ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s ‘sustainable agriculture’ has become a mainstream policy concept. Agro-industrial systems have been put onto the defensive for various environmental harms such as soil degradation, vulnerability to pests, greater dependence on agrochemicals, pollution, genetic erosion and uniformity, etc. In response to these criticisms, diverse remedies have been called ‘sustainable agriculture’ [1]. Originally it meant producers developing alternatives to crop monocultures, e.g., via less-intensive and agro-ecological methods, as a basis for independence from the agricultural supply industry. However, soon the term ‘sustainable agriculture’ was recast to mean a future high-yield productivist agriculture based on capital-intensive inputs [2,3].
