ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches a framework of resource and environment constraints that might impinge on agriculture production and agricultural policy over the long run. Agricultural activities, broadly conceived, have been the primary transformer of the global environment for all of human civilization. One can still argue today that, at a global level and averaged over more than 10 or 12 years, it is still basic land use transformation activities that have been the single largest transformer. Obviously, fossil fuel emissions, climate change issues, and ozone depletions give one pause. Agricultural activities can be affected in two ways that involve the environment and resource base. One is direct: climate changes and crops grow differently. The other is indirect as society becomes concerned with environmental degradation caused by agricultural or other natural resource exploitation activities, and adopts policies with multiple effects.
