ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that community relations are also important in industrial and post-industrial contexts, so that the sustainability of economic enterprises depends not only on technology and economic capital input but also on the social capital that springs from social relations. Studies of sustainability tend to lay stress on the physical environment, but the social environment is also important. Ecological conditions are strongly inflected by the policies of government and further by the fluctuations of international trade, as well as by the hazards of disease of crops such as coffee. Environmental concerns have formed a focus of European Union (EU) policies in this arena, expressed in its agricultural regulations, enshrined in its policies for the support of agriculture applied throughout the EU. The study was sponsored by the EU, with the purpose of finding out cultural and social factors facilitating co-operative exchanges of equipment and labor among farmers.
