Environmental Studies

Module 6. Social issues and the environment

Lesson 22
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Strategies for Sustainable Development

The Rio Summit established sustainable development as the guiding vision for the development efforts of all countries. At Rio, and in later commitments, all governments undertook to establish and implement national sustainable development strategies. The strategies for sustainable development called for at Rio are foreseen as highly participatory instruments intended “to ensure socially responsible economic development while protecting the resource base and the environment for the benefit of future generations”. The Rio Agenda 21 was reaffirmed most recently in the Millennium Summit Declaration. The International Development Goals call specifically for the “establishment of sustainable development strategies by 2005”. In the run up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), in Johannesburg in 2002, it is appropriate that we review progress towards achieving this commitment and to agree how the international community can best assist developing countries in meeting this goal. Thus, it is particularly timely that the High Level Meeting of the Development Assistance Committee (of the OECD) DAC on 25-26 April 2001 endorses the DAC Guidelines: “Strategies for Sustainable Development: Guidance for Development Co-operation”. We are committed to provide support for sound nationally-owned sustainable development strategies where conditions for effective partnership are in place. In simple terms, sustainable development means integrating the economic, social and environmental objectives of society, in order to maximise human well-being in the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This requires seeking mutually supportive approaches whenever possible, and making trade-offs where necessary. For developing countries, and for development co-operation, reducing poverty and meeting the International Development Goals are imperatives — within the broad context of sustainable development — for this generation.

As the nineties unfold, the world is entering a new era, one in which it is far more difficult to expand food output. Many knew that this time would eventually come, that at some point the limits of the earth’s natural systems, the cumulative effects of environmental degradation on cropland productivity, and the shrinking backlog of yield-raising technologies would slow the record growth in food production of recent decades. But because no one knew exactly when or how this would happen, the food prospect was widely debated. Now we can see that several constraints are emerging simultaneously to slow the growth in food production.

After nearly four decades of unprecedented expansion in both land-based and oceanic food supplies, the world is experiencing a massive loss of momentum. Between 1950 and 1984, world grain production expanded 2.6-fold, outstripping population growth by a wide margin and raising the grain harvested per person by 40%. Growth in the world fish catch was even more spectacular- a 4.6-fold increase between 1950 and 1989, which doubled seafood consumption per person. Together, these developments reduced hunger and mal-nutrition throughout the world, offering hope that these biblical scourges would one day be eliminated.

The world’s rangelands, a major source of animal protein, are also under excessive pressure. The language used to describe them is similar to that used for fisheries: they are being grazed at or beyond capacity on every continent. This means that rangeland production of beef and mutton may not increase much, if at all, in the future. Here, too, availability per person will decline indefinitely as population grows.

With both fisheries and rangelands being pressed to the limits of their carrying capacity, future growth in food demand can be satisfied only by expanding output from croplands. The growth in demand for food that until recently was satisfied by three food systems must now all be satisfied by one.

From mid-century until recently, grain output projections were for the most part simple extrapolations of trends. The past was a reliable guide to the future. But in a world of limits, this is changing. In projecting food supply trends now, at least six new constraints need to be taken into account:

1. Constraints, the backlog of unused agricultural technology is shrinking, leaving the more progressive farmers fewer agronomic options for expanding food output.
2. Growing human demands are pressing against the limits of fisheries to supply seafood and of range-lands to supply beef, mutton, and milk.
3. Demands for water are pressing against the limits of the hydrological cycle to supply irrigation water in key food-growing regions.
4. In many countries, the use of additional fertilizer on currently available crop varieties has little or no effect on yields.
5. Countries that are already densely populated when they begin to industrialize risk losing cropland at a rate that exceeds the rise in land productivity, initiating a long-term decline in food production.
6. Social disintegration, often fed by rapid population growth and environment degradation, is undermining many national governments and their efforts to expand food production.

The six limits or constraints briefly discussed here have emerged rather recently. In many cases, they were not anticipated. All available projections of world fertilizer use made during the eighties, for example, showed growth continuing smoothly through the remainder of the century and in to the next. Few analysts anticipated the scale of water scarcity that is unfolding in large parts of the world. Many assumed that the agricultural research establishment could continue to churn out new technologies that would rapidly raise crop yields for the indefinite future. And few have even asked the question of what happens if China starts losing cropland as fast as Japan has during the last few decades.

At the international level, the population-driven environmental deterioration/political disintegration scenario described by Robert Kaplan is not only possible; indeed, it is likely in a business-as usual world. But it is not inevitable. This future can be averted if security is redefined, recognizing that food scarcity, not military aggression, is the principal threat to our future. This would lead to a massive reordering of priorities- giving top place to filling the family planning gap; to attacking the underlying causes of high fertility, such as illiteracy and poverty; to protecting soil and water resources; and to raising investment in agriculture.

Any form of alternative development strategy for the agricultural sector must explicitly consider its environmental and social impacts. While much lip-service is given to the environmental implications of the agricultural sector, not much is done about them in most countries. The emphasis has too often been on short-term gains that may not be sustainable over a longer period of time.

The Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations, FAO, has already stressed that ‘the major environmental problems facing agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, were not only avoidance of environmental pollution, but also the ensuring, in the development process, of the maintenance of the productive capacity of basic natural resources for food and agriculture through rational management and conservation measures’ (FAO, 1974). It also ‘recognized that agricultural development and world food security depended on careful husbandry of living resources, on their biological laws and ecological balances, as well as on the adjustments of production, supply, and reserves, to demands.’

There are many environmental implications of any new developmental policies for the agricultural sector, but only one will be discussed here-pesticides. It is now evident that continued heavy reliance on pesticides to protect vast areas of monocultures is ultimately bound to be self-defeating. For such a practice kills many useful insects that could help naturally to keep the pest population down, and commonly requires repeated increase in the doses of application that are needed to counter the continual development of new strains of pesticide-resistant forms. Thus, the number of applications of pesticide to cotton in recent years has risen from 8 to 40 yearly in some Central American countries (FAO, 1974), and evolution of new strains of cotton pests necessitates the use of new forms of pesticides every three or so years in Egypt.

There are several similar examples of eventual reduction in crop production owing to heavy reliance on chemical pesticides. Thus, an alternative approach to development will have to depend on new concepts of integrated pest-management, which can be broadly defined as an ecological approach to pest control by optimal combinations of biological and chemical control-technologies. This would be based upon information about individual pests, their environment, and their natural enemies, whereupon farming practices could be modified to control the pest and aid its natural enemies.

Realistic economies injury-levels of crops would be used to determine the need for suppressive measures. For example, during the first 30 days, and for stages after 100 days, following planting, cotton can withstand up to 50% defoliation. During the period of fruit formation (taking 30-100 days), the economic level for defoliation drops to about 20%. Integrated pest management takes advantage of these types of sensitivities, and the measures undertaken might include releasing biological control agents or pest-specific diseases or, when necessary, applying pesticides in limited amounts. The use of biological control against Fungi and weeds has so far been little exploited. Release of sterile males or artificially-reared natural enemies of the pest have, however, proven successful to control a number of insect pests.