ABSTRACT
In this final chapter we try to look forward through one generation from now, let’s say through 27 years hence to 2034. This may not seem far ahead, but when we consider all that has happened in the world of farmers during the last 27 years, between 1980 and 2007, it seems a dangerously long way. The justification for making the attempt at all is that there seems no present likelihood of a return to the political pluralism of the twentieth century, so that shades of neo-liberalism may remain the only set of available policies. We may or may not be right in believing that the technological changes in farming in the coming generation will build on those that have evolved in the twentieth century, rather than being of a revolutionary nature. We have to assume that the present headlong drive to produce energy crops will not, in some major countries, have so constrained food production as drastically to change marketing conditions for farming as a whole, and for smaller farmers in particular. We cannot take account of wars, but can at least hope they will be less savage than the localized horrors of the last generation. Neither do we discuss the anthropogenic climatic changes that are already evident, and are likely to present much more serious problems before 2034.
