ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four main aspects of social impact analysis and development. The four main ideas are impact analysis as evaluation, the need for depth description, analysis via energy transformation, and the recycling ratio in social impact analysis. The chapter focuses on further research opportunities and the limitations of the materials flow and energy transformation approach. Just as social phenomena described by money values are subject to certain economic “laws,” the energy descriptor is conditioned by “the laws of thermodynamics”. The formal research institutions have had not only to mediate between farmers’ concerns and scientists’ concerns but also to contend with the authority of the public political-economic forces that provide their sustenance. The farmers in Nepal, who feed large numbers of ruminant livestock every day on small, mixed, labor-intensive, low-capital farms, are also highly concerned about the green parts of the maize plant. The plant component is the major energy transformer for the small subsistence farm family ecosystem.
