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Conclusion

Conclusion Niels Bohr said that the task of physics was not to find out what nature is – rather, it was to find out what can be said about it. To some extent, such has also been true of the deliberations about agricultural intensification in this volume. The authors have contributed much to what can be said about intensification but have not to their complete satisfaction found out what it is, or why sometimes it happens and sometimes it does not, or, if it does happen, how to work out its costs and benefits. It is almost as though our understanding of intensification is obscured because there is so much that can be said about it. What Sara Berry observes in her aptly named book No Condition is Permanent: the social dynamics of agrarian change in Sub-Saharan Africa sums up the situation of small-scale agricultural intensification everywhere (Berry, 1993: 189): . . . agricultural intensification has been neither inevitable nor continuous in African farming systems. In some areas, intensification was halted or reversed by changing environmental or political and economic conditions; in others, it has occurred not as an adaptive response to population growth or commercialization, but in the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Asia Pacific Viewpoint Wiley

Conclusion

Clarke, William C.
Asia Pacific Viewpoint , Volume 42 (2‐3) – Aug 1, 2001
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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
1360-7456
eISSN
1467-8373
DOI
10.1111/1467-8373.00152
Publisher site
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Abstract

Niels Bohr said that the task of physics was not to find out what nature is – rather, it was to find out what can be said about it. To some extent, such has also been true of the deliberations about agricultural intensification in this volume. The authors have contributed much to what can be said about intensification but have not to their complete satisfaction found out what it is, or why sometimes it happens and sometimes it does not, or, if it does happen, how to work out its costs and benefits. It is almost as though our understanding of intensification is obscured because there is so much that can be said about it. What Sara Berry observes in her aptly named book No Condition is Permanent: the social dynamics of agrarian change in Sub-Saharan Africa sums up the situation of small-scale agricultural intensification everywhere (Berry, 1993: 189): . . . agricultural intensification has been neither inevitable nor continuous in African farming systems. In some areas, intensification was halted or reversed by changing environmental or political and economic conditions; in others, it has occurred not as an adaptive response to population growth or commercialization, but in the

Journal

Asia Pacific Viewpoint – Wiley

Published: Aug 1, 2001

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