There has been much interest in the failures of the past and the environmental disasters that ensued because of poor land management practices. I argue that the successes of the past are of equal importance, and this is increasingly recognized as early agricultural techniques are rediscovered and reinstated. Some of these systems are not only more sustainable than modern technologies, but more resilient in the face of environmental extremes. Ancient engineering and agricultural methods are often more appropriate for developing countries than modern technologies based on fossil fuel and imported materials. As global warming and desertification increase, it is crucial that we learn how to deal with marginal environments in ways that are sustainable and accessible to people in developing countries. Sustainable agriculture can also benefit the developed world by increasing yields, promoting biodiversity and supporting the rural economy.
The connections between agriculture and landscape are well established in western perceptions. Agricultural landscapes in the Western world have, however, become increasingly industrialised and low in biodiversity, and the standard practice in developed countries is to grow large fields of single crops sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. Many leading agronomists believe that such industrial methods are the only way to a growing global population. However, many opposing agronomists argue that agroecology is a more productive and efficient use of land. This paper is a review of archaeological, environmental and ethnographic evidence for sustainable agricultural land management, as it has been practiced in the past, and as it is practiced today in countries that use traditional, pre-industrial methods. A range of evidence demonstrates that small, biodiverse farms are more productive per hectare than agribusinesses that practice monocropping. It is suggested that there can be compromise, and that substantial environment benefits accrue where agroecological methods are introduced into industrialised agricultural systems. A key point is that traditional varieties of crops are important adaptations to marginal environments; it is essential to food security that these resources, which were developed over thousands of years but which are now vanishing at an alarming rate, are not lost.
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