
food is needed on less land with less water, requiring new technologies
to deliver it.
The challenge is often couched in the well-used metaphor of the
'perfect storm',
memorably used by the former Chief Scientist in the UK to argue for a
global response to impending food shortages, in the build up to the
oft-cited 2011
UK Foresight report. In recent years a new version of this narrative, with a new word, has emerged. This is now portrayed as the challenge of '
the nexus', where multiple resource constraints come together requiring a particular style of (usually) technical, top-down response.
While
no one would argue against improving resource use efficiency and
boosting production in sustainable ways, it is the link between this
technical challenge and the wider framing of the problem and solution
where issues arise. These have been
outlined in a recent paper
on land issues that I co-authored, but the same arguments could be
applied to other resources, and the challenges of agriculture in Africa
more generally.
- First, we must be careful when proclaiming
generic resource scarcity as the driving force for action. My scarcity
may be someone else's surplus: scarcities are always relative, and
resource access and distribution is a crucial issue that is not
addressed by this narrative.
- Second, because scarcities are
constructed in policy arenas, there is a political dimension that must
be acknowledged. So-called 'global' scarcities are very often the
consequence of high unequal power relations, skewed consumption patterns
and poor resource governance.
- Third,
a solely technical response through increasing production or efficiency
in ways that conserve the environment – often laden with yet more
jargon such as 'climate-smart agriculture' or 'conservation agriculture'
– ignores the social and political choices around technology and its
direction. A crisis narrative that forces a particular trajectory may
restrict debate about alternative choices, and debates about pros, cons,
risks and rewards. A good case in point is the promotion of GM crops by certain large corporations in terms of 'sustainable intensification' (see last week’s blog).
The
advocates of SI are quick to point out that their approach does not
promote any particular technology over another. Various declarations
reiterate this, and a recent Royal Society publication offers a huge
array of different technological solutions under the SI banner. The
Montpellier Panel, a group of well-known agriculture experts, are even
more explicit. They point out the potential for capture of the term and
its politicisation:
"the term
"Sustainable Intensification" –– has come to take on a highly charged
and politicised meaning, becoming synonymous with big, industrial
agriculture. As we strive to feed a population expected to reach nine
billion by 2050 sustainably, the risk is that we may lose sight of the
term's scientific value and its potential relevance to all types of
agricultural systems, including for smallholder farmers in Africa"
Equally,
the Oxford report argues for the need to "deepen and extend
understanding of systems interactions", to "consider and define what
specific goals societies wish agricultural production to achieve" and to
"develop metrics that will enable societies to measure progress in
achieving them". All good stuff, resonant with long running debates
about sustainable agriculture, and discussions on the politics and
direction of innovation outlined in the
STEPS New Manifesto on innovation, sustainability and development.
Yet
in all this warm-sounding rhetoric there is an absence of social and
political analysis that undermines the approach. In the late 1980s I
joined the recently formed 'Sustainable Agriculture Group' at the
International Institute of Environment and Development, together with
Gordon Conway and Jules Pretty. Our approach to agricultural
sustainability was in many ways strikingly similar to the current debate
about SI. But with one important difference: people and their
livelihoods were central. Our work evolved in concert with debates about
'sustainable livelihoods' and
participatory approaches to development, and had as a result a very different flavour.
Looking
at the long lists of authors of papers and reports on SI there are,
beyond a scattering of economists, vanishingly few social scientists
involved. This is telling, and reflective of the sometimes naïve
perspectives portrayed, about the political and social contexts of these
debates. Frequently, a techno-economic determinism dominates, driven of
course by a passion and commitment to addressing major challenges, but
without the necessary social and policy analysis to make it happen, and
avoid it being captured.
Take the
diagrammatic representations of the approach by the Montpellier Panel.
Here 'farmers' and 'communities' are put at the centre, but all the
action happens around them, seemingly disconnected. Agrodealers
represent the market, but the process of sustainable intensification
seems to be driven by a technical process. It is all well and good
arguing that societal goals are defined, as the Oxford report does, but
how can this happen, through what political process? In the terms of the
New Manifesto, how are innovation directions set, how are the diversity
of options defined, and how are the costs and benefits distributed?
These are issues that seem not to be on the table, or at least not in
ways that are central.
If SI is to have any meaning beyond a
seemingly uncontroversial, hyphenated buzzword, then these are the
questions that must be put centre stage. For SI to be anything more than
a rather odd collection of technical solutions, then questions of
socio-technical choice and direction must be put at the forefront. This
means having a political debate, and bringing in people more centrally,
something that may jar with the rather bland techno-economic
prescriptions offered to date.
