AGROECOLOGY VERSUS INPUT-SUBSTITUTION - A FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

The central question posed by this essay is whether sustainable agricu lture will be able to rescue modem industrial agriculture from its pre sent state of crisis. To answer this question this article begins by o utlining the economic, social, and ecological dimensions of the crisis each of which must be addressed by an alternative paradigm in order t o pull agriculture out of crisis. It then examines a persistent contra diction in the alternative agriculture movement: that of input substit ution versus agroecologically informed transformation of farming syste ms. It is argued that the prevalence of input substitution, which emph asizes alternatives to agrochemical inputs without challenging the mon oculture structure of agricultural systems, greatly diminishes the pot ential of sustainable agriculture. By only addressing environmental co ncerns, this dominant approach offers little hope of either reversing the rapid degradation of the resource base for future production or of resolving the current profit squeeze and debt trap in which the world 's farmers are caught.