FOOD, FARMING, AND THE FUTURE: THE ROLE OF TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE IN THE DEVELOPING AREAS OF THE WORLD.

This paper documents the limited success of Western agricultural methods and falling world foodstuff reserves as of September 1976. The author suggests that developing areas in the future must rely on traditional agriculture to feed their burgeoning populations. The past decade or two has witnessed refreshing return to concern with indigenous agricultural systems, the methods by which they function, the problems they face, the role they play in economic development, and possible ways to work within the confines of those systems to upgrade rather than replace them with questionably applicable Western technology. Our knowledge of those systems is rudimentary at best, yet those systems must bear the burden of providing essential foodstuffs for peoples of the developing areas over the immediate and near future. Serious mistakes in plans and programs have resulted from insufficient understanding of traditional agriculture and have led directly to disasters, and further tampering invites additional, and perhaps serious, problems beyond those we already face in a shrinking world. The author notes that despite considerable colonial effort and more recent effort on the part of independent countries, no superior agricultural systems have been developed that are applicable in tropical developing areas.