DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL-SCALE SUSTAINABLE FARMING SYSTEMS IN NON-INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES: NEW CONCEPTS ARE NEEDED

摘要

The increased demand for basic agricultural foodstuffs, employment, land, and higher incomes accompanied with rapid population growth rates and poverty in Third World countries place great stress on ecosystems and may jeopardize natural resource conservation (FAO, 1991). From its beginning, agriculture has been a crucial test of the endurance of nature. Natural ecosystems were replaced by human-engineered artificial, low diversity and highly productive systems. To maintain this "man-made order" of simplified agricultural systems 'against the natural tendency toward low entropy, high diversity, and stability, requires significant energy and resource inputs (Altien et al., 1984).