The quest for sustainable agriculture

Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The quest for sustainable agriculture
 
Creator Simon, Peter
 
Subject — Sustainable development; World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission); rational agriculture; technicism and economism; price mechanism; determination; reformational philosophy; stewardship
Description Since the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development published its report in 1983 the idea of sustainable development has become popular. Although many definitions of sustainable development have been proposed, the concept is not easily implemented in a world which believes that high rates of economic growth are essential and in which economic systems are run on the basis of money flows in a setting of private property. Environmental degradation is seen as external to the system. The article discusses the concepts of technicism and economism as the dominant features of Western culture, meaning that all problems can be solved by technical and economic means. This is followed by an analysis of technicistic and economistic concepts of sustainability. In order to develop a concept of sustainability that is not marred by technicism and economism, key features of reformational philosophy, as represented by D.H.Th. Vollenhoven are summarized, especially concepts of time. This leads to an idea of sustainability that seeks to maintain the integrity of the kingdoms of things, plants and animals through a human culture inspired by wisdom and careful stewardship.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2006-04-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/td.v2i2.283
 
Source The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa; Vol 2, No 2 (2006); 23 pages 2415-2005 1817-4434
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/283/94
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2006 Peter Simon https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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