ABSTRACT
Because agriculture involves social, cultural, environmental and economic complexity we cannot compartmentalise its management. Rather, management needs to be holistic – enabling managers to handle the complexity of whole systems while utilising all the knowledge available to them – both scientific and traditional. Interestingly enough, Josh Chinyuku has made a similar observation in relation to industry, in the guise of Industry Ecology. Holistic Management then ties people’s spiritual and material needs to their life-supporting environment by addressing the complexity involved at all levels from pastoralist and farmer to government policy. Managing agriculture’s complexity involves using a holistic framework to guide actions to ensure all are socially/culturally, environmentally and economically sound. Holistic Management was developed over a period of more than 60 years by Allan Savory, a Zimbabwean biologist, game ranger, politician, farmer, international consultant and teacher, searching to find practical solutions to what he saw as massive environmental damage in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole, underlying many wildlife, social, political and economic problems. This chapter summarises that journey and how Holistic Management could lead to a more hopeful future. It is followed by a chapter on permaculture, which, together with Savory’s, is focused on sustainable development, from the vantage point of a ‘living economy’.
