Saifi, Basim
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2008Peer reviewed
Swedish agriculture during the twentieth century in relation to sustainability
Saifi, Basim; Drake, Lars
Abstract
This article describes the development processes of Swedish agriculture toward non-sustainability. It asserts that the challenge of agricultural sustainability can be fruitfully addressed within an analytical framework that consciously and explicitly considers agricultural development as consisting of processes of coevolution involving agriculture and the surrounding ecological and socioeconomic systems. When this framework and certain derived indicators for agricultural sustainability are applied to Swedish agricultural development during the twentieth century, the following conclusions are reached. First, the new system of traditional agriculture that had emerged towards the end of nineteenth century in relation to various interactive forces within the socioeconomic system was associated with strengthening rural-urban interaction and interconnectedness. The system was substantially improved during the first quarter of the twentieth century, becoming capable of producing a sufficient supply of food within rural-urban sphere. Second, Swedish agriculture was transformed during the second and third quarters into a modem industrial system characterized by weakening local coevolutionary processes and by various agro-ecological problems. Resource flows uncoupled from the surrounding ecological and socioeconomic systems and food consumption uncoupled from local food production. Third, agricultural sustainability was generally high and improving during the first quarter of the twentieth century, deteriorating during the second and third quarters, and low but improving during the fourth. Finally, attaining sustainable agriculture will likely entail the strengthening of coevolutionary processes at the municipality level. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Sustainable agriculture; Coevolutionary processes; Swedish agriculture; Agricultural development; Local interaction; Agricultural history
Published in
Ecological Economics
2008, volume: 68, number: 1-2, pages: 370-380
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
SLU Authors
Drake, Lars
- Swedish Chemicals Agency (KemI)
Global goals (SDG)
SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG12 Responsible consumption and production
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Sciences
Economic History
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.04.003
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/77788